The Bush administration considered retaliatory bombings in Iraq almost immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to a former White House counterterrorism advisor.

The advisor, Richard Clarke, said Donald Rumsfeld proposed bombing Iraq on Sept. 12, complaining that "there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq." They had already ascertained al Qaeda was the culprit.

Clarke's claim comes in his upcoming book, "Against All Enemies," in which he asserts that the administration "wanted to believe there was a connection" between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. A spokesman for Rumsfeld did not comment.

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