Bush administration politicized 'terror alerts'

AFP has the story:

WASHINGTON — Former US homeland security chief Tom Ridge charges in a new book that top aides to then-president George W. Bush pressured him to raise the "terror alert" level to sway the November 2004 US election.

Then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general John Ashcroft pushed him to elevate the color-coded threat level, but Ridge refused, according to a summary from his publisher, Thomas Dunne Books.

..."Just like they did in Iraq, the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence to cause fear in the public to further its political goals," [Senator Frank Lautenberg] said in a statement.