[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/01/ridge.tom.cnn.art.jpg caption="Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says he was not second-guessing his colleagues."]

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge became the very first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security after the attacks of 9/11. And in his new book, "Test of our Times: America Under Siege… And How We Can Be Safe Again," he opens up about the Bush White House.

The book is generating a lot of heat these days over implications that politics may have played a role in a proposal to raise the terror alert level before the 2004 presidential election.

Tom Ridge joined John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.

John Roberts: The particular area in the book that's generating a lot of controversy, a lot of conversation, is the part where you talk about in the days after Bin Laden released that videotape, just before the election of 2004, I guess it was five days before, you wrote of that – and this was the discussion of whether or not to raise the terror alert level – you say, “Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Rumsfeld. There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’” Walk us through your thought process when you wrote the book. Why did you even raise the issue of is this about politics or security?

Tom Ridge: Obviously, I'm musing in the book. I'm not speculating about my colleagues' motives, but this is a dramatic weekend. It is a weekend before a national election. This is the only time I really discuss a process that we used throughout my entire time as secretary when we decided…

Roberts: But why did you think it might be about politics?

Ridge: Well, at that time, as the individual who is responsible for the overseeing if we went up in the general threat level, I'm just saying in there, we were universally opposed to raising it in the department. And I'm kind of musing and scratching my head and I've got two people whose opinions I respect immensely, I’m not second guessing them, but I just say in the book, “Is it politics?” Perhaps the sentence should have been in a paragraph later – we wouldn’t be having a conversation. But I just want to make it very clear, I'm not second-guessing my colleagues, because I worked with them every single day.

FULL POST