Mr Bush has again denied any link between Iraq and terrorism, rejecting the reported conclusions of US intelligence agencies.
On Sunday major US newspapers said a leaked report -- a summary of the consensus view of the 16 US intelligence agencies -- asserted that the war in Iraq was stoking extremism in the Muslim world.
"My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse," he said during a joint public appearance with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai after talks at the White House.
In an angry election-year counterattack, Mr Bush said he would make public parts of the intelligence and blasted news reports of the assessment as politically motivated leaks.
"Once again there's a leak out of our government, coming right down the stretch in this campaign in order to create confusion in the minds of the American people," he fumed, referring to November legislative elections.
Sunday’s news reports, citing officials familiar with the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), appeared to contradict President Bush's campaign refrain that the US-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq has made the US safer from terrorism.
But an anonymous official familiar with the document's conclusions told news agency AFP that the document warned that a withdrawal from Iraq would also embolden Islamist extremists – something Mr Bush also maintains.
The president acknowledged that terrorists were using the conflict as "a recruitment tool" but sharply criticised critics who have "guessed what's in the report and have concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake."
"I strongly disagree. I think it's naive. I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offence against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe," he told reporters.
’Grab for votes’
With just 43 days left before critical November elections that will decide control of the US Congress and shape Mr Bush's last two years in office, Republicans and Democrats accused each other of exploiting national security in a grab for votes.
Mr Bush confirmed the NIE was finished last April and said the timing of the news reports showed the leak was linked to the election.
He said he had ordered Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte to make public parts of the report "as quickly as possible."
"It will stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq; you know, somebody trying to confuse the American people," said the president.
But opposition Democrats insisted that the White House must release the entire document as well as other recent intelligence briefings on Iraq and the war on terrorism.
"The American people deserve the full story, not those parts of it that the Bush Administration selects," Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy said.
The Senate's number two Democrat, Dick Durbin, added his voice:
"We want to make certain that what we're doing in Iraq and around the world contains and destroys the threat of terrorism. This national intelligence estimate suggests just the opposite: that our strategy in Iraq is adding to the problem and not diminishing the problem," he told reporters.
On another political front, Mr Bush refused to comment on former president Bill Clinton's sharp criticisms of the Bush Administration’s approach to terrorism in the months before the September 11, 2001 attacks.