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  1. hey, it take alot of time and dedication to find news articles and post them here. I seriously don't appreciate you saying these are "spam". Take a look at the site's Spam Policy before you classify a post as spam.
  2. Nevermind, i reread the instructions
  3. By Michelle Nichols Tue Sep 26, 6:38 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Footage of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin's death will never be shown on television, his wife said in her first interview since the exuberant naturalist was killed by the serrated barb of a stingray's tail. ADVERTISEMENT Asked in an interview with the ABC News program "20/20" whether the footage of Irwin's September 4 death would ever be aired on television, Terri Irwin was blunt and emphatic. "It won't be. No. No. What purpose would that serve,' she said, adding that she had not looked at the footage of her husband's death. That footage shows Irwin swimming above a stingray, while filming a documentary off Australia's northeast coast, when it lashed out and speared him in the heart with its barbed tail, according to Irwin's manager, John Stainton, who said Irwin pulled the barb from his chest before losing consciousness. U.S.-born Terri Irwin said her 44-year-old husband knew he would not live a long life. "He'd talk about it often. But it wasn't because of any danger from wildlife. That was never a consideration. He just felt life could be dangerous," she said in the interview, to be broadcast in the United States on Wednesday evening. Irwin's family and friends held a private funeral at his beloved Australia Zoo -- where he was also buried. A public televised memorial service was held at the zoo's "Crocoseum" last Wednesday. His 46 "Crocodile Hunter" documentaries were watched by 200 million people around the world and his death prompted an international outpouring of grief. His wife told of how she had been traveling in a remote part of southern Australia doing research with the couple's children, Bindi Sue, 8, and 2-year-old Robert Clarence when she was told about Irwin's death. "It was an accident so stupid. It was like running with a pencil. It was not risk he was taking," she said. "It was just an accident. And I couldn't fall to pieces because the children were there." Known for his trademark khaki shorts and shirts and catchphrase "Crikey," Irwin grew up around wild animals, trapping crocodiles and releasing them in his parent's reptile park, which would later become Australia Zoo. "I have to make sure the zoo keeps running. He planned all of that masterfully. He planned this wonderful business so that it could continue if anything happened to him," Terri Irwin said. She said she is surviving "one minute at a time" and that what she would miss most about him was that he was fun. "Now I'm going to work really hard at having fun again ... I'm Mrs. Steve Irwin. I've got a lot to live up to," she said.
  4. By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Tue Sep 26, 6:54 PM ET WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts, particularly in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ? part of the Commerce Department ? in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes. According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect. In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported. Leetmaa, head of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment. NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John said he had no details of the report. NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher is currently out of the country, but Nature quoted him as saying the report was merely an internal document and could not be released because the agency could not take an official position on the issue. However, the journal said in its online report that the study was merely a discussion of the current state of hurricane science and did not contain any policy or position statements. The report drew a prompt response from Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., who charged that "the administration has effectively declared war on science and truth to advance its anti-environment agenda ... the Bush administration continues to censor scientists who have documented the current impacts of global warming." A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures. Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina. Not all agree, however, with opponents arguing that many other factors affect storms, which can increase and decrease in cycles. The possibility of global warming affecting hurricanes is politically sensitive because the administration has resisted proposals to restrict release of gases that can cause warming conditions. In February, a NASA political appointee who worked in the space agency's public relations department resigned after reportedly trying to restrict access to Jim Hansen, a NASA climate scientist who has been active in global warming research.
  5. AP - A man who flagged down a police cruiser for a ride to "a house on the hill" was charged with possession of marijuana. Daniel Paul Steinbach, 19, was standing in the middle of the road waving his arms at a police car Saturday night.
