US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday defended the Bush administration's focus on Iraq after taking power in January 2001, saying it was the only country in the world at the time where Americans were coming under attack.
"When I came into office and the president came into office, the only place in the world that the Americans were being shot at was Iraq," Rumsfeld said in an interview with Fox television.
"Our aircraft and our air crews were flying northern no-fly zones and southern no-fly zone watches, monitoring UN resolutions and almost on a weekly basis, our planes were being shot at," he said.
"And the president was concerned about it, I was concerned about it," Rumsfeld said.
"And we had spent a good deal of time talking about how would we respond in the event one of our planes were shot down and the crew was killed, or what would we do if the crew were captured.
"And so, there was discussion of Iraq, and properly so, in my view," he said.
Rumsfeld rejected charges in a new book by former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke that the administration of President George W. Bush was obsessed with Iraq even after it was clear the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington had been carried out by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
Former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill made similar charges in a book released in January in which he said the Bush administration was looking for a reason to invade Iraq shortly after taking office.
"The president's instructions were: what organisation, singular or plural, ought to be held accountable for this (9/11)?" Rumsfeld said. "And there was discussion of a variety of them. And the decision was made, Afghanistan and al Qaeda."
Rumsfeld also replied to the charges in an interview with ABC television.
"I mean, if one looks at what was done, we went to Afghanistan, we didn't go to Iraq," he said. "And it wasn't an easy task. It was a highly successful effort.
"And it did not destroy al Qaeda, but it certainly took away their training haven, and it certainly destroyed the Taleban and eliminated them from running that country.
"That's what the president's action was. It wasn't Iraq, it was Afghanistan."
Asked whether the president should emulate Clarke and apologise to the families of the victims for 9/11, Rumsfeld said: "I think the president has recognised the failure that existed and the concern he has for those people and the fact that the government, our government, was there and that attack took place.
"I don't know quite what else one would do," he told ABC.
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