[Dont Mention the War]

Also from that March 2002 document:

A decision on which Threat Condition to assign shall integrate a variety of considerations. This integration will rely on qualitative assessment, not quantitative calculation. Higher Threat Conditions indicate greater risk of a terrorist act, with risk including both probability and gravity. Despite best efforts, there can be no guarantee that, at any given Threat Condition, a terrorist attack will not occur. An initial and important factor is the quality of the threat information itself. The evaluation of this threat information shall include, but not be limited to, the following factors:

1. To what degree is the threat information credible?
2. To what degree is the threat information corroborated?
3. To what degree is the threat specific and/or imminent?
4. How grave are the potential consequences of the threat?

(Emphasis mine.)

[Yaelle]

Thank you so much. Yes, nothing can replace the human brain for sensing the myriad ways to respond to terror attacks which surely would be nothing we'd imagined. May we never live to see code red... Um, let me rephrase that... May code red never come to pass. Peace on earth. What a concept.