Tom Ridge: I Was Pressured To Raise Terror Alert To Help Bush Win

Superfreak said:
lol... yes, there were a lot during the summer of 2004. But what happened in August-October. Your chart stops. Also, take a look at the last several and you will see that there wasn't a corresponding increase in approval ratings.

and no, I do not remember ever seeing this chart before.
Click to expand...

I have no idea what happened Aug-Oct. My guess would be obvious, but I'm not ambitious enough to go look it up to confirm it.

Last several all contributed to the uptick right before the election.
 
ib1yysguy said:
He dismissed it because it got the two facts of the editorial completely wrong, which pretty much proves that it's not a credible source.
Click to expand...


Actually, SF is correct. I dismissed the WSJ op-ed without even reading it because is was a WSJ op-ed.

I assume that any "fact" appearing in a WSJ op-ed is false until proven otherwise. It's a long-standing policy of mine and it hasn't let me down yet. Their track record is actually that bad.

I try to do other folks a favor by pointing out how terrifically bad the WSJ op-eds are but they never listen.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I see nothing wrong with attacking a source when they have demonstrated to be unreliable of that they have an agenda the precludes objectivity. I hear it all the time about Faux News, Old Lard Ass Limbaugh and Hand Job Hannity. Why not the same skepticism for Air Head Arianne?
Click to expand...

Because Arianna reported the story .. she's not the source. Tom Ridge is.

Ridge Reveals Clashes on Alerts
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-10-ridge-alerts_x.htm

Tom Ridge's Mea Culpa: The Code Orange Terror Alerts were based on Fake Intelligence

"What a lot of Americans suspected all along turns out to be true. The color-coded alert system for terrorist attacks was a fraud."

Mea Culpa

After leaving his position at Homeland Security, Tom Ridge acknowledged that the post 9/11 terror alerts were often based on "flimsy evidence" and that he had been pressured by the CIA to raise the threat level:

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level… Ridge [said] .he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it…Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' " (USA Today , 10 May 2005)

A review of the three high profile code orange terror alerts confirms in all three cases that the intelligence had been fabricated.

1. February 7, 2003, Two days after Colin Powell's Feb 5 presentation to the UN Security Council, in the month prior to the invasion of Iraq,

2. December 21, Christmas 2003

July 29th 2004, on the same day as John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. The code orange alert served to galvanize US public opinion in favor of Bush's "war on terrorism" in the months leading up to the November 2004 elections.

In all three cases, Tom Ridge's warnings on the nature of the threat were categorical. The official announcements by the Homeland Security Department had dispelled any lingering doubts regarding the threat level:

"the risk [during the Christmas period] is perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001;"

"indications that [the] near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the [9/11] attacks".

"And it's pretty clear that the nation's capital and New York city would be on any list..."

Compare these pronouncements to Ridge's May 10 statement where he admits that the evidence was flimsy.

1. The February 7, 2003 Code Orange Alert

An Orange Code Alert had been ordered on 7 February 2003, two days after Colin Powell's flopped presentation on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN Security Council. It was applied specifically to galvanize US public opinion in favor of the invasion of Iraq.

Media attention was immediately shifted from Colin Powell's blunders at the UN Security Council to an (alleged) impending terrorist attack on America. Anti-aircraft missiles were immediately deployed around Washington. The media became inundated with stories on Iraqi support to an impending Al Qaeda attack on America.

The objective was to present Iraq as the aggressor. According to the New York Post, (11 February 2003):

"The nation is now on Orange Alert because intelligence intercepts and simple logic both suggest that our Islamic enemies know the best way to strike at us is through terrorism on U.S. soil."

Another story allegedly emanating from the CIA on so-called ‘radioactive dirty bombs had been planted in the news chain.4 Secretary Powell warned that "it would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive ‘dirty’ bombs to explode inside the U.S. … ‘How likely it is, I can't say... But I think it is wise for us to at least let the American people know of this possibility.’" 5 Meanwhile, network TV had warned that "American hotels, shopping malls or apartment buildings could be al Qaeda's targets as soon as next week…"

The hidden agenda in the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq was to link Baghdad to Al Qaeda, muster unbending support for President Bush and weaken the anti-war protest movement. Following the announcement, tens of thousands of Americans rushed to purchase duct tape, plastic sheets and gas-masks.

It later transpired that the terrorist alert was fabricated by the CIA, in all likelihood in consultation with the upper echelons of the State Department. 6

The FBI, for the first time had pointed its finger at the CIA.

