US President George W. Bush on Wednesday defended again the American invasion of Iraq, saying "the path to safety is the path of action."

Addressing a mass rally in Pennsylvania, Bush said that after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States had to look for sources of weapons of mass destruction available to terrorists.

"We had to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons," Bush said. "One regime stood out. The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein."

"There was a risk, a real risk, that (former Iraqi president) Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush claimed.

However, a report to be released on Wednesday, will say Saddam had neither nuclear, chemical and biological weapons nor solid plans to build such weapons, the Washington Post said.

The report by Charles Duelfer, the chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Saddam was not able to make weapons of mass destruction before the war in March, 2003.