Hummina, hummina, hummina. The pucker factor over here just jumped a notch (last Friday). Our Pres. Bush had our Homeland Security Threat raised to Orange (High). This is coming from http://www.fema.gov:

"President Bush raised the Homeland Security Advisory System threat level to High Condition (Orange) Friday afternoon. The threat level change was announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.FEMA's Are You Ready? A Guide For Citizen Preparedness, updated this past October, offers specific tips on preparing for National Security Emergencies, including terrorism, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear and radiological attack."
FYI - The levels (ranging from highest to lowest threat) are:
Severe (raining frogs, cats & dogs living together - possible anarchy)
High
Elevated
Guarded
Low

Oh yay. Whether we needed to or not, we are now officially freaking out. "Batton down the hatches!"

Is this in response to what the US and the other nations who have prepared to launch an attack soon or something else?

Also - I just saw something on one of our US news channels last nite. I will say this - I think the world should look a bit closer at N.Korea (maybe the US?) and have Germany, France and Belgium maybe handle Iraq. Reasoning? Maybe we need fresh minds to deal with Husayn and since N.Korea is saying they have a problem with the US - then our country (in alignmnet with maybe S.Kore, China, and Russia) work the N.Korea situation.

Either way I don't think this will move us towards the 'global village' Fmr. First Lady and now Sen. Rohdam-Clinton wanted for us all.