Ridge Softens Critique of Bush Terror Alerts

Source: ABC News

Tom Ridge, the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said on “Good Morning America” today that there is a lot of “hyperventilating” about the suggestion in his new book that the terror threat level was raised five days before the 2004 election for political reasons.

The former Pennsylvania governor noted in his book that President Bush’s popularity saw a three-point increase every time the threat level went up but Ridge said the issue was discussed and at the end, the threat level was not raised.

“A lot of people are hyperventilating about that passage, even though there’s about 300 pages and historical reflection what I think we did right and missteps and what to do in the future,” Ridge said on “Good Morning America” Monday. “This is one of several times that the process worked. People expressed their opinions, General Ashcroft, Attorney General Ashcroft, Secretary Rumsfeld expressed their opinions.”

“In the context of that day, in the context of what happened in Madrid, in the context of what happened earlier that year -- At the end of the day, I had to be absolutely certain that we’re on the right path, the process worked. We didn’t go up. And it was designed nobody could pressure anybody to do anything. A consensus was reached. We didn’t go up,” he added.


Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/08/ridge-softens-critique-of-bush-terror-alerts.html

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Ridge agreed with former Vice President Dick Cheney that Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to allow a review into whether any CIA officers crossed the line in their interrogations of detainees is wrong.

"I think he's right, pure and simple," Ridge said.

Even though he said he believed waterboarding "wasn't the appropriate way for America to be conducting itself," Ridge added that "to suggest four or five years later what they did was criminal that's criminal."


Excerpt: 'The Test of Our Times'can be read here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6429419

nt

too late though, the American people suspected the truth back then, and now it's been confirmed. He can backpedal all he wants; the genie is not going back in the bottle.

and if they go down, he most certainly will go down along with them.

Let the war criminals face justice in the Hague.

They are ruthless fucks, and you're a coward.

must think we are pretty darn stupid to think we can't see through this bull$hit. of course, he was leaned on and hard , I suspect. Never in this world will we see justice. It really is a crying shame.

I knew that guy didn't have the cojones to stand up to them.

He got slapped down like a little kid who farted at the dinner table.

And he sacrificed his future book sales to grovel at Cheney's feet.

This whole exercise in second-guessing(looking for real facts in Ridge's book) has been brought to you by the same folks who patently DID raise the threat level at politically strategic moments from the program's inception. While perhaps no rise in the "threat level" can be pinpointed with election day 2004 there can be no doubt that the whole fraudulent business was just another mechanism of the propaganda machine. It's easy enough to correlate any whisper of truth (evidence of neo-con misdeeds) from the media with the color change to a higher threat level. It was the equivalent to tea-baggers shouting at town hall meetings.

It breaks my heart to see so many DUers grasping at straws, hoping for just a little break, to relax their vigilance for only a moment or two. But, kids, THEY never rest. They have no living traitors in their midst. There will be no impeccable inside source proclaiming their misdeeds, their treason. They're bent on total domination of every aspect of American society. They have confidence not only in their righteousness but in their methodology. They remember the mistakes of Goebbels and aren't likely to repeat them.

to check the facts to see who is truthful. The terror alerts correlated with the elections consistently. You really do not need his corroboration to know that.