"This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they found out that this information was not true," said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and ABCNEWS consultant.

(...)

According to officials, the FBI and the CIA are pointing fingers at each other. An FBI spokesperson told ABCNEWS today he was "not familiar with the scenario," but did not think it was accurate. "7

2. December 21, Christmas 2003

On December 21st, 2003 four days before Christmas, the Homeland Security Department, again raised the national threat level from "elevated" to "high risk" of terrorist attack. 11

In his pre-Christmas Press Conference, Homeland Security department Secretary Tom Ridge confirmed in much the same way as on February 7, 2003, that: "the U.S. intelligence community has received a substantial increase in the volume of threat-related intelligence reports". According to Tom Ridge, these "credible [intelligence] sources" raise "the possibility of attacks against the homeland, around the holiday season..."12

Terrorists still threaten our country and we remain engaged in a dangerous - to be sure - difficult war and it will not be over soon," warned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "They can attack at any time and at any place."

With America on high terror alert for the Christmas holiday season, intelligence officials fear al-Qaeda is eager to stage a spectacular attack - possibly hijacking a foreign airliner or cargo jet and crashing it into a high-profile target inside the United States." 14

The official Christmas announcement by the Homeland Security Department dispelled any lingering doubts regarding the threat level:

"the risk [during the Christmas period] is perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001;"

It also warned Americans, in no uncertain terms, but without supporting evidence, that there are:

"indications that [the] near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the [9/11] attacks".

"And it's pretty clear that the nation's capital and New York city would be on any list..."

Following Secretary Ridge's announcement, anti-aircraft missile batteries were set up in Washington:

. "And the Pentagon said today, more combat air patrols will now be flying over select cities and facilities, with some airbases placed on higher alert." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "You ask, 'Is it serious?' Yes, you bet your life. People don't do that unless it's a serious situation." 15

According to an official statement: "intelligence indicates that Al Qaeda-trained pilots may be working for overseas airlines and ready to carry out suicide attacks." 16

More specifically, Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists were, according to Homland Security, planning to hijack an Air France plane and "crash it on US soil in a suicide terror strike similar to those carried out on September 11, 2001."

Air France Christmas flights out of Paris were grounded. F-16 fighters were patrolling the skies.

Yet it turned out that the stand down orders on Air France's Christmas flights from Paris to Los Angeles, which were used to justify the Code Orange Alert during the Christmas holiday, were based on fabricated information.

Needless to say these fabricated media reports served to create a tense atmosphere during the Christmas holiday. Los Angeles International airport was on "maximum deployment" with counter-terrorism and FBI officials working around the clock.

Yet following the French investigation, it turned out that the terror alert was a hoax. The information was not "very very precise" as claimed by US intelligence.

The six Al Qaeda men turned out to be a five year old boy, an elderly Chinese lady who used to run a restaurant in Paris, a Welsh insurance salesman and three French nationals.19

The decision to cancel the six Air France flights was taken after 2 days of intense negotiations between French and American officials. They were cancelled on the orders of the French Prime minister following consultations with Sec. Colin Powell. This decision was taken following the completion of the French investigation. Despite the fact that the information had been refuted, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge insisted on maintaining the stand-down order. If Air France had not complied, it would have been prevented from using US air space, namely banned from flying to the US.

It was only on January 2nd, once the holiday season was over that the US authorities admitted that they were in error, claiming that it was a unavoidable case of "mistaken identity." While tacitly acknowledging their error, Homeland Security insisted that "the cancellations were based on solid information."

3. July 29, 2003, coinciding with John Kerry's Acceptance Speech at the Democratic Convention

The decision to launch the code orange terror alert in New York City, Washington DC and northern New Jersey was taken on the night of July 29th, within hours of John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention.

No "specific" intelligence out of Pakistan was available at that Thursday evening meeting at CIA Headquarters at Langley.

According to a unnamed senior intelligence official, the decision to launch the high risk (code orange) terror alert was taken on that same Thursday evening (July 29 2004) in the absence of "specific" and detailed intelligence:

"At the daily CIA's 5 p.m. counterterrorism meeting on Thursday, the first information about the detailed al Qaeda surveillance of the five financial buildings was discussed among senior CIA, FBI and military officials. They decided to launch a number of worldwide operations, including the deployment of increased law enforcement around the five [financial] buildings." [World Bank, IMF, NYSE, Citigroup, Prudential] (WP, 3 August 2004, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5581230/ )

On Thursday July 29, when the decision was taken to increase the threat level, the "precise" and "specific" information out of Pakistan including "the trove of hundreds of photos and written documents", was not yet available.

