U.S.: Tom Ridge sez Bush was using the warning system to play politics
- Ridge says they tried to use it just before the election. Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge dropped out of the Bush administration after the first term due (in part) to his concern that the administration was using terror alerts to play politics. The 2004 election incident, specifically, pushed him over the edge. “After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector,” he wrote in his new book. source