Under questioning by reporters at a White House Rose Garden news conference, Bush said the information wasn't released immediately after Israel bombed the suspected nuclear facility in Syria to prevent an escalation of the confrontation.

The administration last week disclosed Syria received help from North Korea in pursuing its nuclear program.

"We … wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures and one would be to the North Koreans, to make it abundantly clear that we -- we may know more about you than you think, and therefore it's essential that you have a -- you know, a complete disclosure on not only your plutonium activities, but proliferation as well as, you know, enrichment activities," Bush said.

He said the disclosure also served to put Iran on notice.

"And finally, we wanted to make it clear to Syria and the world that -- that their intransigence in dealing with, you know, helping us in Iraq or destabilizing Lebanon or dealing with Hamas, which is a destabilizing force in our efforts to have a Palestinian state coexist peacefully with Israel, those efforts are -- you know, gives us a chance to remind the world that we need to work together to deal with those issues."