http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-10-ridge-alerts_x.htm
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WASHINGTON — The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.

Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.

Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "

Revising or scrapping the color-coded alert system is under review by new Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said "improvements and adjustments" may be announced within the next few months.

The threat level was last raised on a nationwide scale in December 2003, to orange from yellow — or "elevated" risk — where the alert level is now. In most cases, Ridge said Homeland Security officials didn't want to raise the level because they knew local governments and businesses would have to spend money putting temporary security upgrades in place.

"You have to use that tool of communication very sparingly," Ridge said at the forum, which was attended by seven other former department leaders.

The level is raised if a majority on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council favors it and President Bush concurs. Among those on the council with Ridge were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI chief Robert Mueller, CIA director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Ridge and Ashcroft publicly clashed over how to communicate threat information to the public. But Ridge has never before discussed internal dissention over the threat level.

The color-coded system was controversial from the start. Polls showed the public found it confusing.

I found it confusing.

Originally posted by patrick
There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it

COLOR ME SURPRISED.

Originally posted by neopryn
i'm patrick stein wah wah wah

You killed it.

Originally posted by Mayfuck


You killed it.

what the heck man, he didn't even say that!

ASTOUNDING.

the entire department of homeland security was created on a flimsy premise.

Jon Stewert tried to get him to say that last week, but he wasn't biting then.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'"

In most cases, Ridge said Homeland Security officials didn't want to raise the level because they knew local governments and businesses would have to spend money putting temporary security upgrades in place.

Money? What a joke. They're willing to risk lives because to warn people might cost too much? This is what people should be getting mad about, not the gun-jumping over the threat level. I'd rather be warned about a potential attack based upon flimsy evidence than not warned because some bureaucrat doesn't think its cost effective.

Originally posted by Corganist




Money? What a joke. They're willing to risk lives because to warn people might cost too much? This is what people should be getting mad about, not the gun-jumping over the threat level. I'd rather be warned about a potential attack based upon flimsy evidence than not warned because some bureaucrat doesn't think its cost effective.

You may be right, but also consider how effective most of the security measures that governments and businesses would have to put in place are. The company I work for has had to bend over backward just to stay in business when it comes to implementing security measures. 99% of those measures are both costly and quite useless in defending against any sort of terrorist attack. Those measures hamper our operation, prevent us from deploying personell and equipment in the ways needed to best run the company, have begun to endanger our personell, and prevent us from serving our customers to the furthest degree that we were able to until the homeland security rules went into effect in 2003. Yet, if we don't comply with what the department of homeland security decides we need to do to be 'secure', they will force our business to cease operations.

And all that is just what we have to do at a low-level 'back</>ground' threat level. Had the threat level been raised periodically on 'flimsy evidence', I doubt our company would be able to continue operations. About 70 people would lose their jobs, and many other businesses in the area who serve people who are drawn to our business would probably suffer a little too. That would be all fine and good if the shutdown of our company would've saved lives, made people safer, or prevented a terrorist attack. But given months of up-close and personal experience with the security measures the company is forced to take, and given the nature of terrorist attacks, I am certain that 99% of those security measures would not have the positive benefits that they are supposed to. The 1% that might have a chance are the least costly and least intrusive to the correct operation of the company.

At that point, I'd say raising the threat level amounts to a very costly instance of crying wolf.

Originally posted by Mariner


You may be right, but also consider how effective most of the security measures that governments and businesses would have to put in place are. The company I work for has had to bend over backward just to stay in business when it comes to implementing security measures. 99% of those measures are both costly and quite useless in defending against any sort of terrorist attack. Those measures hamper our operation, prevent us from deploying personell and equipment in the ways needed to best run the company, have begun to endanger our personell, and prevent us from serving our customers to the furthest degree that we were able to until the homeland security rules went into effect in 2003. Yet, if we don't comply with what the department of homeland security decides we need to do to be 'secure', they will force our business to cease operations.

