Feeling safer already.

So America conveniently went back down to a yellow alert last week.

Same thing, really. A year and a half since 9/11, and the city’s economy is still tanking. We’re loathe to use the "d" word, but everyone’s whispering that what’s happening here is much more serious than the recession that the rest of the country is experiencing. Mayor Bloomberg’s slash-and-burn budget will soon put even more people out of work and cut vital services. The Republican mayor won’t stand up to the Republican governor who won’t stand up to the Republican president. Starve the bastards, don’t put any money into domestic security and keep ’em frightfully orange, the White House seems to be saying—just make sure we get our Ground Zero photo-op at next year’s Republican convention.

Did it ever truly become so unsafe in Cincinnati or in the back woods of Arkansas that the terror alert had to be raised to orange nationwide three days before the war commenced? Or was it yet another ploy to scare the daylights out of millions of Americans while constantly reinforcing the lie that Saddam was connected to 9/11, Osama and al Qaeda? Certainly the White House could count on most of the American media, knowing they’d go full speed ahead with the terror-threat story—the cable networks put "orange alert" warnings in the corner of the tv screen for the duration—with little analysis of what is behind these alerts.

The White House also rightly bet that the journalism pack wouldn’t do much to counter the Rumsfeld-Powell-Rice insinuations of Saddam’s connection to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Media and political pundits now seem dumbfounded as to why most Americans believe in the Saddam-9/11 connection—as if their own news organizations did anything substantial to expose the White House’s lies. The L.A. Times’ Ron Brownstein, reporting on that paper’s poll on April 5, noted that, "Nearly eight in 10 Americans now accept the Bush administration’s contention—disputed by some experts—that Hussein has ‘close ties’ to Al Qaeda… And 60% of Americans say they believe Hussein bears at least some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." Some experts? Fascinating how an unproven conspiracy theory that only a year ago was considered preposterous by many now becomes the dominant media line—with no further evidence having been brought forth—and those who question it are referred to as just "some experts." Is it any wonder most Americans believe this?

"The intelligence community believes that terrorists will attempt multiple attacks against U.S. and coalition targets worldwide in the event of a U.S.-led military campaign against Saddam Hussein," Homeland Security Sec. Tom Ridge said on March 17, three days before missiles first landed on Saddam and his pals in Baghdad. "There are many recent indications that al Qaeda’s planning includes the use of chemical, biological and/or radiological materials."

Okay, wait a minute. I had no problem believing we’d be in greater danger of terrorist attacks after the war began—particularly here in New York—and I wrote exactly that in this column a week before Ridge made those statements (and I believe it now even more than before, as we witness the anger unleashed across the Arab world). But if there were "indications" days before the war began that al Qaeda was planning to use weapons of mass destruction—in "multiple attacks," no less—why would such elaborate, delicate, time-consuming plans suddenly become nonexistent, just two days after Bush decided the war in Iraq had finished? Did the al Qaeda operatives allegedly plotting dirty bomb detonations or chemical attacks in the U.S. and around the world just vaporize the moment Saddam’s palaces were invaded? What about the possible attacks against "coalition targets?" Were there really attacks planned against, say, the Solomon Islands and Bulgaria—two among the handful of nations that supported the war—and were those attacks magically thwarted the moment U.S. troops marched across the Tigris?

The mind boggles. If there were WMD-laden terrorists inside the U.S.—or inside the countries among the "coalition"—wouldn’t these terrorists be more likely to use their weapons now, seething about the U.S.’s having taken over Iraq? Is Ridge’s lowering of the terror alert another twisted psychological game, a reward to the masses for their having stuck it out through the war, letting them think they’re safer when in fact they’re not?

The more questions you ask, the more ridiculous it becomes trying to make sense of a kooky color-coded system that always fades to gray. From the Bush administration’s own statements, there’s actually every reason to believe things are more dangerous now than before. Though Ridge dropped the alert to yellow, he gave us this bit of doublespeak as he did so: "We must be vigilant and alert to the possibility that Al Qaeda and those sympathetic to their cause, as well as former Iraqi-regime state agents and affiliated organizations, may attempt to conduct attacks against the United States or our interests abroad… [E]xtensive protective measures remain in place throughout our nation."

How is that any different from an orange alert? Ridge even warned the week before last that the possibility of missile attacks on passenger jets was serious enough for the federal government to consider installing antimissile devices on commercial planes!

The administration, we’re told, is concerned that it costs a lot of money and manpower for federal law enforcement agencies to remain on orange alert, one of the reasons for lowering it. That means the higher threat was never really a threat—or that Ridge is lowering the alert level even when it shouldn’t be lowered, just to cut costs. Either way, it’s outrageous. And there may also be another, more eerie method to the madness, at least according to the New York Times last week: "Had [the alert level] remained at orange, and had intelligence analysts picked up significantly more ‘chatter,’ the administration would have had to consider raising the level to red."

In other words, they redefine the meaning of the hues as they go, keep the public fears high enough for their purposes without getting out of control—no matter the reality of the threats. That should have us all seeing red.