here's an accompanying news video that goes alond with the story- pass it on to talk show hosts...
http://espanol.video.yahoo.com/watch/5793169/15166919
Day 2 I bought socks.......
Ridge is a damnable liar. I don't believe for a minute that Rumsfeld would do this. And, there is NO WAY that John Ashcroft, as pious and God-fearing as he is, would ever ask someone to lie TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY, merely for a political cheap trick - wouldn't happen.
Ashcroft, as it turns out was the one guy speaking the loudest against water-boarding (which was a mistake, but is neither here nor there) - much louder than Powell. It is not in Ashcroft's DNA to deceive like this. Period.
Love how people turn into whores at the direction of their publishers.
Every so often someone floats Ridge as a presidential candidate—I hope this puts all of that to rest, permanently.
To be on the safe side it is probably best to assume that everything he is saying or has ever said is a lie. To do otherwise would be naive.
“Ridge is trying to profit by separating himself politically from Bush.”
He (or his publisher) likely recognized that he had to say something to get some comments in the lib press.
However, what he actually says is that we wasn’t sure if alert levels were political or not.
There seems to be cause for thinking they were NOT political, and that he failed to grasp the larger picture of OBL and AQ’s public messages.
In 2001, the intelligence community was discredited, following the attack and MANY false alarms (including nuke reports) after 9/11.
Ridge missed most of this, and didn’t understand the context of mistrusting “quiet” intelligence.
The administration was very, very tramatized by what happened, expecially in the weeks after 9/11, at how rotten our intelligence was. We came very close to a few brinks during this time, based on false reports. Only wisdom and a steady hand in the WH saved us (stratfor has a lot on this).
Why would they think that Ridge or his brand new department would be able to see trouble coming? They (HSD) were all rookies, and new to the intelligence game.
CYA. Ridge must be looking for a new job.
Ridge, Mel Martinez, and McCain can all vanish from U.S. politics for life and things would be better off...total losers.
Ridge did what all politicians do: put his own and his party’s ambition and gain above truth or the good of the nation. Another news flash: water is wet.
Germany fears terror attacks ahead of elections
July 11th, 2009
Asperg (Germany), July 11 (DPA) Terrorists are planning an attack in Germany ahead of general elections Sep 27, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Saturday.
He said “friendly” intelligence services had informed their German counterparts of internet discussions about a possible attack designed to disrupt the parliamentary vote.
Was a law broken, assuming what Ridge said in his “Look at me, I wanna sell a book” tour is true?
POSSBILE ANSWERS:
“Yes, a law is broken”...then Ridge should be prosecuted for not reporting.
“No, a law was not broken”...then this is Ridge just rambling.
Madrid.
On March 11, 2004, Islamic terrorists set off the infamous ‘Madrid train bombings’, just before the Spanish elections. The conservative party had been leading, but the Socialists won. I can see where the Bush administration thought that al-Qaeda might have wanted to give John Kerry a similar boost.
He doesn’t say anything like the references in the article. He actually says things like “I wondered if...” and “it felt like...”. This piece is a total fabrication.
http://espanol.video.yahoo.com/watch/5793169/15166919
This new contention directly refutes what Ridge told KDKA-TV’s Ken Rice in an interview in June of 2008.
Rice: “Was there ever pressure to raise the alert level for some reason that had nothing to do with the actual threats out there?”
Ridge: “Never.”
Rice: “Never even a hint of that?”
Ridge: “Never. It’s a great question though.”
Ridge went on to point out that he didn’t have authority to raise the alert level alone and that decision had to be a consensus of the president’s Homeland Security Council, including the heads of the departments of State, Defense and Justice and the FBI and CIA.
But for an issue that was quickly dismissed when raised a year ago, Ridge now writes that he was so disturbed by what happened in 2004, it reinforced his decision to resign from the Bush administration.
On CNN Friday, President Bush’s former Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend denied Ridge’s new claim and said she thinks Ridge is trying to profit by separating himself politically from Bush.
Ridge’s DC office has not responded to KDKA-TV’s request for comment.
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Now, to see how many people are willing to spend money in this economy on a book of lies.
What a scumbag. This sounds like pillow talk between Ridge and Scott McClellan, another useless lightweight with no ethics.