Incredible Terror Threats

Does anybody else find it curious that on the day that the President's talking point--in order to distract from the dire GOP scandals going down on several fronts, but especially the hot water Rove is in on the Plame investigation--is (as the NYTimes headline has it)
Bush Stresses Terror Threat and Urges Support for Iraq War

later in the afternoon the New York police and Co. drop the fear-tactics bombshell that there is a "credible threat" of a 19-person coordinated bomb attack on the New York subway?

Or is the threat, in fact, credible? To judge from the mass media reports, it's hard to tell. ABC says that according to Dept. of Homeland Security sources " they are very doubtful the threat information is credible," but nonetheless, "NYPD sources said the information continues to come in and is disturbing."

This is not the only detail in the reports about this "credible threat" that raises eyebrows and question marks. So information "continues to come in", eh? But according to the same article, the information came out during the arrest several days ago of three "Iraqi insurgents" during an FBI-CIA raid (presumably in Iraq? the report does not say). So was the information obtained in the past, and now they have found further real evidence of its credibility? Or is it even now "coming in" and from where?

(I suppose we are to imagine the details--CIA beating the three insurgents to bloody pulps as they reveal, or make up, more corroborating evidence....)

Still, Repub. Rep. Peter King of NY (toeing today's party line) insists that "Obviously, this is a significant threat."

The FBI seem to want to have it both ways. "The investigation has helped stop the plans," ABC reports. "The encouraging news is that classified operations have in fact partially disrupted this threat" Mark Marshon of the FBI is quoted as saying.

Forgive the question, but has it or hasn't it "disrupted the threat"? What does that "partially" mean? Do they have suspects with bombs in backpacks, but 10 (or 17, or whatever) are still at large?

And let me backtrack to the beginning of the article, which describes the threat as "while the source is credible, the information has not been verified." Does this mean not even by the FBI and those investigating it? So how, pray tell, has a threat that has not even been verified get (even partially) disrupted?

Nobody says. Nevertheless, Mayor Bloomberg "added that he will continue to ride the subways."

Thank God.