  6. By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer Tue Sep 26, 6:30 PM ET NEW YORK - Wall Street surged higher Tuesday, carrying the Dow Jones industrials to their second-best close ever as positive economic data further buoyed a growing sense of optimism among investors. The Dow closed just 53 points away from its record high close. ADVERTISEMENT Stocks, particularly the blue chips, rose after the Conference Board said its consumer confidence index for September rose more than expected, reaching 104.5 from a revised reading of 100.2 in August. Analysts forecast the index would rise to 103. Also bolstering investor enthusiasm was a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond that showed the region's economy strengthened this month. The bank's manufacturing index came in at 9 versus 3 in August. Jack Albin, chief investment officer with Harris Private Bank, said the market's advance reflects widespread investor enthusiasm and a realization that the Federal Reserve might have room to ease short-term interest rates. He pointed to low inflation and the recent nearly 20 percent pullback in oil prices. "The Fed has a lot more elbow room to lower rates. The Fed could maybe even lower this year." The Dow gained 93.58, or 0.81 percent, to 11,669.39. The Dow's advance put it within range of its high of 11,722.98 set in January 2000. Broader stock indicators also jumped sharply. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose to a five-and-a-half-year high, gaining 9.97, or 0.75 percent, to 1,336.34 and the Nasdaq composite index rose 12.27, or 0.55 percent, to 2,261.34. Bonds fell after a sharp rally Monday in what was perhaps some profit-taking. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.58 percent from 4.54 percent late Monday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose. Light crude oil settled down 44 cents at $61.01 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The slide in oil prices this month has given Wall Street investors optimism that consumer spending will hold up even as the economy slows and therefor help protect corporate profits. Investor sentiment has strengthened since the Fed's August decision to leave interest rates unchanged after a two-year string of 17 straight increases. That enthusiasm became more widespread after the central bank held off again last week, signaling to investors that inflation remained within reasonable limits. Recent reports on the health of the economy appeared to ease concerns held by some that the Fed had overreached in its bid to corral inflation. Aside from a disappointing report last week from the Philadelphia Fed about regional manufacturing activity, investors have grown increasingly confident as more economic findings have trickled out and oil prices have held lower long enough to make a difference at the pump. Alfred E. Goldman, chief market strategist at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., doesn't expect the stock market's gains will last, however. "I don't think we're going to go up, up and away from here. I think you've got momentum and the magnetism of a new record high for the Dow." "I would preach a little caution here." Goldman contends the markets will discount for November's midterm elections by mid-to-late October and that some of the run-up this week could reflect a desire among institutional investors to burnish their third-quarter figures. "This time of the year you also get some window dressing by institutions and also some short covering," he said. "The bears have not had a lot of a fun." Bears wouldn't have been surprised by news from Lowe's, which rose 1 cent to $28.85, despite reducing its full-year profit forecast; it warned that a slowdown in the sector was hurting sales of its home-improvement products. Lennar rose 7 cents to $46.95 even after saying its third-quarter profit fell 39 percent amid sluggishness in the sector and the company, one of the country's biggest homebuilders, trimmed its fourth-quarter forecast. In technology, PMC-Sierra Inc., a maker of communications and storage chips, fell 55 cents, or 8.4 percent, to $6 after cutting its third-quarter sales forecast to $114 million to $116 million from $122 million to $124 million. Innovex Inc., a chip maker, fell 38 cents, or 13.7 percent, to $2.40, after warning its fourth-quarter sales could fall short of expectations. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 2.75 billion shares, compared with 3.80 billion traded Monday. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was up 2.52, or 0.35 percent, at 729.61. Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 0.49 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 closed up 1.30 percent, Germany's DAX index was up 1.00 percent, and France's CAC-40 was up 1.42 percent.
