BUSH REGIME PRESSURED HOMELAND CHIEF TO RAISE THREAT LEVEL BEFORE ELECTION

NY Daily News - Top advisers to George W. Bush pressed for a politically-motivated terror alert a few days before the 2004 election, ex-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge charges in a new book. . . "Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Rumsfeld," Ridge writes in the book due out Sept. 1 by St. Martin's Press. No intelligence hinted of a new attack. Ridge aides objected to the White House and no change was made to the threat level. Mark Corallo, Ashcroft's spokesman in 2004, denied the ex-AG played politics with national security, and said Ridge should "use his emergency duct tape" on himself. But exhaustive research by the Daily News in 2004 found that Ashcroft's Justice Department rolled out terrorism announcements frequently to give Bush a boost in the polls against Democrat John Kerry.