YA DONE GOOD, MR. PRESIDENT

"Who can possibly think that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power? Surely not the dissidents who would be in his prisons or end up in mass graves," Bush told a military crowd.

"Surely not the men and women who would fill Saddam's torture chambers or the women in his rape rooms . . . There is only one decent and humane reaction to the fall of Saddam Hussein: Good riddance!"

Bush's remarks, in Portsmouth and Manchester, could be seen as a slap at leading Democratic candidate Howard Dean, who once dismissed Saddam's fall by saying, "I suppose that's a good thing."