New York is on edge. Tapes have been released, allegedly of Osama bin Laden making new threats against America - threats which echo more resonantly here than any other city. The Government's just issued an ‘orange’ terror alert - the second highest warning possible, based, they say, on new intelligence intercepts. Families are being urged to buy plastic sheeting to tape up their windows in case of a chemical or biological attack. This taxi driver's customers are telling him that the city will be hit this week at the end of a Muslim ceremony.

TAXI DRIVER: Security's a little bit tight but I guess we get used to it after a few days, yeah.

REPORTER: But people are tense?

TAXI DRIVER: Yeah, a little bit. You feel it, you know? You feel it, especially you see, especially with the taxi business - a lot of people take taxis instead of the subways.

It's in this environment that the US is urging world leaders gathering downtown at UN Headquarters to authorise its attack on Iraq. And there's no argument with the US case here.

TAXI DRIVER: We got to go to war, despite the fact that we might lose some people and stuff, because democracy is something you've got to - it cannot be one way, you know what I mean? Yeah, you can't have the world half - or one half against it and half some other rule, you know what I mean? You have to.

HARVEY KUCHNER, RETAILER: We have a variety of escape hoods which can be used to get somebody out of a smoke-filled situation, to more sophisticated devices.

Since the ‘orange’ alert was declared, Harvey Kuchner's gas mask sales have soared 1,000-fold. He's filling 4,000 Internet orders per hour. Masks and suits for chemical or biological attacks and container loads of anti-radiation pills in the event of a suitcase-sized nuclear attack.

SALES ASSISTANT: We’ve completely sold out of every potassium or iodide pill that we have.

It's the end of a frantic week here with most of the store cleaned out faster than it can be filled.

FEMALE CUSTOMER: Ah, well, a few days ago I was in here and purchased an NBC mask and today I decided to come back for the full bodysuit with gloves and bootees.

REPORTER: So you've got more worried in the last couple of days than you were when you bought the mask?

FEMALE CUSTOMER: Well, honestly, I live just a couple of blocks from here and I know during the week this place was jammed. There were lines around the corner. So I waited until today when I knew it would be a little quieter.

HARVEY KUCHNER: And this is for an infant three years old.

REPORTER: And are you selling many of these for the children?

HARVEY KUCHNER: Oh, yeah, yeah - a lot, a lot. We even sell for the pets.

REPORTER: You don't?

HARVEY KUCHNER: Hundreds, hundreds.

REPORTER: For the pet ones?

HARVEY KUCHNER: For the dogs and cats, yeah. That's what it's for.

Harvey has little time for what he sees is UN quibbling about Iraq, or their questioning of any link between Saddam Hussein and the threat of terrorist attacks in America.

HARVEY KUCHNER: It disturbs me, because I don't believe this is about oil. I believe it's about the potential of weapons of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands and that Iraq has to be given an ultimatum of 48 hours or else and quite frankly, I think the people of Iraq would be treated to freedom if Saddam Hussein was no longer their leader.

Saddam Hussein was very much the issue of the week at the UN Security Council as weapons inspector Hans Blix delivered his second report on Iraq. Blix's moderate report was a disappointment for the US, but the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was on the front foot, demanding a resolution justifying an attack on Iraq.

COLIN POWELL, US SECRETARY OF STATE: ..that could kill not just 100 people, not 1,000 people, but could kill tens of thousands of people.

France let the counterattack and, at the end of the first round, the consensus was that America failed to make its case against Iraq at the UN. And it would seem that America also failed to prove its case for war to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. Not that many would have heard their voices. Of all the international peace rallies, the huge turnout in New York was probably the least reported. That would be no surprise to many here, who've grown deeply sceptical of the US media's enthusiasm for war.

MALE PROTESTER #1: The media's extremely irresponsible. They're not getting out the truth. It just seems like they're working for the Pentagon. The message the media is giving is that there really is weapons of mass destruction, that we really should be afraid of Iraq when…

MALE PROTESTER #2: When the whole world says there is no weapons of mass destruction!

MALE PROTESTER #1: ..when the whole world is against us. They're all saying there are no weapons there. How can a country like Iraq threaten the US and commit suicide? It doesn't make absolutely any sense.

MALE PROTESTER #2: Iraq has no weapons since 1991!

There are few avenues for anti-war voices in the American media and apparently just as few avenues on the streets of New York. The city did its best to stop an anti-war march. It took a court order to force the city to allow a scaled-down rally to go ahead and today, as the numbers grew, police began blocking off the streets when the permit number of 100,000 had been reached.

MALE PROTESTER #3: But these are peaceful people. They want to protest the war.

It's likely that more were kept out of the official rally than made it in.

POLICEMAN AT DEMONSTRATION: You cannot justify it at all.

MALE PROTESTER #3: My brother fought in World War II.

POLICEMAN: I understand.

It's estimated that as many as 400,000 people took to the streets on one side of the barriers or the other.

MALE PROTESTER #4: They're not allowing people to get through. They want it to seem like there's less people than really want this. That's all that's about.

REPORTER: Do you think you're going to get in?

MALE PROTESTER #5: I don't know.

REPORTER: How long have you been out there?

FEMALE PROTESTER: Not long.

MALE PROTESTER #5: About half an hour, but they closed the subways.

FEMALE PROTESTER: They stopped the subways coming here.

REPORTER: Serious - they stopped the subways?

MALE PROTESTER #5: They shut 'em down?

FEMALE PROTESTER: No. They're not stopping at any of the stops around here.

REPORTER: So you've got to walk and then you can't get through?

FEMALE PROTESTER: Exactly.

This is a cross section of New York - all ages, all classes - but no-one is getting through.

MALE PROTESTER #6: Do you understand that we're fucking here for peace cause we don't want them to fucking bomb some other country while our own fucking police people are pushing us? We're the fucking - my hands are down!

It seems that no dissenting voice will get special privileges today.

MALE PROTESTER #7: This is my brother, David. He was killed on September 11.

REPORTER: Killed on September 11?

MALE PROTESTER #7: Yeah, all of us lost loved ones on September 11.

REPORTER: The whole group?

MALE PROTESTER #7: Yeah, all of us. The Pentagon, World Trade Centre.

REPORTER: Yeah?

MALE PROTESTER #7: Yeah.

REPORTER: It seems very much that this attack on Iraq has been tied to September 11?

MALE PROTESTER #7: Oh, they've tried to, yeah.

REPORTER: And has that taken hold, do you think?

MALE PROTESTER #7: Well, I think that they've manipulated certain Americans to the fear that everyone has around future terrorist attacks and saying, "You don't want another 9/11 to happen, so let us do whatever we need to do." And I think there are certain Americans who are scared into this and we're trying to step up in our responsibility of the personal side of this, losing our loved ones and saying, "You can't manipulate the loss of our loved ones for unjust wars like this."

REPORTER: Do you think your family's deaths has been exploited?

MALE PROTESTER #8: I went to the one-month memorial service after September 11 that I went to that Bush spoke at. I couldn't call it a memorial service. It was supposed to be but they didn't even talk about the people who died, really - the memories of the people who died. They talked about getting back, smoking them out of their holes and all that, and I think it's kind of illustrative of the way they've just used this to kind of rally people in support behind them and you know, there's...

REPORTER: Are they are saying this - I mean, Powell has said it - that al-Qa'ida is linked to Saddam Hussein.

MALE PROTESTER #8: There's no proof.

MALE PROTESTER #7: There's no proof.

REPORTER: You don't buy it?

MALE PROTESTER #9: No. They say that over and over and over again..

MALE PROTESTER #7: The people who are buying it are the ones who watch the news and in a short, little 20-second piece, the newscasters say, "Today Colin Powell tied al-Qa'ida to Iraq." But anybody who looks at the testimony, it doesn't hold any water. I mean, believe me, we would care if there was proof that Iraq was harbouring and supporting al-Qa'ida. We would care about that. So it's not like we're in denial.

FEMALE PROTESTER: They're arresting some people.

PROTESTERS CHANT: Let them go, let them go, let them go!

In the wake of the World Trade Centre, terrorism is a reality in the hearts of all New Yorkers but, while the Administration talks up the ongoing threat, there are some here who have their doubts.

REPORTER: But this week, the terror alert went on, yeah?

MALE PROTESTER #10: I'm suspicious about it. 'Cause the terror alert went up. They couldn't find bin Laden, the terror alert went down. Then, the terror alert went up, then they know where this guy is.

REPORTER: As the UN was meeting, the terror alert goes up?

PROTESTER #10: Honestly, honestly, come on, that's got to be a little - if that's not fishy for you America, c'est la vie, you're going to war and you're going to like it 'cause, you know what? It's not cool at all. Bush never had to do a poor day in his life so he can't tell me how to live my life. He never had to save up money to buy a pair of shoes. He has his own frickin' ranch for crying out loud. Come on!

New Yorkers are never short of an opinion and there's plenty of them to be heard in any Manhattan bar.

WOMAN IN BAR: Everybody's scared. Everybody's scared. Some people are for it, some people are not, but I think more people are for it, if I'm not mistaken, in New York, for the war, yeah.

REPORTER: But are you convinced there's a link between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein?

WOMAN IN BAR: No, I'm not absolutely convinced. There is a question. There is a question. You know, there is a question. Nobody really knows. How do you know? You know, there's arguments back and forth, back and forth. After a while, you don't know what to believe and who to believe and there's so much information, you can't get it all.

REPORTER: It's a pretty critical question, I suppose, isn't it?

WOMAN IN BAR: Yeah, of course it is.

MAN IN BAR: I think the people who protested are very naive people and that's my reaction - they're very naive people. They don't represent the majority of Americans. I don't think these people will really be directly affected either way if there's a war. They have nothing better to do than protest.

Political discourse has become a normal part of the evening for bar owner Lisa Giunta.

LISA GIUNTA, BAR OWNER: A lot of people are really stressed out. A lot of them are arguing at the bar. The general rule in the restaurant is, you know, no politics and no religion, and it just seems like there's so much politics being spoken about, tempers flying and, like, matches, yeah! The other day, I thought there was going to be blows in here with some guys. They was just screaming at each other.

REPORTER: Over the war?

LISA GIUNTA: Yeah, over the - yeah, over the war, all the politics behind it and everything.

SECOND MAN IN BAR: Fuck the French.

REPORTER: Yeah?

SECOND MAN IN BAR: Yes!

REPORTER: Why?

SECOND MAN IN BAR: Because they suck, that's why.

REPORTER: Is this a recent opinion?

SECOND MAN IN BAR: No, I used to go to Paris every year. I will never go again.

Tonight, this bar is full of similar compliments for France, Germany and the rest of the world. The sentiment here is that the war in Iraq will be soon, short and vindication sweet.

SECOND MAN IN BAR: By the end of March, it'll be over. It'll be over by the end of March. And then, and then, when the rest of the world sees that he uses this stuff or we find it and show to the rest of the world - "See, we were right. Excuse me, France and Germany. You were wrong."