Scepticism over US terror warning

From The BBC

President Bush's political opponents have given a sceptical reception to a new warning that al-Qaeda may be close to staging an attack in the US.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said information showed al-Qaeda intended "to hit the United States hard". However, Washington has not raised the level of its national security alert.

The president's Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, said homeland security should not be part of the rhetoric of the campaign.

The headline should read "President Bush's political opponents have given a sceptical reception to a new warning", to be accurate.

It is Kerry, not Bush, who is using the terror alerts for political reasons. And if there were an attack without any alerts from the government the Democrats would use that for political gains.

Evidently Kerry doesn't believe this report:

Despite losses around the world, al Qaeda has more than 18,000 potential terrorists, and its ranks are growing because of the conflict in Iraq, a leading think tank warned Tuesday.

Al Qaeda still has a functioning leadership despite the death or capture of key figures, and estimates suggest al Qaeda operates in more than 60 nations around the world, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its Strategic Survey 2003-4.

I wonder if this attack by Kerry is related to the Senate’s Intelligence Committee's Democratic staff plan to politicize intelligence information.