Washington, Sep 27 (DPA) An angry US President George W. Bush, in his first remarks since an important intelligence report was leaked to media, Tuesday stridently denied that the Iraq war had worsened the world terrorist threat.

He said he was so annoyed by the way in which the report, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), completed in April, had been taken out of context that he had ordered the document declassified.

The report found that the US-led invasion of Iraq had given birth to a new generation of home-grown Islamic radicals spread across the globe, according to anonymous sources quoted by The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers over the weekend.

Answering a reporter's question at the White House after his meeting with Afghanistan President Hamad Karzai, Bush said that the US had been repeatedly targeted by terrorists long before the invasion of Iraq.

"We weren't in Iraq on Sep 11, or when they first attacked the World Trade Center (in 1993) or bombed the (USS) Cole or blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania," he said.

"My judgement is if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse because they have ambitions... They kill to achieve their objectives," Bush said.

He said that the selected excerpts of the NIE released to reporters were politically motivated to undermine the White House during the upcoming November midterm elections.

He said those behind the leak were "trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy".