Washington: US President George W Bush today (Feb 08, 2004) justified the invasion on Iraq as a "war of necessity" which has had a "positive effect" and the world has become a "safer place as a result".

The serious consequences Saddam Hussein suffered by ignoring the US warning, Bush said, had a "positive effect" on Libya, where Gaddafi disclosed his weapons programme and agreed to dismantle them.

"And the world is a safer and better place as a result of Saddam Hussein not being in power." Bush said in a taped one-hour interview to NBC's "Meet the Press programme".

"Saddam Hussein had the capability to make weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence available to US at that time clearly stated that Saddam Hussein was a threat to America who had not only manufactured weapons but funded suicide bombers against Israel," he said.

Amid growing signs that failure to find weapons stockpiles was eroding his credibility, Bush insisted that he believed that if no action had been taken in Iraq, Saddam Hussein would have been "emboldened" to develop nuclear weapons over time.

"The US would then have been blackmailed," he said adding Saddam Hussein was a mad man. "You cannot rely upon him making rational decisions when it comes to war and peace," he said.

Asked why the logic, which made him move against Iraq, does not apply to North Korea and Iran, Bush said that in North Korea, diplomacy is just beginning and "we are making good progress".

"The US and China, along with South Korea and Japan and Russia are sending a clear message, disclose and destroy your programme in a transparent way," he said.

He also said that though there was "no danger" in Iran, the international community is now trying to convince Iran to get rid of its nuclear weapons. He insisted that Americans were welcome in Iraq and that intensity of resistance there did "not surprise" him as there are people in that part of the world who recognise what a free Iraq will be in mean in the war on terror.

The American President admitted that the road to democracy in the occupied country was "bumpy". Yet he was "confident" that it would develop into a "pluralistic society, which recognises minority rights and freedom of religion".

In an attempt to sore up his popularity in the election year, the President said that his "most solemn" responsibility was to ensure America's security.

"It is essential, when we see a threat, we deal with those threats before they become imminent. It is too late if it becomes imminent in this new kind of war," he said.

"We clearly stated our policy, whether it be Afghanistan or Iraq. The US told Saddam Hussein disarm is your choice. If you don't, we will disarm you," said Bush.