Washington — Former U.S. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge charges in a new book that top aides to then-President George W. Bush pressured him to raise the “terror alert” level to sway the November 2004 U.S. election. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft pushed him to elevate the color-coded threat level, but Ridge refused, according to a summary from his publisher, Thomas Dunne Books.
“After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector,” Ridge is quoting as writing in “The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege … And How We Can Be Safe Again.”
Some of Bush’s critics had repeatedly questioned whether the administration was using warnings of a possible attack to blunt the political damage from the unpopular Iraq war by shifting the debate to the broader “war on terrorism,” which had wide popular appeal. Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania, was the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the U.S. Congress created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes.
He also says that Bush’s Homeland Security advisor at the White House, Fran Townsend, called his department ahead of an Aug. 1, 2004 speech to ask Ridge to include a reference to “defensive measures … away from home” — language that he read as being a reference to the Iraq war.
In those remarks, Ridge said he was raising the threat alert level for the financial services sector in New York City, northern New Jersey, and Washington D.C., and went on to praise Bush’s leadership against extremism.
“The reports that have led to this alert are the result of offensive intelligence and military operations overseas, as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world, such as Pakistan,” said Ridge at the time. “Such operations and partnerships give us insight into the enemy so we can better target our defensive measures here and away from home.”
Ridge later publicly acknowledged that much of the information underpinning the new alert was three years old, stoking Bush critics’ charges of political manipulation. He also details his frustration after the White House rejected his suggestion to establish Department of Homeland Security offices in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and — long before Hurricane Katrina — New Orleans, according to the summary.
He also says he urged his successor, Michael Chertoff, to reconsider the appointment of Michael Brown as the head of the Federal Emergency Response Agency (FEMA), whose response to the killer storm drew widespread criticism.
Ridge also charges that he was often “blindsided” during daily morning briefings with Bush because the FBI withheld information from him, and says he was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings.
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