Washington: Terming the interim report submitted by American weapons inspector David Kay as "positive", US President George W Bush said it vindicated his stand that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a "danger to the world" and therefore sufficiently backed his case for a war.

This is an interim progress report and not final. Extensive work remains to be done on his biological, chemical and nuclear programs. But the findings already make it clear Saddam actively deceived the world, was in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 and was a danger to the world, he said.

Addressing a gathering at Winconsin, Bush took a serious view of the mention about Saddam's "clandestine network of biological laboratories" in the report and said it pointed that "he had sophisticated concealment efforts. In other words, he is hiding his programs. He had advanced design work done on prohibited long-range missiles".

Asserting that the report had been widely misinterpreted, the President said it gave a clear account of "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programs spanning more than two decades involving billions of dollars and elaborately shielded by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

The inspector also discovered "dozens of WMD related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002, and systematic destruction of evidence of the illegal activities, Bush said.

PTI