NYPost

HIGH ALERT IS HERE TO STAY

By MARILYN RAUBER and ANDY GELLER

November 3, 2001 -- The United States will be kept on high alert indefinitely, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced yesterday.

The latest alert - which mobilizes 18,000 law-enforcement agencies around the country - was issued Monday and was supposed to lapse in a week.

But Ridge said, "We're going to keep everybody on the Monday alert, that attentiveness, indefinitely."

"We want people - whether they're involved professionally in security and law enforcement or the public generally - to be on the highest possible state of alert."

A previous alert, issued on Oct. 11, lapsed a week later with no attack.

On Monday, the FBI warned Americans to be on guard because of the possibility of fu rther terrorist attacks in the next week.

President Bush defended the decision to issue the alert, saying, "We have a responsibility at the government to protect the people."

And he rejected criticism of California Gov. Gray Davis for revealing Wednesday that intelligence sources picked up warnings that terrorists were planning to blow up California bridges from Nov. 2 to Nov. 7 during rush hour.

"I think any governor should be able to conduct their business the way they see fit," the president said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said the bureau has established the true identities of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers and discovered places outside the United States where the plot was hatched.

But he admitted investigators are baffled by the anthrax death of Manhattan hospital worker Kathy Nguyen, and appealed to Americans - especially those working in medical labs - to contact authorities about suspicious activities.

"It may well be that there is somebody in the United States who is manufacturing the anthrax," Mueller said.

Tests at Nguyen's Bronx apartment and the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, where she worked, have turned up no sign of anthrax.

But the deadly bacteria has been found in the office mailbox of a Hamilton, N.J., accountant who has skin anthrax, the only victim in the Garden State who is not a postal worker.

Thompson called the finding "a good sign" because it could provide clues to how the woman contracted the bacteria.

Overseas, Pakistan's largest newspaper evacuated some of its editorial offices after a letter tested positive for anthrax.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2001