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US defends 'three year-old' terror alert

REUTERS, New York
The warning that US financial centers may be attacked by al-Qaeda was based largely on three-year-old information, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on Tuesday, but some intelligence dated from January and 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.
Al-Qaeda had updated its surveillance of financial buildings "as recently as January this year," he said.
"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."
Ridge denied there was any political motivation behind raising the terror alert when President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, are neck-and-neck in polls ahead of November's presidential election.
"This is not about politics. It's about confidence in government," Ridge said."
New York City Speaker Gifford Miller, a Democrat with ambitions of being elected mayor, said the city spends about $1 billion a year to fight terrorism and Washington was "still not providing us with the support we need
to ensure the safety of American citizens."
The city now has 4,000 fewer police than on Sept. 11, 2001, and this year New York was given $5.47 per head in homeland security grants -- the second lowest in the nation.
Jorge Diaz, a Times Square building safety worker, felt the government was now overcompensating for failing to point out the nation might be attacked three years ago.
"At a certain point it becomes exaggerated," Diaz said.
Amid the heightened terror alert, New York's Statue of Liberty reopened for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks thanks to over $30 million in private donations. But the crown on America's best-known symbol remains off-limits.
Ridge said there was no information on the potential timing of any attack and
no evidence of more recent surveillance by al-Qaeda of the buildings named in the latest terror alert.
One US counter-terrorism official told Reuters the Bush administration had earlier intelligence that al Qaeda might attack the US economic sector before November's election. The latest information on specific buildings in the financial sector had no time element, he said, but coupled with the belief of a preelection attack on such targets, the decision was taken to raise the security alert.
US intelligence gathering came under fire from the commission investigating the Sept. 1 1, 2001,
attacks and on Monday Bush endorsed creating a national intelligence director and backed some other reforms recommended by the panel.