The information from the mysterious Pakistani computer engineer, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, was only made available ex post facto on the Friday, once the decision has already been taken:

"A senior intelligence official said translations of the computer documents and other intelligence started arriving on Friday [one day after the decision was taken to launch the operation]. (WP, 3 August 2004)

President Bush was "informed of the potential threat on Friday morning [July 30] aboard Air Force One". (WP, 2 August 2004). On that same morning, President Bush approved the decision of the CIA to raise "the threat level" in the absence of "specific" supporting intelligence.

In other words, the supporting intelligence used to justify the terror warning, not only turned out to be "outdated", as confirmed on August 2nd, it was only made available to counterterrorism officials ex post facto, once the decision to increase the "threat level" had already been endorsed by President Bush.

Former Secretary Tom Ridge knew that the intelligence was fake.

Tom Ridge's mea culpa suggests that the Bush administration was fabricating intelligence for political gain and that the various agencies involved including the CIA and Homeland Security were involved in a fear and disinformation campaign.

His statements deliberately misled Americans with a view to supporting the "war on terrorism" agenda. More specifically, the terror alerts were triggered at two critical periods:

1) in the month prior to the invasion of Iraq following Powell's Feb 5, 2003 UN Security Council presentation,

2) at the height of the US presidential campaign.

Fabricating intelligence for political gain is a criminal act --specifically in the case of providing a pretext for war or for influencing the outcome of an election.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO505D.html

Yet thesew are many of the same morons who carry guns to political events and talk of revolution over healthcare reform.

This isn't about the source my friend .. and I think you know that.
 
By the way, for those suggesting the everyone was having a good laugh about the terror alert system back in 2004, the below is the USA Today editorial concerning Howard Dean's allegation that the Bush Adminsitration was politiczing terror reports:

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean said Sunday, without offering evidence, that terror warnings crop up whenever President Bush needs a boost. That statement follows the premise of Michael Moore's incendiary film Fahrenheit 9/11: that the alerts are used to keep the public in fear for political benefit.

It is the most serious of allegations -- that the nation's leaders would selfishly manipulate the gravest threat we face.

While no one should be naive enough to think that the White House -- or John Kerry's campaign -- doesn't discuss the politics of terrorism, any evidence of terror alerts called for political advantage is lacking.
Click to expand...
 
ib1yysguy said:
Okay, I think I get it. To conservtards, every source is made equal. They're so used to watching Fox that they think they can't trust anyone.

So when Dung points out in another thread that the op ed from the Wall Street Journal got the two most important facts of the story absolutely incorrect, Damo hops on here to accuse Huff Post of being incredible without even attempting to point out where a fact was misstated/incorrect.

These idiots pull this falls parity shit all the time. Yurt was trying to make the case a day ago that Obama saying that it's scary to do nothing with healthcare was the same kind of fearmongering we were hearing from the right about killing grandmas, infirm babies, paying for abortions, paying for illegal aliens, and killing Santa Clause.
Click to expand...
The process line was different.

Dung started in on the Times as a source in another thread, actually saying that people use huffpo "rarely" and moveon "never".

It was funny that the next thread created was one that sourced huffpo, so I mentioned how he should be on the way to rush in and tell me how rare this was and how the source was the story rather than the point.
 
Dungheap said:
By the way, for those suggesting the everyone was having a good laugh about the terror alert system back in 2004, the below is the USA Today editorial concerning Howard Dean's allegation that the Bush Adminsitration was politiczing terror reports:
Click to expand...

Revisionists abound.
 
blackascoal said:
Because Arianna reported the story .. she's not the source. Tom Ridge is.

Ridge Reveals Clashes on Alerts
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-10-ridge-alerts_x.htm

Tom Ridge's Mea Culpa: The Code Orange Terror Alerts were based on Fake Intelligence

"What a lot of Americans suspected all along turns out to be true. The color-coded alert system for terrorist attacks was a fraud."

Mea Culpa

After leaving his position at Homeland Security, Tom Ridge acknowledged that the post 9/11 terror alerts were often based on "flimsy evidence" and that he had been pressured by the CIA to raise the threat level:

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level… Ridge [said] .he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it…Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' " (USA Today , 10 May 2005)

A review of the three high profile code orange terror alerts confirms in all three cases that the intelligence had been fabricated.

