US intel officials play the terror card, and make a damning admission

[RBHam]

by Patrick Martin
wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/goss-f19.shtml
exerpt:
While Bush’s top counterterrorism aides made their appearance on Capitol Hill, the Associated Press reported important details of previous efforts to use the threat of terrorism as a political weapon on behalf of the Bush administration and Bush’s reelection campaign.

The AP reported February 17 that former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge had met privately with Republican pollsters twice in a period of 10 days last spring, just as he was embarking on a series of speaking engagements in presidential battleground states. Ridge met with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff, on May 17 and May 26.

Ridge was later criticized for timing his terrorism alerts so as to bolster the Bush reelection campaign, including one just after the Democratic Party’s nominating convention in Boston. Ridge’s ominous warnings took the media spotlight off newly nominated Democratic candidate John Kerry for several days. The former homeland security secretary responded to criticisms with the cynical and dishonest statement: “We don’t do politics in the Department of Homeland Security.”

The AP revealed that at the time Ridge uttered those words, his aides at the Department of Homeland Security were fighting to prevent the press from obtaining Ridge’s appointment calendars, showing his meetings with Luntz and McInturff. They were finally handed over to AP three days after Ridge left office.

[KG]

1. anybody notice how the almost daily terror warnings

almost disappeared after the iraq invasion?

[gordianot]

2. ................and since the election. n/t

[teamster633]

3. Apparently the terra-ists are duly terrified by the wrath of *.

How else to explain the paucity of terra warnings since shrub was elected? Guess they got the message, huh?

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. One more piece to add to the damning equation: TERRORISM = GOP PR

This information needs to be added to the files being collected as evidence that this administration is deliberately manipulating the fear of terrorism to push its political agenda.

If only we could get evidence of the agendas of those meetings between Ridge and the GOP strategists. Claims that the discussion was only on how to make Ridge's appeals to the public on behalf of legitimate Homeland Security goals more effective ring very false, but unless I am missing something here, we can't disprove that....yet.

[stray cat]

5. I thought they promised terrorist attacks only if Kerry was elected?

[teamster633]

7. If you can't trust a terrorist who can you...a...well...maybe not...

[drm604]

6. Does anybody have a link to to the AP report cited in this article? n/t

[LynnTheDem]

10. Yep

Ridge, Pollsters Met During Bush Campaign

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0217-01.htm

or

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050217/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/ridge_gop_pollsters

[drm604]

12. Thanks. We should give that Yahoo story a 5 rating. n/t

[proud patriot]

8. BASTARDS

:grr:

[in_cog_ni_to]

9. Just when I think I couldn't hate those people

any more than I already do. :grr::nuke::grr::nuke::grr::nuke:

[Spazito]

11. And the 'terra, terra, terra' alerts are back right on time...

poll numbers down, 'Gannon' interest up, defense budget in. One can set their 'clock' by their warnings, just check the media headlines everyday, like the weather, if the headlines are bad for bush, here comes the 'terra' warnings.