Just as we suspected. There was something fishy about the code orange alerts. Sure it’s hard to believe politics could play into this all in a town like Washington where we know everything is above board and transparent.
By DEB RIECHMANN and EILEEN SULLIVAN
WASHINGTON — Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge claims in a new book that he was pressured by other members of President George W. Bush’s Cabinet to raise the nation’s terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election.
Ridge says he objected to raising the security level despite the urgings of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, according to a publicity release from Ridge’s publisher. He said the episode convinced him to follow through with his plans to leave the administration; he resigned on Nov. 30, 2004.
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