Washington ? President Bush, broadly defending the war against Iraq, says he acted on the “best possible evidence” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was surprised that U.S. inspectors have not found them.

“I expected to find the weapons,” Bush said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” broadcast Sunday.

“I made a decision based upon that intelligence in the context of the war against terror,” Bush said, asserting that “every threat had to be reanalyzed” after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

And, he reiterated, based on that intelligence, “I expected there to be stockpiles of weapons.”

Bush decided to grant the unusual hourlong interview last week as his credibility at home and abroad was under increasing attack since the former chief U.S. weapons inspector, David Kay, declared there were no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.

On Friday, bowing to demands from Republicans and Democrats alike, the president appointed seven members to a bipartisan commission to investigate pre-war intelligence operations. But two members have yet to be named, and the commission is not due to report its findings until March 31, 2005 — five months after the Nov. 2 election.

“Obviously,” Bush said the panel will “analyze what went right, or what went wrong, with the Iraq intelligence.”

Revised assertions

In justifying the war, Bush continued to shift the emphasis from earlier, repeated administration assertions that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction to Saddam’s “capacity” to make such weapons.

“Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to make weapons,” Bush said. “He was a dangerous man in a dangerous part of the world.”

“He could have developed a nuclear weapon over time — I’m not saying immediately, but over time — which would then have put us in what position?” Bush asked. “We would have been in a position of blackmail.”

Where he and key members of his administration had painted an urgent, even imminent, threat before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last March, Bush spoke over the weekend of the need to deal with threats, like Iraq, “before they become imminent.”

“It’s too late if they become imminent,” he said. “It’s too late in this new kind of war, and so that’s why I made the decision I did.”

Bush sometimes admonished moderator Tim Russert for interrupting him, but offered little argument when Russert suggested that the administration had given the “clear sense” that Saddam had been “an immediate threat that must be dealt with.”

President Bush is interviewed by NBC's Meet

“In my language, I called it a grave and gathering threat,” Bush replied. “But I don’t want to get into word contests.”

His “sentiment at the time,” Bush said, was that “there was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a danger to America.”

Democrats don’t buy it

His Democratic rivals, though, scoffed at his latest remarks.

Seizing on the president’s assertion that Saddam was a threat because he had the “ability to make weapons,” the front-running contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, said: “This is a far cry from what he and his administration told the American people back in 2002.”

“Back then,” Kerry said, “President Bush repeatedly told the American people that Saddam Hussein ‘has got chemical weapons.’ And it was on that basis that he sent America’s sons and daughters marching off to war.”

Bush, whose job approval and trustworthiness ratings have dropped precipitously in the public opinion polls since Kay’s assertions there are no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, has been struggling to turn the tide. At the same time, Democrats across the country have been coalescing around Kerry as their likely presidential standard bearer. And key Republicans were hopeful that Bush’s appearance on “Meet the Press,” his first as president, would be good forum for him to make his case for re-election.

“We are in a political season,” the president said as he defended his decision to have the newly appointed intelligence commission finish its work well after the election.

“There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made … good calls, whether or not I used good judgment, whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power, and I look forward to that debate.”

No longer, though, did Bush claim that he was just “loosening up” for the election year ahead.

“I look forward to a good campaign,” he said. “I know exactly where I want to lead the country.”

Focus on security

Asked what he saw as the biggest issue, he emphasized national security, not the twin issues of national security and the economy that he has been touting together for months.

The campaign will hinge, he suggested, on “who can properly use American power in a way to make the world a better place and who understands that the true strength of this country is the hearts and souls of the American citizens who understand times are changing and how best to have policy reflect those times.”

Pressed on the nation’s still sluggish economy, Bush said that he would continue to push Congress to make his earlier tax cuts permanent, despite the ballooning federal deficit that he has projected at $521 billion this year.

“I’m more worried about the fellow looking for the job,” he said. “And so when we stimulate the economy, it’s more likely that person is going to find work. And the best way to stimulate the economy is not to raise taxes, but to hold the low taxes down.”