Rumsfeld reveals Iraq strike plan

Ex-Pentagon chief wanted raid to coincide with UN speech

WASHINGTON - Former US defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reveals in his new book that he urged a US military strike on a suspected chemical weapons site in northern Iraq in 2003, and that he wanted the attack timed to coincide with Colin Powell's address to the UN Security Council making the case for war.

In his memoir, Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld wrote that the Joint Chiefs of Staff supported a strike, based on what Rumsfeld called extensive but not conclusive CIA evidence that the site housed an underground facility for testing chemical weapons. He called it a "fairly sizeable terrorist operation".