1. February 7, 2003, Two days after Colin Powell's Feb 5 presentation to the UN Security Council, in the month prior to the invasion of Iraq,

2. December 21, Christmas 2003

July 29th 2004, on the same day as John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. The code orange alert served to galvanize US public opinion in favor of Bush's "war on terrorism" in the months leading up to the November 2004 elections.

In all three cases, Tom Ridge's warnings on the nature of the threat were categorical. The official announcements by the Homeland Security Department had dispelled any lingering doubts regarding the threat level:

"the risk [during the Christmas period] is perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001;"

"indications that [the] near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the [9/11] attacks".

"And it's pretty clear that the nation's capital and New York city would be on any list..."

Compare these pronouncements to Ridge's May 10 statement where he admits that the evidence was flimsy.

1. The February 7, 2003 Code Orange Alert

An Orange Code Alert had been ordered on 7 February 2003, two days after Colin Powell's flopped presentation on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to the UN Security Council. It was applied specifically to galvanize US public opinion in favor of the invasion of Iraq.

Media attention was immediately shifted from Colin Powell's blunders at the UN Security Council to an (alleged) impending terrorist attack on America. Anti-aircraft missiles were immediately deployed around Washington. The media became inundated with stories on Iraqi support to an impending Al Qaeda attack on America.

The objective was to present Iraq as the aggressor. According to the New York Post, (11 February 2003):

"The nation is now on Orange Alert because intelligence intercepts and simple logic both suggest that our Islamic enemies know the best way to strike at us is through terrorism on U.S. soil."

Another story allegedly emanating from the CIA on so-called ‘radioactive dirty bombs had been planted in the news chain.4 Secretary Powell warned that "it would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive ‘dirty’ bombs to explode inside the U.S. … ‘How likely it is, I can't say... But I think it is wise for us to at least let the American people know of this possibility.’" 5 Meanwhile, network TV had warned that "American hotels, shopping malls or apartment buildings could be al Qaeda's targets as soon as next week…"

The hidden agenda in the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq was to link Baghdad to Al Qaeda, muster unbending support for President Bush and weaken the anti-war protest movement. Following the announcement, tens of thousands of Americans rushed to purchase duct tape, plastic sheets and gas-masks.

It later transpired that the terrorist alert was fabricated by the CIA, in all likelihood in consultation with the upper echelons of the State Department. 6

The FBI, for the first time had pointed its finger at the CIA.

"This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they found out that this information was not true," said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and ABCNEWS consultant.

(...)

According to officials, the FBI and the CIA are pointing fingers at each other. An FBI spokesperson told ABCNEWS today he was "not familiar with the scenario," but did not think it was accurate. "7

2. December 21, Christmas 2003

On December 21st, 2003 four days before Christmas, the Homeland Security Department, again raised the national threat level from "elevated" to "high risk" of terrorist attack. 11

In his pre-Christmas Press Conference, Homeland Security department Secretary Tom Ridge confirmed in much the same way as on February 7, 2003, that: "the U.S. intelligence community has received a substantial increase in the volume of threat-related intelligence reports". According to Tom Ridge, these "credible [intelligence] sources" raise "the possibility of attacks against the homeland, around the holiday season..."12

Terrorists still threaten our country and we remain engaged in a dangerous - to be sure - difficult war and it will not be over soon," warned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "They can attack at any time and at any place."

With America on high terror alert for the Christmas holiday season, intelligence officials fear al-Qaeda is eager to stage a spectacular attack - possibly hijacking a foreign airliner or cargo jet and crashing it into a high-profile target inside the United States." 14

The official Christmas announcement by the Homeland Security Department dispelled any lingering doubts regarding the threat level:

"the risk [during the Christmas period] is perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001;"

It also warned Americans, in no uncertain terms, but without supporting evidence, that there are:

"indications that [the] near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the [9/11] attacks".

"And it's pretty clear that the nation's capital and New York city would be on any list..."

Following Secretary Ridge's announcement, anti-aircraft missile batteries were set up in Washington:

. "And the Pentagon said today, more combat air patrols will now be flying over select cities and facilities, with some airbases placed on higher alert." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "You ask, 'Is it serious?' Yes, you bet your life. People don't do that unless it's a serious situation." 15

According to an official statement: "intelligence indicates that Al Qaeda-trained pilots may be working for overseas airlines and ready to carry out suicide attacks." 16

More specifically, Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists were, according to Homland Security, planning to hijack an Air France plane and "crash it on US soil in a suicide terror strike similar to those carried out on September 11, 2001."

