Bush Administration Denies Aristide Kidnapped

With U.S. military forces already on the ground in the Caribbean nation and more on the way, chief presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said, "It's nonsense, and conspiracy theories do nothing to help the Haitian people move forward to a better more free, more prosperous future."

Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon news conference, said he was involved in the diplomatic flurry preceding Aristide's departure, and "the idea that someone was abducted is inconsistent with everything I saw."

"I don't believe that's true, that he's claiming that," Rumsfeld said. "I would be absolutely amazed if that were the case."

Three Sources for Absolutely Amazed Kidnapping

Rep. Charles Rangel and Randall Robinson, the former head of the black lobbying group TransAfrica, said in separate interviews with CNN that Aristide called them from the Central African Republic, where he is in temporary exile.

Robinson, speaking from the Caribbean island of St Kitts, said Aristide had telephoned him on a cell phone on Monday morning from a room in the Central African Republic, where he said he was being guarded by African and French soldiers.

"The president said to me that he had been abducted from his home by about 20 American soldiers in full battle gear with automatic weapons and put on a plane" on Sunday morning, Robertson said.

Rangel, a Democratic member of the House (of Representatives) from New York, said he heard a similar account from Aristide by telephone. Aristide told him he was "disappointed that the international community had let him down, that he was kidnapped, that he resigned under pressure."

Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California and like Rangel a member of the congressional black caucus, also said she had heard by telephone from Aristide that he had been kidnapped, a spokeswoman for Waters said.