[andyfox]

Not manufactured, but it would be reasonable for leaders to accentuate or exaggerate the threat both for political reasons and because since they would be open criticism (not just political attack) if something happened because they had been either lax or "lax," I don't doubt they pushed the envelope a bit. This is SOP in such situations, as, for example, after WWII when the Repulbicans told Truman they would go along with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan but only if he "scared the hell" out of the country with his rhetoric. The threat from the Soviets was real, but not as dire or all-encompassing as Truman made it sound.

So my take is that the answer is a bit of both: our homeland security measures have worked, and the threat was probably not as great as it was made out to be. But we'll not know the truth for many years, until classified documents are made public. In that sense, revisionist history is often the more accurate history.

Regards,
Andy