Air France Christmas flights out of Paris were grounded. F-16 fighters were patrolling the skies.

Yet it turned out that the stand down orders on Air France's Christmas flights from Paris to Los Angeles, which were used to justify the Code Orange Alert during the Christmas holiday, were based on fabricated information.

Needless to say these fabricated media reports served to create a tense atmosphere during the Christmas holiday. Los Angeles International airport was on "maximum deployment" with counter-terrorism and FBI officials working around the clock.

Yet following the French investigation, it turned out that the terror alert was a hoax. The information was not "very very precise" as claimed by US intelligence.

The six Al Qaeda men turned out to be a five year old boy, an elderly Chinese lady who used to run a restaurant in Paris, a Welsh insurance salesman and three French nationals.19

The decision to cancel the six Air France flights was taken after 2 days of intense negotiations between French and American officials. They were cancelled on the orders of the French Prime minister following consultations with Sec. Colin Powell. This decision was taken following the completion of the French investigation. Despite the fact that the information had been refuted, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge insisted on maintaining the stand-down order. If Air France had not complied, it would have been prevented from using US air space, namely banned from flying to the US.

It was only on January 2nd, once the holiday season was over that the US authorities admitted that they were in error, claiming that it was a unavoidable case of "mistaken identity." While tacitly acknowledging their error, Homeland Security insisted that "the cancellations were based on solid information."

3. July 29, 2003, coinciding with John Kerry's Acceptance Speech at the Democratic Convention

The decision to launch the code orange terror alert in New York City, Washington DC and northern New Jersey was taken on the night of July 29th, within hours of John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention.

No "specific" intelligence out of Pakistan was available at that Thursday evening meeting at CIA Headquarters at Langley.

According to a unnamed senior intelligence official, the decision to launch the high risk (code orange) terror alert was taken on that same Thursday evening (July 29 2004) in the absence of "specific" and detailed intelligence:

"At the daily CIA's 5 p.m. counterterrorism meeting on Thursday, the first information about the detailed al Qaeda surveillance of the five financial buildings was discussed among senior CIA, FBI and military officials. They decided to launch a number of worldwide operations, including the deployment of increased law enforcement around the five [financial] buildings." [World Bank, IMF, NYSE, Citigroup, Prudential] (WP, 3 August 2004, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5581230/ )

On Thursday July 29, when the decision was taken to increase the threat level, the "precise" and "specific" information out of Pakistan including "the trove of hundreds of photos and written documents", was not yet available.

The information from the mysterious Pakistani computer engineer, Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, was only made available ex post facto on the Friday, once the decision has already been taken:

"A senior intelligence official said translations of the computer documents and other intelligence started arriving on Friday [one day after the decision was taken to launch the operation]. (WP, 3 August 2004)

President Bush was "informed of the potential threat on Friday morning [July 30] aboard Air Force One". (WP, 2 August 2004). On that same morning, President Bush approved the decision of the CIA to raise "the threat level" in the absence of "specific" supporting intelligence.

In other words, the supporting intelligence used to justify the terror warning, not only turned out to be "outdated", as confirmed on August 2nd, it was only made available to counterterrorism officials ex post facto, once the decision to increase the "threat level" had already been endorsed by President Bush.

Former Secretary Tom Ridge knew that the intelligence was fake.

Tom Ridge's mea culpa suggests that the Bush administration was fabricating intelligence for political gain and that the various agencies involved including the CIA and Homeland Security were involved in a fear and disinformation campaign.

His statements deliberately misled Americans with a view to supporting the "war on terrorism" agenda. More specifically, the terror alerts were triggered at two critical periods:

1) in the month prior to the invasion of Iraq following Powell's Feb 5, 2003 UN Security Council presentation,

2) at the height of the US presidential campaign.

Fabricating intelligence for political gain is a criminal act --specifically in the case of providing a pretext for war or for influencing the outcome of an election.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO505D.html

Yet thesew are many of the same morons who carry guns to political events and talk of revolution over healthcare reform.

This isn't about the source my friend .. and I think you know that.
Click to expand...
LOL Don't shoot me! I all ready gave my kudos to Tom Ridge. I believe the story. I believe Tom Ridge. I just have no problems with anyone attacking Huffingtons post credibility. She's earned it.
 
blackascoal said:
In a new book, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge reveals new details on politicization under President Bush, reports US News & World Report's Paul Bedard. Among other things, Ridge admits that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help Bush win re-election in 2004.

Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Dave Weigel, writing for the Washington Independent, notes that in the past, Ridge has denied manipulating security information for political reasons. In 2004, for example, he said, "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security."

The Bush administration was forced to admit in the days after the 2004 alert that it was based on intelligence three or four years old. Officials then claimed there was a previously unmentioned "separate stream of intelligence" that justified the warning -- but offered little tangible information to support their new story..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/tom-ridge-i-was-pressured_n_264127.html

As if we needed Tom Ridge to tell us the Bush Administration manipulated the war on terror and manipulltaed weak ass American "can't see the forest for the trees" minds.
Click to expand...

Does he have a book coming out, also?
 
Damocles said:
Pshshshsh...

I remember this "terror alert" during the campaign, we spent time talking about how ineffective the system was even then. This particular "alert" did nothing to help Bush win the election.
Click to expand...

Really? You can say this without a doubt?
 
Socrtease said:
Why should we care about what effect they had on Gore. There were no terra alerts when Gore ran for President. Matter of fact, the 9-11-01 attacks came 8 months after Bush assumed the Presidency. 2004 Kerry ran for president. *big stupid shrug*
Click to expand...
Lookie, lookie. Soc's all prissy because The Southern Man said Gore instead of Kerry. LOL
 
Mott the Hoople said:
LOL Don't shoot me! I all ready gave my kudos to Tom Ridge. I believe the story. I believe Tom Ridge. I just have no problems with anyone attacking Huffingtons post credibility. She's earned it.
Click to expand...
Especially when I was mostly just taking advantage of the "rarity" of another huffpost article to give Dung a cyber-noogie... Then I started talking.

I think that it is probably true, I just don't think it is as efficacious as that chart of ib1's shows. If you note on the chart he goes up on popularity when things go well, Saddam is captured for instance.. I think it is just coincidence that there is some sort of alert at or near the same period and the chart tries to take advantage of that.

Basically I'm doing now what I have been doing since the terror rainbow was created, I mock it. I will always mock the stupid terror rainbow. Whoever created it should have been fired.
 
Socrtease said:
Why should we care about what effect they had on Gore. There were no terra alerts when Gore ran for President. Matter of fact, the 9-11-01 attacks came 8 months after Bush assumed the Presidency. 2004 Kerry ran for president. *big stupid shrug*
Click to expand...

southern man self skewered big time.
:clink:

\o/
 
You can spin the crap all you want and get your pap from the Huffington site...but it wouldn't hurt to read the facts just for the hell of it....propaganda/spin is a Huffington specialty..

From the book:
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/ridges_book_rumsfeld_wanted_alert_raised.php

FACT 1:
Osama bin Laden had released a videotape with one more ominous sounding but unspecific threat against the United States. Neither Mr. Ridge nor any of the department's security experts thought the message warranted any change in the nation's alert status.

" . . . at this point there was nothing to indicate a specific threat and no reason to cause undue public alarm," he writes.

THE DISAGREEMENT:
But that view met resistance in a tense conference call with members of the intelligence community and several other Cabinet officers including Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"A vigorous, some might say dramatic, discussion ensured. Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Rumsfeld."

THE FEAR OF MIS-UNDERSTANDING:
Noting the correlation found between increases in the threat level and the president's approval rating, Mr. Ridge writes, "I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?' "

The dispute remained open at the end of the call. Mr. Ridge's aides carried the word to the White House staff that the threat escalation would court accusations of politicizing national security.
THE RESULT:
Mr. Ridge's view finally prevailed.

"I believe our strong interventions had pulled the 'go-up' advocates back from the brink," Mr. Ridge writes. "But I consider the episode to be not only a dramatic moment in Washington's recent history, but another illustration of the intersection of politics, fear, credibility and security."

Lesson learned....the Huffington Post is full of shit...
 
Folks, sometimes these things are just plum necessary. Sometimes we have to follow the authority of a Higher Father, rather than play by the rules. Our President, George Dubya Bush, was chosen by God to fight the evil doers. Can you imagine if that surrender monkey John Kerry had won? Hells bells, the Democraps would have run up the white flag of surrender. We would all be submitting to Allah. And our women would be made to cover up with long dresses, and be forced to drop out of school and stay home (although, that’s not a bad idea actually, Osama :thup:). And you just KNOW that our Muslim overlords will close down all gay massage parlors. :( . Just sayin'.

Folks, we can’t always play by the rules, when Christianity is on the ropes.


Regards,

Ted
 
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