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Aug 21, 2009 6:14 pm US/Eastern
Ridge Changes Tune On Terror Alert Levels
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
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Tom Ridge (File)
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Former Pennsylvania Governor and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge is calling out former colleagues in the Bush Administration, suggesting they tried to play politics with the terror alert level.
The charge comes in a book due out next month.
Ridge claims other members of the Cabinet pressured him to raise the terror alert level shortly before the 2004 Presidential election.
He says Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pressed him to support increasing the nation's terror threat level from yellow or "elevated" to orange, meaning "high."
Just four days before the election, Osama Bin Laden had issued a videotape threatening new attacks on the United States.
But in his book, Ridge says there was "no support" within his department for boosting the threat level and he refused.
He writes: "I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?'"
This new contention directly refutes what Ridge told KDKA-TV's Ken Rice in an interview in June of 2008.
Rice: "Was there ever pressure to raise the alert level for some reason that had nothing to do with the actual threats out there?"
Ridge: "Never."
Rice: "Never even a hint of that?"
Ridge: "Never. It's a great question though."
Ridge went on to point out that he didn't have authority to raise the alert level alone and that decision had to be a consensus of the president's Homeland Security Council, including the heads of the departments of State, Defense and Justice and the FBI and CIA.
But for an issue that was quickly dismissed when raised a year ago, Ridge now writes that he was so disturbed by what happened in 2004, it reinforced his decision to resign from the Bush administration.
On CNN Friday, President Bush's former Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend denied Ridge's new claim and said she thinks Ridge is trying to profit by separating himself politically from Bush.
Ridge's DC office has not responded to KDKA-TV's request for comment.
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