[kj] ot - there's just no connection

[nicholas fitzpatrick]

So is the US media turning against Bush in the run up to the election? 
What's the feeling over there about whether he'll win?

cheers
Tony Blair





>From: fluwdot@earthlink.net
>Reply-To: gathering@misera.net
>To: gathering@misera.net
>Subject: [kj] ot - there's just no connection
>Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2004 22:08:35 -0500
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-
>retaliation.html?ex=1080743908&ei=1&en=7b065e118508cef0
>Ex - Advisor Says Bush Eyed Bombing of Iraq
>on 9 / 11
>By REUTERS
>{PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT="}
>Published: March 19, 2004
>
>Filed at 7:21 p.m. ET
>NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former White House anti-terrorism advisor says
>the Bush administration considered bombing Iraq in retaliation after Sept. 
>11,
>2001 even though it was clear al Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the
>World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
>Richard Clarke, who headed a cybersecurity board that gleaned intelligence
>from the Internet, told CBS ``60 Minutes'' in an interview to be aired on
>Sunday he was surprised administration officials turned immediately toward
>Iraq instead of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
>
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>
>
>
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>
>``They were talking about Iraq on 9/11. They were talking about it on 
>9/12,''
>Clarke says.
>Clarke said he was briefing President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald
>Rumsfeld among other top officials in the aftermath of the devastating 
>attacks.
>``Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq. ... We all said, 'but no, no. 
>Al
>Qaeda is in Afghanistan,'' recounts Clarke, ``and Rumsfeld said, 'There 
>aren't
>any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in 
>Iraq.'''
>Clarke, an advisor to four presidents, left his position in February 2003 
>after
>the White House transferred functions of the cybersecurity board to 
>Homeland
>Security.
>Clarke's comments are the latest to raise the question of the Bush
>administration's focus on overthrowing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
>Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, fired in a shake-up of Bush's
>economic team in December 2002, told ``60 Minutes'' in an interview aired 
>in
>January he never saw any evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction --
>Bush's main justification for going to war.
>O'Neill also charged that Bush entered office intent on invading Iraq and
>ousting its leader, Saddam Hussein.
>``I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection'' between Iraq 
>and
>al Qaeda, Clarke tells ``60 Minutes.''
>``But the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting 
>there,
>saying, 'We've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and
>there's just no connection,''' says Clarke.
>
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