Ridge: Advisers tried to raise alert level

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge said he squashed a plan to raise the terror alert level just before the 2004 general election.

"An election-eve drama was being played out at the highest levels of our government" after Osama bin Laden released a pre-election message critical of (President George W.) Bush, Ridge wrote in his book, "The Test of Our Times."

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had pushed to raise the security threat level to orange, even though Ridge believed a threatening message "should not be the sole reason to elevate the threat level," CNN reported Friday.

The threat level was not raised.

Ridge, a former Pennsylvania governor, also wrote he saw no need for the move because security precautions were in place in advance of the election.

"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?'"

"There was a debate," Frances Townsend, a former homeland security adviser to Bush and now a contributor to CNN, told the cable news network Thursday. "Tom Ridge wasn't the only person in that meeting who suggested that the terror alert shouldn't be raised. At no time was there any discussion of politics at that meeting. And the president was made a recommendation, a consensus recommendation from the council that he accepted, not to raise the terror alert."