With controversial CIA Director George Tenet’s departure as a backdrop, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warns that terrorists linked to al-Qaida might be plotting attacks to mess with U.S. elections.

Then the U.S. Senate issues a scathing report outlining CIA lapses and exaggerated evidence leading to the U.S. war with Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein.

Conspiracy theories run rampant. Immediately, one group sympathetic with Democrats calls Ridge’s warning a Bush-Cheney “covert operation” to kill — yes, kill! — John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, during the Boston convention.

Whoa, get a grip.

The “covert” e-mail was so outrageous I won’t even bother identifying the group to give it any credibility.

Propaganda abounds on all sides. But in the interest of national security, Americans on all sides should be focusing on the facts and on what history has taught us. Basing one’s beliefs on conspiracies without facts to back up such blather is dangerous indeed.

Ridge has a tough job ahead. Americans have been treated to a rainbow of color-coded warnings since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and few specifics. It’s tempting to dismiss the latest warning as an election-year gimmick by the GOP to scare the voters into keeping President Bush in office.

But the reality is that terrorists did cause havoc in Spain before that country’s elections. There’s precedent. Of course, there’s propaganda, too. Spain’s conservatives blame those attacks for voters’ switch to a liberal administration. That, too, is a lazy assumption to cover political failings.

Remember, most Spaniards were against their country sending troops to Iraq to take part in Bush’s “coalition of the willing.” The conservatives were not in a popular position even before the spring terrorist attacks.

It stands to reason there should be increased vigilance in this country, with or without an election. Osama bin Laden remains at large. The bungled war in Iraq has, in fact, helped terrorist groups recruit more young men who before the war may have disliked the United States but now, having had errant bombs hit their homes or kill their families, have reason to hate us.

As the U.S. death toll in Iraq rises, many Americans, too, are losing faith in the war. Some people want U.S. troops to leave right away, but that, too, would be foolish. We have to help that region achieve peace or we risk more attacks here — what we need is more United Nations backing in Iraq.

The most important lessons come from bipartisan reports of U.S. intelligence miscues leading to 9-11 and the war in Iraq. Both the 9-11 commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee point to the CIA for lapses leading to 9-11 and for jumping to wrong conclusions based on exaggerations on WMD and nuclear capabilities in Iraq.

The Bush administration wasn’t the only one working from bad intelligence about Iraq. So were European countries, and even President Clinton has defended Bush on the issue.

Almost three years after 9-11 we still haven’t done the type of reforms needed to strengthen U.S. intelligence, beginning with an overhaul of the CIA and handing real authority to the homeland-security agency that’s supposed to coordinate among all other intelligence agencies. That’s what the president and both parties in Congress should focus on. Instead, they bicker about each other’s motivations in exposing intelligence flaws (Blame Bush/ Blame Clinton).

The blame game and conspiracy theories may be entertaining, but they don’t help make us any safer.

Myriam Marquez is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Her e-mail address is mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com.