  7. By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 26, 5:17 PM ET CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that Venezuela will summon the U.S. ambassador to issue a diplomatic protest after his foreign minister was temporarily detained by airport authorities in New York. ADVERTISEMENT Chavez suggested he would not dwell on the matter but warned Venezuela would respond with "equal treatment" if the incident were repeated. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro says authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport tried to frisk him and threatened to handcuff him Saturday as he prepared to catch a flight after attending the U.N. General Assembly. "The truth is that I turned the page on that. ... We're going to put out a protest note, and the U.S. ambassador in Venezuela will be called," Chavez told reporters. "And in that protest note, it says, 'If that happens again, we would be obligated to give at least equal treatment to whomever.'" Chavez also slammed U.S. officials for suggesting that Venezuela would make the U.N. Security Council unworkable if the South American nation were to win its bid against U.S.-backed Guatemala for a rotating council seat. "It's more evidence of how the U.S. government sees itself as the owner of the world," Chavez told reporters at the presidential palace. "It's the United States that should leave the Security Council." The U.S. government has sought to block Venezuela's bid for a seat, and the race is to be decided by a secret-ballot U.N. vote next month. On the floor of the United Nations last week, Chavez called President Bush "the devil," increasing already tense relations between Caracas and Washington. The U.S. government has often criticized Chavez, saying he is a destabilizing force in Latin America and questioning his commitment to democracy. Chavez has called the U.S. government the greatest threat facing the world, pointing to the war in Iraq and U.S. invasions of countries from Grenada to Panama. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday that Venezuela would make the Security Council ineffective if it wins a seat. "It would mean the end of consensus on the Security Council. Now, that's a serious matter," Rice was quoted as saying. Referring to the Venezuelan leader's U.N. speech, Rice said, "I think Hugo Chavez did himself no good with that speech. And whatever press attention it got, it also got the attention of a lot of people who worry about the responsibilities of the Security Council." U.S. officials have apologized to Venezuela over the incident involving Maduro at the airport Saturday. The foreign minister said he was detained for 90 minutes in what he called a flagrant violation of international law and his diplomatic immunity. Maduro said when one official ordered him to go to another room for a strip-search, he refused. He said authorities at one point ordered him and other officials to spread their arms and legs and be frisked, but he said they forcefully refused. He said officers also threatened to handcuff him. However, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have denied that Maduro was mistreated, and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on Monday called Maduro's protest "street theater" and propaganda. Chavez praised Maduro for "defending the dignity of all of us" by refusing to let the officials harass him or subject him to additional searches. "The great truth is that the foreign minister was coming back and was abused and disrespected," Chavez said.
  8. SPACE.com / LiveScience.com - Nearly 2,000 years ago, Chinese astronomers spotted a bright light materializing in the night sky. Turns out the skywatchers had witnessed the spectacular explosion of a dying star.
  9. AP - Songwriter Paul Vance, who earned pop culture immortality with the 1960 smash about a bashful bather, "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," has died. He was 68.
  10. By VICKI SMITH, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 26, 6:42 PM ET MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Two miners whose jobs included watching for safety hazards inside the Sago Mine before the deadly explosion last January committed suicide in the past month. Neither man had been blamed for the disaster that killed 12 of their comrades, and neither one's family has definitively linked the suicides to the accident. But those who knew the men say there is little doubt the tragedy haunted them. "I'm not sure anybody ever gets over it," said Vickie Boni, the ex-wife of one of them. "You live with it every day." Both men were working at the Sago Mine on the day of the blast and had been questioned by investigators along with dozens of other witnesses. One former co-worker said at least one of the men felt investigators were treating him as if he had done something wrong. John Nelson Boni, whose job that day was to maintain water pumps, shot himself Saturday at his home in Volga, State Police said. William Lee "Flea" Chisolm, the 47-year-old dispatcher responsible for monitoring carbon monoxide alarms and communicating with crews underground that morning, shot himself at his Belington home Aug. 29, authorities said Tuesday. State and federal mine-safety agencies have not determined the cause of the Jan. 2 blast. But a spokeswomen for both agencies said that both men had been thoroughly interviewed and there had been no plans to talk with them again. Mine owner International Coal Group has said it believes a lightning bolt somehow ignited methane gas that had accumulated naturally in a sealed-off section of the mine. Boni, who was certified as a fireboss and occasionally conducted pre-shift inspections to ensure the safety of incoming crews, told investigators he had detected low levels of methane in that area five days earlier and reported his findings to a supervisor, who was not alarmed. As for Chisholm, he told investigators that a carbon monoxide alarm had sounded about 20 minutes before the