By Lindsay Beyerstein
(Hello, Obsidian Wings readers. I'm the newest member of ObWi and I'm truly honored to be here. Thanks to Publius and the team for inviting me. A bit about me: I'm a freelance journalist based in New York City. I also write for the Media Consortium, UN Dispatch, In These Times, and for my personal blog, Majikthise.)
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge claims in his forthcoming memoir that Sec Def Don Rumsfeld and AG John Ashcroft unsuccessfully pressured him to raise the terror alert on the eve of the 2004 election.
Four days before the vote, someone dropped a previously unseen video message from Osama Bin Laden on al Jazeera's doorstep. Bin Laden told the citizens of the United States that neither John Kerry nor George Bush could protect them, but he didn't issue any specific threats.
Ridge claims Bush officials pressured him to raise the threat level, even though the tape contained no specific threat. Officially, an orange alert indicates a "high probability" of terrorist attacks. According to DHS guidelines adopted in 2003, orange alerts are reserved cases where there is specific, credible, detailed evidence of an imminent attack on American soil.
"We certainly didn't believe the tape alone warranted action, and we
weren't seeing any additional intelligence that justified it. In fact,
we were incredulous," Ridge wrote "… I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?'" (Keep in mind that the panel that advised Ridge on threat levels included not only Rumsfeld and Ashcroft but also notorious intel politicizer George Tenet, who was responsible for fixing the facts around the Bush administration's policy of invading Iraq.)