Bush

Fran Townsend: We Discussed If Raising The Terror Alert Would Hurt Bush

Versha Sharma | August 21, 2009, 10:44AM

Fran Townsend, Bush's Homeland Security adviser and CNN contributor, appeared on the network again this morning to refute Tom Ridge's new claim that he was pushed to raise the terror alert on Election Eve 2004 for political reasons.

She repeated much of what she said on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer last night - namely, that "there was no discussion of politics whatsoever," but she added some new contradictory information about "discussion on the margins."

"The only discussions I recall were on the margin - there was concern that if the intelligence supported raising the threat level, it might actually [be] to the detriment of President Bush because people might perceive it as being political," said Townsend.

Here's the video:

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Tom Ridge

Tom Ridge: I Fought Against Raising Security Threat Level On The Eve Of 2004 Election

Versha Sharma | August 20, 2009, 5:10PM

In his new tell-all book, former Secretary Of Homeland Security Tom Ridge reveals that he was under intense political pressure to raise the national security threat level on the eve of the 2004 presidential election.

In The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, to be released September 1st, Ridge says that he fought against changing the terror alert and wondered at the time whether the Ashcroft- and Rumsfeld-backed request was about "security or politics," because while there was "nothing to indicate a specific threat and no reason to cause undue public alarm...Post-election analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the president's approval rating in the days after the raising of the threat level."

From the book:

On Friday, October 29, 2004, Osama bin Laden delivered a new videotape message that aired on the Arab language network Al Jazeera. The presidential election scheduled for the following Tuesday was tightening. The most recent polls had Bush leading Kerry by no more than two or three points. Having won my first congressional election by 729 votes and experienced the volatility of the election cycle during several campaigns, this race was literally a dead heat going into the final seventy-two hours.

...

We huddled that Friday night. Next morning we met early at the department's headquarters. The country was unaware that all levels of government had quietly ramped up security several weeks before the election, although not to the level that would have been required had we actually gone to a higher public threat level (orange). The timing of the tape may have been a surprise; the content was not. Within the department no one felt it necessary to consider additional security measures or to call the Homeland Security Council into session.

In a conference call with members of the Bush administration's national security and counter-terrorism team, Ridge pushed back against the request, which Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were eagerly promoting.

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