explosion. Following ICG procedure, he alerted a crew inside the mine and asked it to verify the alarm because the system that had a history of malfunctions. At a hearing in May, ICG executive Sam Kitts said miners are not required to evacuate when there is an alarm; they verify it, then decide how to proceed. "The dispatcher did what he was supposed to do. He notified a maintenance person who was then able to go up and check the sensor before they would have again advanced onto the section," Kitts testified. Friends and family said Boni retired shortly after the accident, in which the sole survivor among those trapped by the blast was a severely injured Randal McCloy Jr. Chisolm had taken a leave of absence but remained an employee, according to ICG. "We believe that Mr. Chisolm was a very good, hardworking employee," ICG spokesman Ira Gamm said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to each of their families," Gamm said in a statement. Boni's ex-wife said he had never discussed the accident with her, but "I'm sure it had weighed on his mind." Vickie Boni, who divorced Boni 15 years ago but saw him when he picked up their daughter for visits, said her own father died in a coal mine accident when she was a teenager. "It's something you never get over," she said. It was not immediately clear whether Boni left a suicide note. Chisolm did not, the sheriff said. Relatives told investigators Chisolm had been depressed about personal matters and drinking heavily in the weeks before his death. Chisolm's obituary also said he had been ill. Members of the Chisolm family did not immediately return telephone messages Tuesday. Chisolm's brother had visited just before the suicide. As he prepared to leave, Chisolm called out "and more or less said, `I'll be seeing you,'" the sheriff said. Chisolm had 11 years of mining experience and had worked at Sago for a year before the accident. Boni had worked as a coal miner for 36 years and had been at Sago for more than a year. On the morning of the blast, Boni was not in charge of safety; rather, he was restarting a water pump in the mine. He escaped with co-worker Ron Grall and the rest of their crew. Boni and Grall spoke a few weeks later. "He said he just had enough of it," Grall said Tuesday. "The job wasn't stressful. It was just the way the investigators treated him. They treated me the same way. They acted like it was our fault, like we did it. "The way I look at it, it wasn't nobody's fault," he said. "It was one of those freaks of nature that hardly ever happens. It probably happens once in a hundred years, and it may never happen again." ICG provided grief counseling to Sago employees after the accident and has since renewed the offer.
  11. By Anna Driver Tue Sep 26, 4:37 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two men at the heart of corporate greed scandals in America paid the price on Tuesday, as a judge sentenced former Enron Corp. executive Andrew Fastow to prison and Bernard Ebbers, once the chief executive of highflying WorldCom Inc. began serving a 25-year sentence. ADVERTISEMENT The massive accounting scandals at both companies triggered bankruptcies, stoked investor outrage and ultimately led to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance reforms. "Today we see that the system is not completely broken," Nell Minow, co-founder of governance firm the Corporate Library. "Every corporate director and every corporate manager must be feeling goosebumps and that should help every investor feel a little better." Fastow, 44, whose financial wizardry was exposed as fakery and theft in the Enron collapse, was sentenced to six years in prison in Houston by U.S. District Judge Ken Hoyt -- four years less than provided for in his 2004 plea agreement. Judge Hoyt cited Fastow's cooperation with prosecutors, his desire to help victims suing to recover their losses and his visible remorse in imposing the lighter sentence. Noting that the former chief financial officer of Enron forfeited more than $24 million along with another $5 million from friends and family, the judge imposed no fine and recommended a minimum security prison in Bastrop, Texas. Fastow's sentence is light in comparison to the amount of time former WorldCom chief Ebbers is sentenced to serve. Ebbers, 65, convicted of orchestrating an $11 billion accounting fraud, reported to a medium-security federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana to begin his 25-year sentence. The fraud pushed the company into bankruptcy -- the largest ever. As part of the fraud, WorldCom guaranteed $400 million in personal loans to Ebbers, who used the money to pay for a yacht, a sawmill and a sprawling Canadian cattle ranch. Ebbers did not repay the loans, forcing the company to sue to recover, according to accounts from his trial. At a sentencing hearing in 2005, Judge Barbara Jones recommended Ebbers be sent to a minimum-security facility in Yazoo City, Mississippi. But the Bureau of Prisons is not bound by the judge's recommendation. Ebbers, known as a grandfatherly CEO who preferred cowboy boots to suits, transformed WorldCom into a telecommunications powerhouse through a string of takeovers. He was convicted by a jury in March 2005 of nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and other crimes that led to the telecommunications company's July 2002 bankruptcy. He had remained free on bail while appealing his conviction and sentence, but in July the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed both. Under federal rules, Ebbers would be required to serve about 85 percent of his sentence -- meaning that he would not be released until 2028 at the earliest. He suffers from heart disease and his lawyers have said that amounts to a life term. WorldCom emerged from bankruptcy as MCI Inc., which was later acquired by Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ - news). Ebbers agreed last year to forfeit almost all of his personal wealth in a settlement with WorldCom investors.
  12. By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 26, 4:37 PM ET VATICAN CITY - Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, the charismatic Zambian prelate who defied the Holy See by getting married in 2001, has been excommunicated after installing four married men as bishops, the Vatican said Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT Although Vatican authorities, including the late Pope John Paul II, had tried for years to coax Milingo into mending his ways, Rome lost patience with him over the unauthorized ordinations, which threaten papal authority. The Vatican said the 76-year-old prelate was "automatically excommunicated" under church law for the ordinations Sunday at a church in Washington, D.C. Milingo finds himself in "progressive, open break with communion with the Church," the Vatican said in a statement. The four men, who claim affiliation with the breakaway Synod of Old Catholic Churches, also were automatically excommunicated for being ordained, the Vatican said. The Vatican, accusing Milingo of "sowing division and disarray among the faithful," said it had tried to convince him not to go through with the ordinations. Milingo's spokesman in Washington did not return a phone call seeking comment. Milingo has long had a troubled relationship with the Vatican. In 2001, he was married to a South Korean acupuncturist chosen for him by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, in a group wedding ceremony in New York. After John Paul made a personal appeal a few months later, Milingo renounced that union. But last summer, the prelate surfaced in the United States and said he was living with his wife in the Washington area. He had a strong following in a church near Rome because of his reputation as an exorcist and healer. Catholic officials accused him of promoting African indigenous beliefs by performing mass exorcisms and healing ceremonies. The Vatican also said that Milingo violated church law when he created an association of married priests and when he celebrated Mass with married clergy. The defiant ordination of the men appeared to be the last straw for Rome. Milingo ordained the Rev. George Augustus Stallings, Jr., of Washington, Peter Paul Brennan, of New York, Patrick Trujillo, of Newark, N.J., and Joseph Gouthro, of Las Vegas, Sunday at a Capital Hill Church. Prelates "at various levels of the church tried in vain to contact Archbishop Milingo, to dissuade him from going ahead with scandal-provoking actions, above all among the faithful who followed his pastoral ministry in favor of the poor and sick," the Vatican said. Considering that the pope had, "even recently, shown him understanding, the Holy See waited with vigilant patience to watch the evolution of the events which, unfortunately, led Archbishop Milingo to be in a condition of irregularity and of progressive, open break with communion with the Church, first by being married and then with the ordination of four bishops," it said. An analyst of the Vatican's moves, the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Washington-based Jesuit, said he believed the Vatican was afraid that Milingo's actions could "create a schism" that could continue for a long time as renegade bishops ordained new ones. "They always kept reaching out to him, trying to bring him back, but once he ordained another bishop" without Rome's approval, "that puts it into a whole new ball game," Reese said in a telephone interview from the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. Stallings said by telephone from Washington that Vatican officials had "badgered" the Zambian prelate by telling him he would risk "going to hell" if he went ahead with the ordinations. Stallings was excommunicated in 1990 when he announced he was forming the breakaway African American Catholic Congregation. "They excommunicated me then, and I rose from the dead, I guess, and came back to haunt them," Stallings said, also contending that Milingo was a threat because the Vatican knew "he could ordain other priests, other bishops." Under Vatican teaching, the authority to name bishops rests with the pope. The church also requires celibacy of its priests ordained under the Latin rite. The Vatican said it did not recognize the ordination of the four, and warned that it would not recognize any ordinations done by these men in the future. Reese drew parallels to the 1988 excommunication of French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, after he consecrated four bishops without Rome's consent.
