No subject

information and pushing aides to consider what kind of evidence the United 
States needed to justify a military response, said Rumsfeld's spokeswoman, 
Victoria Clarke, who was with him there much of that day.

He also instructed aides to start considering the types of military action 
that could be taken, she said.

Clarke said she recalled Rumsfeld and others with him in the command center 
saying they needed to consider the dimensions of a possible U.S. military 
response -- possibly to include those who harbor terrorists, as well as the 
terrorists themselves.

So far the only U.S. military attacks have been against Afghanistan, where 
al-Qaida ran terrorist training camps under the protection of the Taliban 
regime. Those attacks were launched Oct. 7.

CBS News reported Wednesday evening that Rumsfeld told aides that day to draw 
up plans for striking Iraq and asked whether available intelligence 
information was ``good enough'' to justify such strikes.

Clarke, who noted that she was not with Rumsfeld in the National Military 
Command Center the entire day, said she had no recollection -- from her own 
notes or from memory -- of Rumsfeld's mentioning Iraq.