US/ANALYSIS: Normal life of a kind continues in Orange Alert Washington DC... but it's ready to crumble at the first inkling of terrorism, reports Paul Cullen.
There are Black Hawk helicopters in the skies, Stinger missiles on the ground and concrete bollards disguised as giant flowerpots around the main buildings. The usual throng of demonstrators against this and that outside the White House has all but disappeared and the cinemas are half-empty. Sales of duct tape, plastic sheeting and emergency supplies are soaring and television news channels are enjoying big ratings.
It's not as though normal life isn't continuing in Washington DC in these tense days of heightened terror alerts and a sense of impending catastrophe. Tourists still stroll along the National Mall from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Local cops patrol on bicycles, dispensing sightseeing directions and telling you to "have a good day, sir". Congressmen come and go from the latest security briefing. At least there aren't any snipers around now.
Yes, normal life is continuing all right - and it's ready to crumble at the first sign of trouble. People constantly look to the skies, all this week the same beautiful blue they were on that September day when the city's peace was shattered. The latest hail of sirens gives momentary pause. Taxis are in, the city's metro having fallen into disfavour because of worries about a possible chemical or biological attack.
Yet it still surprises that you can walk so close to the White House and other landmarks. The FBI stands outwardly silent, save for the man maintaining the flags - eight Stars-and-Stripes and one Union Jack-and-Stripes. The CIA headquarters in Virginia is now called the George Bush Centre for Intelligence. Planes flying into Ronald Reagan Airport have to follow a flight path along the Potomac river but you can still see the Pentagon below, much as the hijackers must have done 17 months ago.
Some of the fear and loathing can be traced back to the non-specific warnings from the authorities. For only the second time, the terror alert was raised last week to the second-highest level on a five-point scale. But beyond warning about possible attacks on "high-profile targets" in New York and Washington, there was little guidance.
CIA director George Tenet talked about "dirty bombs", surface-to-air missiles, poisons and even underwater attacks on ships and ports. People were told to make preparations for an attack yet go about their normal lives, prompting many to respond that the same agencies that failed to prevent September 11th were now trying to "cover their butt".
Meanwhile, the preparations for war with Iraq go on. Each new departing battalion of troops is interviewed by TV cameras, serenaded by country singers and cheered by flag-waving children. Television networks have dispatched their own "troops," equipped with flak-jackets and chemical warfare suits, to report on the conflict. Large corporations have secured "war clauses" to ensure their advertisements are not aired next to violent images or grim news.
But if Americans are truly in favour of this war, it isn't visible in Washington. "It's about oil," says my taxi-driver. "It's just plain stupid," says one former military man, who says the US shouldn't lose the moral high ground by striking first against Iraq. "The US army are among those most opposed to the war, but no one's asking them."
Yet the Democrats are cowed, and the anti-war movement is moribund compared to the rising level of protest in Europe. The last major demonstration here was in mid-January and there's zero campaigning on the streets.
A human rights lawyer who might be expected to be sympathetic bristles with anger at a proposal that anti-war activists wear a blue triangle. "This isn't Nazi Germany, or Argentina under the generals. There's no mobilisation or consciousness-raising in the anti-war movement - it's only about shaming and blaming." You have to spend time in Washington to get some sense of the gulf that separates America and Europe on the issue. "Sneers across the Atlantic" ran the headline on a Washington Post article during the week on growing anti-Americanism in Europe.
"Irrefutable," the same paper trumpeted over an editorial on Colin Powell's speech to the UN Security Council earlier this month.
In spite of its hawkish stance, the Post is regarded as a left-wing organ by conservative pressure groups. "They've been talking about a rush to war for over a year now, when it's nothing but," says Mr Roger Aronoff of Accuracy in Media.
Mr Aronoff claims the anti-war protests are run by communists and considers Bill Clinton to be somewhat worse than the devil, but his views are by no means extreme in this city. Washington bristles with well-funded lobby groups, most of them speaking the language of the free market and libertarianism. It's as though the goal-posts of political debate have been moved right a few lengths. Add to this a marriage of convenience between neo-conservatives and supporters of Ariel Sharon and you have any observers' answer to the forces that are driving US politics at this time.
The problem with the war on terror is that there is no visible enemy, and no definable end. The terror alert has turned orange but no one knows how long it will remain so. As one counter-terrorism official told me, "welcome to our nightmare".
