WASHINGTON, March 9 (AFP0 - US President George W. Bush on Wednesday defended pressuring Tehran about its nuclear programs after a media report that US intelligence on Iran's atomic ambitions is too weak to draw firm judgments.

"I think it's very wise for the free world to be concerned about the Iranians' desire to develop a weapon," Bush said during a joint appearance at the White House with visiting Romanian President Traian Basescu.

"It's very important for the United States to continue to work with our friends and allies which believe that the Iranians want a nuclear weapon and which know that Iran possessing a nuclear weapon would be very destabilizing," he told reporters.

Bush said European leaders were also "worried about Iranian intentions" and stressed: "One reason there needs to be worry about Iran is that this is a nontransparent society. There's no openness."

"It's very easy for them to solve the problem, and that is to not only give assurances about any nuclear weapons program, but to allow full IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspection processes in a transparent way," said the US leader.

Earlier, the New York Times reported that a nine-member commission was expected to report confidentially to Bush by the end of March that US intelligence is insufficient to draw firm conclusions.

The panel has been exploring the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush made Baghdad's alleged possession of such arms the chief public argument for going to war to topple Saddam Hussein.

The report was also critical of US intelligence gathered on North Korea, but the data on Iran was described as especially worrisome and "scandalous" by people briefed on the panel's work, according to the Times.

A classified version of the panel's report will be given to Bush by March 31, while an unclassified version which may or may not included the criticism of intelligence on Iran will be made public at about the same time, the daily said.

People briefed on the bipartisan presidential panel could not be more specific in describing the inadequacies of US intelligence on Iran, but former US experts on the country said that despite the enormous resources devoted to Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979, US intelligence agencies have had little success in human spying necessary to understand Iranian decision-making.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.