[Dont Mention the War]

Now that would definitely be a disturbing event. The country pretty much shuts down at code red.

The one thing about the news conference that disturbed me was when a reporter asked Ridge why, if they had such a substantial increase in credible information about potential attacks, they only jumped to orange instead of red. Ridge stood there, frozen, for a good five seconds or so, working over in his mind a perfectly formulated non-response response to the question before opening his mouth.

I couldn't help but be left with the inference that a jump straight to code red was given very serious consideration by these guys during those 72 hours of deliberation.

[riri]

Ridge stood there, frozen, for a good five seconds or so, working over in his mind a perfectly formulated non-response response to the question before opening his mouth

That's his natural expression. Don't try and read anything into it. Someone could have asked him where he parked his car this morning and the response would have been identical.

[relee]

That caught my attention too. Tom Ridge was doing a pretty good job of reassuring me that the government was on top of the situation, right up to that final question.

[Bobby777]

I didn't get to see it ... thanks for mentioning ...

[StarFan]

I couldn't help but be left with the inference that a jump straight to code red was given very serious consideration by these guys during those 72 hours of deliberation.

From some of the comments on this thread, you are certainly not alone in your observations. I missed Bloomberg's press conference and hopefully what was said was posted somewhere on a thread.

[FairOpinion]

"I couldn't help but be left with the inference that a jump straight to code red was given very serious consideration by these guys during those 72 hours of deliberation."

==

I tend to agree that they have some specific threat info -- but in a way, that's good, because the more specific info they have, the more likely they are to hopefully foil the attack. Did anyone else notice the timing that

"LIBYA provided intelligence on hundreds of al-Qaeda and other Islamic militants,"

and the terror alert is raised?

I think it's quite possible that Kadafi provided us with some important info about the impending terror attacks.

[Yaelle]

Wouldn't code red be once an attack had started? Or if for some reason someone got ahold of proof that something was about to happen in a couple minutes/hours?