And all that is just what we have to do at a low-level 'back</>ground' threat level. Had the threat level been raised periodically on 'flimsy evidence', I doubt our company would be able to continue operations. About 70 people would lose their jobs, and many other businesses in the area who serve people who are drawn to our business would probably suffer a little too. That would be all fine and good if the shutdown of our company would've saved lives, made people safer, or prevented a terrorist attack. But given months of up-close and personal experience with the security measures the company is forced to take, and given the nature of terrorist attacks, I am certain that 99% of those security measures would not have the positive benefits that they are supposed to. The 1% that might have a chance are the least costly and least intrusive to the correct operation of the company.
All that only sways me slightly, in that I don't like the idea of the government shutting down private businesses for something like homeland security violations. I think that if the choice is between enacting these measures and staying in business, then staying in business should be the right choice. I'm more in favor of these security measures being recommendations as opposed to requirements. Nevertheless, I think the choice to follow them or not should come with the caveat that a failure to enact the measures that ultimately allows a terrorist attack to happen should bring liability upon that company for all the lives lost and damage incurred from the attack. That way, regular people can still be warned and businesses can go on and do their thing, for better or for worse. If a company wants to gamble that they know better how to prevent terror attacks than the government does, that's their right...but it shouldn't come at everyone else's expense.

At that point, I'd say raising the threat level amounts to a very costly instance of crying wolf.
The threat level is a good idea in theory, but in the end its just a government CYA measure. That way, the next time something happens, they can just say: "The threat level was orange/red we had prepared as best as we could!" I really wouldn't call it crying wolf though. Its just imprecise.

Originally posted by gurr8
Jon Stewert tried to get him to say that last week, but he wasn't biting then.

Jon tried to get him to say that they raised the levels for political reasons and motivations. Of course he wouldn't bite to that. He still isn't saying that now. What he's saying is that there occured internal disputes over whether or not the level should be raised at certain times. As much as we may like to play connect the dots, we cannot infer what really wasn't said.

Originally posted by Sapphire


Jon tried to get him to say that they raised the levels for political reasons and motivations. Of course he wouldn't bite to that. He still isn't saying that now. What he's saying is that there occured internal disputes over whether or not the level should be raised at certain times. As much as we may like to play connect the dots, we cannot infer what really wasn't said.

It looks to me like what he is saying is "yah, it was raised for political reasons, but against my objections."

Originally posted by gurr8


It looks to me like what he is saying is "yah, it was raised for political reasons, but against my objections."
Funny that he never said that

cute and simplistic, maybe, but a good anecdotal opinion piece (for what that's worth) about the international side of all of this.

America's DNA

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: June 1, 2005

New Delhi

A few years ago my youngest daughter participated in the National History Day program for eighth graders. The question that year was "turning points" in history, and schoolchildren across the land were invited to submit a research project that illuminated any turning point in history. My daughter's project was "How Sputnik Led to the Internet." It traced how we reacted to the Russian launch of Sputnik by better networking our scientific research centers and how those early, crude networks spread and eventually were woven into the Internet. The subtext was how our reaction to one turning point unintentionally triggered another decades later.

I worry that 20 years from now some eighth grader will be doing her National History Day project on how America's reaction to 9/11 unintentionally led to an erosion of core elements of American identity. What sparks such dark thoughts on a trip from London to New Delhi?

In part it is the awful barriers that now surround the U.S. Embassy in London on Grosvenor Square. "They have these cages all around the embassy now, and these huge concrete blocks, and the whole message is: 'Go away!' " said Kate Jones, a British literary agent who often walks by there. "That is how people think of America now, and it's a really sad thing because that is not your country."

In part it was a conversation with friends in London, one a professor at Oxford, another an investment banker, both of whom spoke about the hassles, fingerprinting, paperwork and costs that they, pro-American professionals, now must go through to get a visa to the U.S.

In part it was a recent chat with the folks at Intel about the obstacles they met trying to get visas for Muslim youths from Pakistan and South Africa who were finalists for this year's Intel science contest. And in part it was a conversation with M.I.T. scientists about the new restrictions on Pentagon research contracts - in terms of the nationalities of the researchers who could be involved and the secrecy required - that were constricting their ability to do cutting-edge work in some areas and forcing intellectual capital offshore. The advisory committee of the World Wide Web recently shifted its semiannual meeting from Boston to Montreal so as not to put members through the hassle of getting visas to the U.S.

The other day I went to see the play "Billy Elliot" in London. During intermission, a man approached me and asked, "Are you Mr. Friedman?" When I said yes, he introduced himself - Emad Tinawi, a Syrian-American working for Booz Allen. He told me that while he disagreed with some things I wrote, there was one column he still keeps. "It was the one called, 'Where Birds Don't Fly,' " he said.

I remembered writing that headline, but I couldn't remember the column. Then he reminded me: It was about the new post-9/11 U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, which looks exactly like a maximum-security prison, so much so that a captured Turkish terrorist said that while his pals considered bombing it, they concluded that the place was so secure that even birds couldn't fly there. Mr. Tinawi and I then swapped impressions about the corrosive impact such security restrictions were having on foreigners' perceptions of America.

In New Delhi, the Indian writer Gurcharan Das remarked to me that with each visit to the U.S. lately, he has been forced by border officials to explain why he is coming to America. They "make you feel so unwanted now," said Mr. Das. America was a country "that was always reinventing itself," he added, because it was a country that always welcomed "all kinds of oddballs" and had "this wonderful spirit of openness." American openness has always been an inspiration for the whole world, he concluded. "If you go dark, the world goes dark."

Bottom line: We urgently need a national commission to look at all the little changes we have made in response to 9/11 - from visa policies to research funding, to the way we've sealed off our federal buildings, to legal rulings around prisoners of war - and ask this question: While no single change is decisive, could it all add up in a way so that 20 years from now we will discover that some of America's cultural and legal essence - our DNA as a nation - has become badly deformed or mutated?

This would be a tragedy for us and for the world. Because, as I've argued, where birds don't fly, people don't mix, ideas don't get sparked, friendships don't get forged, stereotypes don't get broken, and freedom doesn't ring.

Originally posted by Mariner
In part it is the awful barriers that now surround the U.S. Embassy in London on Grosvenor Square. "They have these cages all around the embassy now, and these huge concrete blocks, and the whole message is: 'Go away!' " said Kate Jones, a British literary agent who often walks by there. "That is how people think of America now, and it's a really sad thing

the new post-9/11 U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, which looks exactly like a maximum-security prison, so much so that a captured Turkish terrorist said that while his pals considered bombing it, they concluded that the place was so secure that even birds couldn't fly there. Mr. Tinawi and I then swapped impressions about the corrosive impact such security restrictions were having on foreigners' perceptions of America.

This would be a tragedy for us and for the world. Because, as I've argued, where birds don't fly, people don't mix, ideas don't get sparked, friendships don't get forged, stereotypes don't get broken, and freedom doesn't ring. Uh HELLO Friedman. Your little friends may be sad that it "looks scary" but scary looks prevented an embassy bomb.

Also nice "I was just minding my own business when I was approached by a fan" anecdote

meh. F tom ridge. he's still a fuck head.

Originally posted by Nimrod's Son
Uh HELLO Friedman. Your little friends may be sad that it "looks scary" but scary looks prevented an embassy bomb.


don't you find that part of the story kind of doubtful? if a terrorist was determined enough i'm fairly sure they could've figured something out.

i'm sure there is a degree of fortification that would be pretty much terrorist conventional bomb-proof, but my guess is that actually getting to that level is quite cost prohibitive.

don't you think turning an embassy into a fortress kind of defeats the purpose of having an embassy? if we have to make one of our embassies into a battle fortification, maybe we should remove our embassy from that location (if not nation) altogether.

Originally posted by Mariner

don't you think turning an embassy into a fortress kind of defeats the purpose of having an embassy? if we have to make one of our embassies into a battle fortification, maybe we should remove our embassy from that location (if not nation) altogether.
Why does an embassy that's open and/or insecure fulfill the purpose of an embassy any better than a fortified one does? The purpose of an embassy is not to provide open arms and good feelings to the citizens of the host country (not to mention any terrorist who might want to walk in and blow it up). Its there for US diplomats to have a place to work for the interest of the US government and its citizens in that country. The fact that the building looks menacing or whatever doesn't have one iota of effect on that, other than keeping the building standing and the people inside alive I guess.

I'm sure the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were very open and welcoming while they were still around...