"The offensive operations that we've been carrying out, the offensive operations the Pakistanis have been carrying out, are yielding a lot of information," she explained.

"[The intelligence] is coming from multiple sources. I don't want to get into what specific sources we're exploiting - I think people will understand we still have operations under way to try to disrupt some of these activities. ... We are still in an operational mode here."

The nation's top security official said that not only is the U.S. in the process of "taking terrorists off the streets in places like Pakistan - but we're also getting a lot of information that is helping us defend here at home."

Intelligence that prompted the Bush administration to raise the nation's terrorist alert level to condition orange on Sunday, Rice said, was "the most specific information I have ever seen."

"That's why we felt it necessary to inform the public very quickly," she added.

But she also said that the new level of specificity shouldn't lull Americans into a false sense of security, warning, "That doesn't mean that's everything that might be on the terrorists' list."

Editor's note: