"It's very simple. Saddam Hussein is no longer in power," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told NBC television, one day after Bush addressed the nation in a primetime speech about the challenges ahead in Iraq.

"Saddam Hussein was the problem with weapons of mass destruction, Rice said when asked why Bush had not said more about what was a main justification for invading Iraq.

"It was he who had a thorough appetite for weapons of mass destruction. It was he who had used weapons of mass destruction. It was he who was using the wealth and patronage of the country to develop weapons of mass destruction," she said.

Rice added that "we have every reason to believe that a stable. Prosperous and democratizing Iraq will not be a problem in this regard."

Inspector "David Kay will come back with a report on what happened to the weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's programs," she said, but she stressed that "removing Saddam Hussein removes the threat of weapons of mass destruction."

Howard Dean, a leading Democratic contender for president, told NBC Monday that Rice and Bush "deliberately left a false impression: one, that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11; and two, that there were terrorists actively working out of Iraq."

"There's no evidence for either one of those, other than some peripheral evidence that is circumstantial," Dean said.

"The fact is that we are now bogged down in a war which the president continually justifies."

"The president is leaving the false impression that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 and the false impression that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were in league," Dean charged.

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