Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser under President George W. Bush, said Thursday in an interview that the goal the United States pursued during the 2003 invasion of Iraq was toppling of President Saddam Hussein, not bringing democracy to the Middle East country.

The United States invaded Iraq with its allies in 2003 not to bring democracy to that country but to topple President Saddam Hussein, former US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told a meeting at the Brookings Institution.

“We didn’t go to Iraq to bring democracy to Iraq we went to Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein… It was a security problem,” Rice, who also served as US secretary of state, said on Thursday.

Rice, who served as national security adviser to President George W. Bush at the time, denied that the United States was determined to use its military power to impose democracy on Iraq in 2003 or on Afghanistan when it occupied that country in 2001.

“I would never have said to President Bush [to] use military force to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan,” she said.

Rice also acknowledged that the populist movements that had arisen in the United States and Western Europe over the past two years were expressions of protest by millions of people against elites who ignored their concerns about such issues as free trade and unlimited immigration.