What did Secretary Tom Ridge underscore?
Thomas Joseph Ridge (born August 26, 1945) is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives (1983–1995), Governor of Pennsylvania (1995–2001), Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (2001–2003), and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security (2003–2005). Since re-entering the private sector, Ridge has served on the boards of The Home Depot and The Hershey Company and as a senior advisor to Deloitte & Touche, and TechRadium. Ridge is also the founder and CEO of Ridge Global, LLC, a Washington, D.C. based security consulting firm. Ridge spent time campaigning with fellow Republican, Senator John McCain during his 2008 bid for the presidency and was believed by some to have been in the short list of potential running mates.[1][2] More recently, he has accussed the then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General Ashcroft of pressuring him to raise the terror alert level, running up to the 2004 elections. In hi
Keith rightly states that “terror used for gain is terrorism.” That is the sum and total of the issue discussed in this video. According the Tom Ridge, former Secretary of Homeland Security, that is exactly how the Bush administration used the terror level charts. Join Keith and John Dean as they discuss Tom Ridge’s revelations in his new book, ‘The Test of Our Times.’Ridge reveals what many knew all along, the terrorism alerts were an extremely effective tool for improving the president’s popularity at key times, and keeping the public distracted enough to hand our freedoms over to the Bush administration in unprecedented ways. It is no joke that the campaign slogan could have been “Vote for Us or You Will Die!” As secretary of Homeland Security, Ridge was never privy to meetings which took place before he received orders from Ashcroft and Rummy to raise terror levels. He relates a fascinating instance demonstrating this, which took place four days before the election of 2004. It appe
Secretary Tom Ridge underscored the critical importance of a sustained international cooperation in the fight against terrorism. Sources: www.rsis.edu.sg/publications/newsletter/IDSSnews-0402.
