WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. officials said Thursday evening they have "specific, credible but unconfirmed" information about a threat against the United States coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Officials declined to disclose details of the threat, including any suspected method of attack or possible targets, although one source said the cities of New York and Washington were specifically mentioned as possible targets. Officials said they were taking the threat seriously, while evidently trying to temper the news by saying such threats are commonplace during key events.
In any case, they're treating it seriously. No doubt if they didn't and something happened on the anniversary people would complain about not being on the ball....
I hope to God it turns out to be a false alarm.
Even Bush Homeland Security head Tom Ridge questioned Bush's use of the terror alert system for political gain:
U.S. authorities are scrambling to sort through information that the CIA developed in the past 24 hours indicating that at least three individuals entered the U.S. in August by air with the intent to launch a vehicle-borne attack against Washington, D.C. or New York around the anniversary of 9/11, according to intelligence officials.
One of the intelligence and law enforcement officials that ABC News spoke to said that one of the individuals may be a U.S. citizen and a second official said that possibly two of the individuals may have had U.S. documentation -- whether green cards or passports was unclear.
As news of the information became public, authorities began weighing whether to raise the national threat level.
WayneLeeH wrote: U.S. authorities are scrambling to sort through information that the CIA developed in the past 24 hours indicating that at least three individuals entered the U.S. in August by air with the intent to launch a vehicle-borne attack against Washington, D.C. or New York around the anniversary of 9/11, according to intelligence officials.
One of the intelligence and law enforcement officials that ABC News spoke to said that one of the individuals may be a U.S. citizen and a second official said that possibly two of the individuals may have had U.S. documentation -- whether green cards or passports was unclear.
As news of the information became public, authorities began weighing whether to raise the national threat level.
And my kids wonder why I wish they lived anywhere but NYC. I will actually be glad to have this anniversary over......not that I don't remember, how could I forget knowing that the towers were on my son's way to work, or his voice on the phone telling me he watched them fall......but I don't want to wallow in it and I don't want to relive it.....I just want to be respectful. I fear the crazies who would make this anniversary into something horrid. Maybe that's irrational, but there are people out there who take pleasure in our national pain.
And now there's this mysteriously large power outage tonight:
An area with more than 5 million people was largely left in the dark after a major power outage knocked out electricity in California, Arizona and Mexico.
There are some reports that major transmission lines were "severed." At least one nuclear power plant has gone offline.