Washington: In a somber mood, attributed to reverses in Iraq, President George W Bush said the United States "is a hard country to defend" and he can understand public fears that the nation could face a terrorist attack before the November election this year.

"Our intelligence is good - it's just never perfect, is the problem," Bush told executives of more than 1,500 Associated Press-member newspapers at the cooperative's annual meeting yesterday.

"We are disrupting some cells here in America. We're chasing people down. But it is ... a big country."

Bush's somber assessment, 'The Washington Post' noted, stood in sharp contrast to his usual practice of stressing progress in the war on terrorism, and reflected the rising chaos seen from Iraq and elsewhere.

Bush was asked about an AP poll, showing that 67 percent of those surveyed thought it was likely that a terrorist attack would be carried out in the US between now and the November 2 election.

In answering, Bush referred to last month's train bombings three days before Spain's national election. The blasts which killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000, were widely seen as contributing to the ruling party's unexpected defeat.

"I can understand why they think we're going to get hit again," Bush said. "They saw what happened in Madrid. This is a hard country to defend."

The annual meeting of the Associated Press was held in conjunction with a Newspaper Association of America convention.