The Department of Homeland Security issued an unusually specific terror warning today.

The federal government warned Sunday of possible terrorist attacks against "iconic" financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J., saying a confluence of intelligence over the weekend pointed to a car or truck bomb.

Specifically, the government named these buildings as potential targets:

_The Citicorp building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York City.

_The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington.

_The Prudential building in Newark.

"The preferred means of attack would be car or truck bombs," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a briefing with journalists. That would be a primary means of attack."

The government said the new intelligence indicated the meticulous planning of al-Qaida.

Ridge said the government's threat level for financial institutions would be raised to orange, or high alert, but would remain at yellow, or elevated, elsewhere.

Ridge said it would be up to New York City officials to decide whether to move to the highest level, red. The city has remained on orange since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The secretary said the government took the unprecedented step of naming specific buildings because of the level of specificity of the intelligence. "This is not the usual chatter. This is multiple sources that involve extraordinary detail," Ridge said.

Ridge acknowledged that protecting these buildings, located in heavily populated areas, would require additional security measures, especially because thousands of cars and trucks travel through these cities daily.

"Car and truck bombs are one of the most difficult tasks we have in the war on terror," Ridge said.

The government provided a wealth of detail that it had picked up in the past 36 hours, but a senior intelligence official described it only on condition of anonymity. The official described "excruciating detail" and meticulous planning "indicative of al-Qaida."

The official said the intelligence included security in and around these buildings; the flow of pedestrians; the best places for reconnaissance; how to make contact with employees who work in the buildings; the construction of the buildings; traffic patterns; locations of hospitals and police departments; and which days of the week present less security at these buildings.

A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, said the intelligence on the threat is "very new, coming in during the last 72 hours."

"The president made the final decision today agreeing with the recommendation of Secretary Ridge to go ahead and raise the threat level in these select areas," Healy said.

I was going to ask how long it will be until someone on the left questions the timing of the warning, but Howard Dean has already done it. (via RantingProfs)

Even before the press conference, based on earlier leaks from ABC and the New York Times I presume, there were already charges that this wasn't a real alert but a political move. Apparently Howard Dean was saying "this is an administration with a history of manipulating and playing politics with the alert level."

Just when I think I can't get anymore disgusted with the left, they prove me wrong. RantingProfs goes on to show how absurd this accusation is.

In any event the claim is absurd on its face. No administration, and certainly not one in the sway of a political Svengali as good as Karl Rove is alleged to be, would ever trade the possible political gain of this kind of alert for the possible hit to the economy from a threat to the Stock Exchange, particularly with Ridge fudging on the question of whether workers should even go to work tomorrow. If they were going to cook the books on something, it wouldn't have been the financial sector, and it sure as hell wouldn't have included that building.

Marcland shows what hypocrites the left have become. No matter what happens they will find a way to blame Bush.

Once again, the Bush Administration can do no right. If they give a warning, they're trying to scare everyone, destroy civil rights and influence current political events. If they give no warning and something happens, they probably knew what was going to happen ahead of time, are in cahoots with the terrorists, and are generally trying to destroy civil rights and influence current political events.

This reminds me of a couple days ago when many on the left were talking about a July surprise because a high level terrorist was caught during the DNC. The ironic part is that it is possible that the latest warning may have come from information obtained by interrogating him.

Update: Now I am even more disgusted. See this poster to know why. These people have obviously forgotten what happened on 9/11.