Bush on bin Laden: 'The guy is dead. That is good'

Bush -- who famously declared after the September 11 terrorist attacks that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive" -- spoke out on the Al-Qaeda leader at a conference of hedge fund managers in Las Vegas, ABC news reported.

The former president said he was "not overjoyed" to hear that elite US commandos had taken out bin Laden in Pakistan, explaining that the covert strike had been carried out not "out of hatred but to exact judgment."

"The guy is dead. That is good," Bush said, according to an ABC news contributor who attended the event. "Osama's death is a great victory in the war on terror. He was held up as a leader."

Asked about the accuracy of the report, a spokesman for the former president, David Sherzer, told AFP: "Most of the quotes are not accurate. But the general tenor of the piece accurately reflects President Bush's views."