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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johannes Pilch who wrote (598919)	8/3/2004 1:25:16 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

<font color=brown>He he........you need to do a liar's memorial to Mr. Ridge. He lies and lies and lies.......in fact, he can't stop lying! ;~) <font color=black> *************************************************** Ridge Defends 'Three-Year-Old' Terror Alert** By Mark Egan NEW YORK (Reuters) - The decision to warn key U.S. financial centers they may be attacked by al Qaeda was based largely on three-year old information, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said on Tuesday, but he insisted the threat was still real. Ridge's appearance in New York at the Citigroup building named on Sunday as a potential al Qaeda target came as U.S. terrorism intelligence has come under fire again, this time for forcing police in New York, Washington and New Jersey to massively increase security based on old information. "I don't want anyone to disabuse themselves of the seriousness of this information simply because there are some reports that much of it is dated, it might be two or three years old," Ridge said. But he insisted al Qaeda had updated its surveillance of financial buildings, "as recently as January this year." "This is the most significant, detailed pieces of information about any particular region that we have come across in a long, long time, perhaps ever," he said. The latest "code Orange" warning drew mild scorn from U.S. allies in the war on terror, who say such high-profile alerts cause panic and could undermine trust in intelligence. Ridge denied there was any political motivation behind raising the terror alert when President Bush (news - web sites) and his Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) are neck-and-neck in polls ahead of November's presidential election. "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," he told reporters. "This is not about politics. It's about confidence in government." TERROR ALERT He said there was no information on the potential timing of any attack and there was no evidence of more recent surveillance by al Qaeda of the buildings named in the latest terror alert. Some New Yorkers expressed skepticism. Jorge Diaz, a Times Square building safety worker, suggested the government was overcompensating for failing to point out that the nation might be attacked three years ago. "At a certain point it becomes exaggerated," Diaz said. U.S. intelligence gathering came under fire from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and again for using intelligence to justify the war in Iraq (news - web sites). On Monday, Bush endorsed creating a national intelligence director and backed some other reforms recommended by the commission. In response to the fresh alert, police toting machine guns have manned key sites in New York and truck traffic in and out of Manhattan via bridges and tunnels has been restricted. Also named in the alert were the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites), the International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) and World Bank (news - web sites) in Washington and the Prudential Financial building in Newark, New Jersey. The high-profile police presence in New York comes when officials here have complained about a lack of funds from Washington for a city deemed at high risk of attack. The city now has 4,000 fewer police officers than it had on Sept. 11, 2001, when planes hijacked by al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, killing almost 2,800 people. New York, with 8 million people, secured only $5.47 per head in homeland security grants in 2004 -- the second lowest in the nation -- compared to $38.31 per person in Wyoming. On Sunday, the United States raised its terror level to Orange or "High," the nation's second highest readiness for attack. The alert differed from earlier ones by specifically naming targets, all of them at the heart of the capitalist system -- Citigroup is the world's largest financial services firm, the NYSE the world's biggest stock exchange, Prudential is a major insurance firm and the IMF (news - web sites) and World Bank are used to head off global economic crises. In Washington, some streets have been shut to traffic and police have set up a security perimeter around the U.S. Capitol to inspect cars and trucks. Barricades have been erected at Prudential in Newark to guard against truck bombs. (Additional reporting in New York by Christine Kearney and Javier David) reuters.com