Completing his first tour of duty as "consoler-in-chief" to soldiers injured in Iraq and their families, Bush said that Saddam was politically dead whatever his precise fate but left declaring victory to US generals in the Gulf.

"I don't know the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein. I don't know if he's dead or alive. I do know he's no longer in power," he said, with First Lady Laura Bush at his side after visits to two area military hospitals.

"This war will end when our commanders on the field tell me that the objective has been achieved," said Bush, who specifically cited Army General Tommy Franks, who has run the US-led campaign to disarm and topple Saddam.

"I'm here in Washington, DC. He's there in Qatar, and he's got commanders in Baghdad. He's better to judge whether we've achieved the objective than I have," said the US leader.

In his first public remarks since US Marines helped exuberant Iraqis topple a massive bronze statue of Saddam in the heart of Baghdad, Bush said he would "never forget" that symbolic echo of the regime's collapse.

In a voice often quaking with emotion, he recalled "the jubilation on the faces of ordinary Iraqis as they realized that the grip of fear that had them by the throat had been released, the first signs of freedom."

But he also had tough words of warning for officials in Damascus to shut their borders to fleeing followers of Saddam or any of his relatives and turn over any who have already found "safe haven" in Syria.

"We expect them to do everything they can to prevent people who should be held to account from escaping in their country," he said. "And if they are in their country, we expect the Syrian authorities to turn them over."

US officials say that Damascus has assured Washington that it has closed its border to all but humanitarian traffic, but Bush aides say US military and intelligence agencies are monitoring that frontier to be sure.

On an equally serious note, Bush indicated he did not know the fate of US troops taken as prisoners of war (POWs) by Iraq, but vowed to "use every resource we have to find any POWs that are alive, and we pray that they are alive, because if they are we'll find them."

Bush met with about 40 wounded or injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and about 33 at the National Naval Medical Center, bestowing handfuls of Purple Heart medals and watching two Marines -- one from Mexico, another from the Philippines -- become US citizens.

"It was a very profound moment. We were both honored to have witnessed this," said Bush. Legal permanent residents of the United States can serve in the US military.

One of those who took the oath was a US Marines master gunnery sergeant with shrapnel wounds to his right side and head.

Bush did not to meet with Jessica Lynch, the 19-year-old US prisoner of war dramatically rescued earlier this month, because she has yet to be transferred from Germany to Walter Reed, officials said.

Bush, who has met with injured veterans of the campaign to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan, tries to cheer the soldiers he sent into harm's way as well as any family members present, a top White House aide said earlier.

"It's difficult, but he knows how necessary it is," said the official, who requested anonymity. "He really tries to be the consoler-in-chief."

SPACE.WIRE