  13. By MELISSA NELSON, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 26, 7:17 PM ET PENSACOLA, Fla. - After spending months in remote northwest Florida swamps searching for the ivory-billed woodpecker, researchers say they have seen and heard the rare bird once believed to be extinct. ADVERTISEMENT But Auburn University ornithologists, who published their findings in Canada's Avian Conservation and Ecology journal online Tuesday, failed to capture a picture of the large woodpecker, which makes a distinct double rapping sound. That lack of evidence means doubt about the bird's return remains. The bird was thought to be extinct until 2004 when Cornell University researchers released recordings and an inconclusive grainy video after searching for it in the swamps of eastern Arkansas. The last confirmed ivory-billed sighting was in 1944. Auburn ornithologist Geoffrey Hill headed the four-month Florida search that ended in April. He said his team would return to the Choctawhatchee River basin sometime around November with better equipment to try to get photographs. "On 14 occasions different team members have seen the bird. We heard that double knock, it's a sound the ivory-billed makes that no other bird makes, but we didn't get a clear video of the bird," Hill said. "I think people should be skeptical. I think they should demand clear photographic evidence. I might start to get skeptical myself thinking, 'I've seen this bird,' but how could I have seen a bird that it is impossible to photograph," he said. Hill said team members heard the bird's unique call 41 times. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is working with the federal government and some private agencies to provide additional funding for Hill's team, agency spokesman Willie Puz said. Puz said funding is in the early stages and he did not know how much the researchers would receive. Hill's five-member team from Auburn, Ala., and Ontario, Canada, conducted its search on a $10,000 budget. Hill said the extra funding should help them deliver the conclusive evidence the world is demanding. "The ultimate prize is finding pairs visiting roost holes and making babies, that would be the holy grail," said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell lab, which consulted with the Auburn team. "Absent that, the intervening step is to get a photograph that allows everyone else to see the evidence and get on board." Florida officials praised the early evidence. "This will be fantastic if we can confirm the woodpeckers are there," conservation commission Chairman Rodney Barreto said in a statement. "Florida is the only state besides Arkansas to come close to confirmation in roughly 40 years."
  14. By Matt Spetalnick Tue Sep 26, 3:16 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Tuesday dismissed as "finger-pointing" criticism from his predecessor Bill Clinton of his counter-terrorism efforts in the months leading up to the September 11 attacks. ADVERTISEMENT Clinton, angrily defending his own administration's attempts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, had accused the Bush administration of doing far less to stop the al Qaeda leader before the 2001 hijack plane attacks. Bush, who is trying to stave off a Democratic takeover of Congress in November, seemed to bristle when asked about Clinton, only to sidestep his assertions. "We'll let history judge all the different finger-pointing and all that business. I don't have enough time to finger-point," he said at a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "I've got to do my job," he added, "and that is to protect the American people from further attacks." Bush spoke two days after "Fox News Sunday" aired a heated interview in which Clinton defended steps he took after al Qaeda's attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and faulted criticism by "right-wingers" of his efforts to capture bin Laden. "They had eight months to try, they did not try," Clinton said of the Bush administration response. The September 11 attacks occurred almost eight months after Bush succeeded Clinton. Clinton also said when his term ended he left the new Republican administration "battle plans" for going into Afghanistan, overthrowing the Taliban and launching a full-scale search for bin Laden. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice disputed Clinton's statement. "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," she told the New York Post. Asked about Clinton's comments, Bush said, "I've watched all the finger-pointing and namings of names and all that stuff. Our objective is to secure the country. We've had investigations. We had the 9/11 commission, we've had the look-back this, we had the look-back that." Bush also said it was "preposterous" for opponents of his Iraq war strategy to call for a swift U.S. troop withdrawal. He has sought to rally public support for the unpopular Iraq war by framing it as an extension of the "war on terrorism" he declared after the September 11 attacks. Many Democrats say Iraq is a distraction from the broader fight. (Additional reporting by Caren Bohan)
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