Iraq war needed to protect US from 'madman' Saddam: Bush

Bush is stepping up effort to get across his message as signs of confusion emerge within the administration on Iraq policy and the United States confronts repeated setbacks in its attempts to persuade allies to agree on a new UN resolution on Iraq.

At home, Bush has faced questions about the failure to find the banned chemical, biological or nuclear weapons he made the centerpiece of his case for military action and the toll on US troops and public finances.

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But the administration also got some good news when a key House of Representatives committee approved Bush's request for 87 million dollars to finance operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a speech to servicemen and their families in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush reaffirmed that he had toppled Saddam Hussein to defend the United States.

"I acted because I was not about to leave the security of the American people in the hands of a madman. I was not about to stand by and wait and trust in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein," he declared.

Aides billed Bush's remarks as part of a fresh public relations offensive at a time when the president has accused mainstream media of feeding discontent by reporting mostly the bad news from Iraq.

"We're making good progress in Iraq. Sometimes it's hard to tell it when you listen to the filter," he said this week.

Bush and top aides planned to take their message to regional media and other unconventional sources of news -- national security adviser Condoleezza Rice reportedly plans to appear on Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show.

There are also signs of trouble within the administration however. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged he was not consulted about a White House shakeup in the US reconstruction effort in Iraq.

But he said at a NATO meeting Wednesday that he was "quite surprised by all this frufra" over a memo by Rice laying out the reorganisation.

The memo established an National Security Council-led Iraq Stabilisation Group to oversee the US-led occupation, which previously was directed almost exclusively by the Pentagon.

The move was widely seen as an attempt by Rice to assert direct presidential control over Iraq, diminishing Rumsfeld's authority over an operation that has been dogged by resistance and rising US casualties.

Rumsfeld insisted however that "the National Security Council's responsibility is to do exactly what this one-page memo says."

Asked whether his authority had been diminished in any way by the memo, Rumsfeld said, "Not that I can see."