N.Y. Landmarks Targeted in Terrorism Warning

Authorities in New York heightened security Tuesday around the Statue of Liberty and other landmarks as top Bush administration officials huddled in Washington to decide how to calm a nation made increasingly anxious by alarms about more terrorist attacks.

Their decision: Do nothing differently.

After several consultations throughout the day, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and other top aides to President Bush determined that a new intelligence warning about a looming attack in New York was uncorroborated and too general to warrant a full mobilization of the nation’s counter-terrorism apparatus.

The “intel” was also too vague to justify elevating the nation’s new and very public barometer of terrorist threats, the Office of Homeland Security’s “security advisory system,” administration officials said. Other warnings over the last three weeks were also considered too vague for a full mobilization.

Currently, the threat warning is at stage “yellow,” the third highest of five levels meant to indicate increasing danger of terrorist attacks.

Yellow means a “significant risk of terrorist attacks,” according to the system initiated in March to help quantify the potential for attack nationwide. The next highest level, orange, signifies a “high risk” and would prompt additional precautionary measures at public events. Red, the highest level of alert, would prompt the deployment of specially trained counter-terrorism teams and the closing of public and government facilities.

Asked how the Bush administration determines which color is appropriate, Susan Neely, chief spokeswoman for the Office of Homeland Security, said the system is a work in progress.

“We have agreed not to deal with hypotheticals” when trying to explain how officials arrive at a color, Neely said. “There is a certain art to this.”

“Although the intelligence is active now, it is unsubstantiated and uncorroborated, and it is unspecific as to time, date or method,” Neely said of the warnings in recent weeks. “There would have to be more specific information [about a terrorist attack] before we would raise it to orange.”

Tuesday’s decision to remain at the “yellow” level came as counter-terrorism officials continued to sound warnings about the possibility of more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

The FBI and the New York Police Department issued warnings about the possibility of attacks in New York City, where residents are still on edge from the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings.

“The United States government has received unsubstantiated and uncorroborated information that terrorists are considering attacks against landmarks in New York City,” the FBI said in a terse statement. “While the FBI has no information as to time, date or method of attack, out of an abundance of caution, information has been transmitted to law enforcement in New York.

“The threat level for the city, state and nation remains unchanged.” The new alert follows a flurry of warnings in recent weeks that Al Qaeda terrorists may attack banks and shopping malls, especially in the Northeast, and that they have the capacity to detonate radioactive “dirty bombs.”

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said terrorists are certain to “get their hands on” biological, nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. “They would not hesitate one minute in using them,” he said.

A day earlier, Mueller raised the fear level by saying he believed it “inevitable” that terrorists would adopt the same tactics as those in Israel, such as walking into crowded cafes and blowing up themselves and those around them.

New York police increased their presence at City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge, and warned of additional checkpoints throughout the city during the Memorial Day weekend.

Coast Guard cutters will continue patrolling the waters around Ellis Island and Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty stands, officials said. Both islands were closed to visitors for 100 days after Sept. 11, and the statue remains off-limits.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Tuesday that city officials had received FBI warnings that terrorists had made “general threats” against New York landmarks, but he said the city was “prepared for any eventuality.”

Speaking at a news conference alongside New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Kelly said that the police force had stepped up security ahead of Fleet Week 2002, a maritime celebration expected to draw international battleships and nearly 6,000 naval personnel.

The NYPD Harbor Unit deployed frogmen to check for submersed bombs around the United Nations on the East River and along the Hudson River where the ships will be moored.

Kelly said New York police were “doing the best that we reasonably can do to prevent another incident and to respond if, God forbid, there is one.”

In Washington, authorities spent the day grappling with how to react to the new intelligence information.

An FBI official who asked not to be identified said the New York warning was prompted by intelligence provided by Al Qaeda detainees in recent days that indicated an attack might be planned against the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and other landmarks. As was the case with other recent threats, sources said, the New York intelligence was generated from interrogation of either detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or from captured Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubeida, or both.

The new intelligence was “completely uncorroborated,” the official said. “But like all of the [intelligence] before this, we feel like we should take everything very seriously, even if it’s uncorroborated.”

A Justice Department official who also asked not to be identified agreed with Neely that the department sees no need to raise the threat level beyond the current yellow status.

Ultimately, the decision rests not with Ridge but with Ashcroft.

“We are comfortable with the decision [to remain at yellow], as comfortable as you can be at a time like this,” the official said. “You’re never comfortable, you’re never totally sure, you can’t be, but you do the best you can with the information you have.”

In the case of the New York threat, FBI headquarters in Washington decided not to put out a public alert--as it has in some cases, such as the warnings about threats to banks--but instead passed on the information to the FBI’s counter-terrorism task force in New York. The task force in turn relayed the information to the NYPD, which alerted the public.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, lawmakers questioned Mueller and Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams, who wrote a memo last July warning that Al Qaeda could be training at U.S. flight schools with the intention of gaining access to planes and aviation facilities.

At a closed-door meeting, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee pressed Mueller on why Congress had not been told sooner about the memo, and how the document had been handled in the chain of command.

“Right now the American people have grave doubts about what’s going on with our intelligence agencies,” Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told reporters afterward. He called for a prompt public hearing on the intelligence failures of the FBI and the CIA.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) urged more congressional oversight of the FBI and joined Specter in praising Williams. “We’re lucky to have someone like that in the FBI,” Grassley said.

Times staff writers Maggie Farley in New York and Nick Anderson in Washington contributed to this report.