Bush disappointed with CIA for wrong info on Iraq

At the fag end of his presidency, George W Bush has acknowledged his disappointment at the Central Intelligence Agency giving him wrong information about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, on the premise of which America invaded that country.

"Are you angry at them (CIA)," Larry King asked the US president on CNN on Tuesday night.

"No. I'm disappointed, you know?" Bush said. Bush had decided to attack Iraq based on American intelligence that the country had weapons of mass destruction.

"Were you angry at the people who told you there were? I mean, you didn't go inspect. You didn't..." Larry King asked on his popular show.

"I didn't. I was unhappy. But rather than sitting around being unhappy, I decided to do something about it and to had a full investigation of why things went wrong. And then we reformed our intelligence services," Bush said.

But then, the US president said, everyone else across the world also said the same. "It just wasn't the US," he said.

"At that time, we passed a resolution in the UN Security Council 15-0 that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. That was what France and Great Britain and the UN Security Council said, including China and Russia -- to Saddam Hussein. The reason why they said that is because we all thought he had weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Though he was disappointed with the CIA but the agency is vital in the war against these terrorists, Bush said.

"There are still people out there, who would look to come and kill Americans. And in order to have an effective response, you've got to have an intelligence service that is motivated, that is funded, that uses their skills to help you determine the desires and plans of the enemy."

Bush said the most important job ahead of the next president is to ensure that America does not face another attack.

"The most important job I have had and the most important job the next president will have is to protect the American people from another attack," he said.

Bush said he is satisfied with what he did as president of the US and does not care a damn about the opinion polls.

"People will look back and put this administration in perspective to those that have come before me and those that will come after me. And they will analyse whether or not my decisions made the country safer and, you know, more secure.

"And I am comfortable that I have given every decision a good hard look and given it my all. I have put my country first," he said.