WASHINGTON, Jan 10: US President George Bush was intent on ousting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein long before the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States , former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News in an interview, according to transcripts released on Saturday.

Mr Bush fired O'Neill - known for his often blunt talk - in Dec 2002 for opposing the president's sweeping tax cut plans to jumpstart the lagging economy.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," Paul O'Neill told the CBS television programme, "60 Minutes".

"For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," he added.

The interview - scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday - came after O'Neill served as the main source for an upcoming book, "The Price of Loyalty", which paints an insider's view of the Bush administration.

The former secretary and other White House insiders gave author Ron Suskind documents showing that Bush officials were looking at military options to remove Saddam Hussein from power in the first three months of 2001.

One of the memos, marked "secret", says "Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq", Ron Suskind told "60 Minutes".

A Pentagon document, titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," talks about "contractors around the world from ... 30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq," according to Ron Suskind.

Paul O'Neill told Mr Suskind he was surprised that no top Bush administration officials in a national security council meeting questioned why Iraq should be invaded.

"It was all about finding a way to do it," O'Neill is quoted in the book as saying. "That was the tone of it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this'."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan deflected repeated questions about O'Neill's assertions, saying: "I don't do book reviews." -AFP