Ridge Alleges Bush Political Pressure for Terrorism Alert

Ooops, a golden oldie from 2009 thrown up by mistake.

Tom Ridge appears to be alleging in a new book that the Bush administration put political pressure on him to raise the terrorism threat level in fall of 2004 so as to help George W. Bush’s chances of reelection.

It seemed pretty obvious to me as a close observer that games were being played with such terrorism announcements during the presidential campaign. Pakistani sources spoke of being encouraged to release terrorism-related stories during the Democratic Party convention in summer, 2004, so as to upstage John Kerry. They did so, leading to a fiasco when a Pakistani double agent, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was outed, derailing an ongoing sting against militants in the UK.

Ridge may have felt bad about that SNAFU, and so resisted similar pressures in October. The book is not out yet, so precise details are not yet available.

Frances Townsend, Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration figures are denying the charge. But, of course, they are seasoned liars and so their denials don’t count for much.