Washington: US President George Bush, said he miscalculated post-war conditions in Iraq and that the long insurgency was the product of a "swift victory", in an interview published in 'The New York Times' today (Aug 27, 2004).

In what could be the US President's first acknowledgement on the issue, Bush said he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be" in post-war Iraq.

He said the miscalculation was an unintended by-product of a "swift victory", adding that Saddam Hussein's forces quickly went into hiding in Iraqi cities where they mounted a rebellion far faster than the Americans had anticipated.

The daily said Bush refused to go into detail on what went wrong, saying that it was a task best left to historians.

Bush said his policies on Iraq - where he fought a war despite strong international opposition were "flexible enough" to respond to the insurgency. He added that even now "We're adjusting to our conditions," in places like the holy city of Najaf, where US and Iraqi forces have been battling the militias of Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr for weeks.

On North Korea and its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, the daily said Bush took issue with his Democratic rival in Presidential election John Kerry, who argued that the US-led war in Iraq gave Pyongyang the opportunity to expand its nuclear capability.

"Showing none of the alarm about the North's growing arsenal that he once voiced regularly about Iraq," said the daily, Bush "opened his palms and shrugged" when asked about intelligence reports indicating that North Korea may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons.