The decision to warn key US financial centers they may be attacked by al Qaeda was based largely on three-year old information, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge admitted today, but he insisted the threat was still real.
Ridge's appearance in New York at the Citigroup building named on Sunday as a potential al Qaeda target came as US terrorism intelligence has come under fire again, this time for forcing police in New York, Washington and New Jersey to massively increase security based on old information.
"I don't want anyone to disabuse themselves of the seriousness of this information simply because there are some reports that much of it is dated, it might be two or three years old," Ridge said.
But he insisted al Qaeda had updated its surveillance of financial buildings, "as recently as January this year."
"This is the most significant, detailed pieces of information about any particular region that we have come across in a long, long time, perhaps ever," he said.
The latest "code Orange" warning drew mild scorn from US allies in the war on terror, who say such high-profile alerts cause panic and could undermine trust in intelligence.
Ridge denied there was any political motivation behind raising the terror alert when President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry are neck-and-neck in polls ahead of November's presidential election.