MADONNA today compared US President George Bush to deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The 45-year-old pop star said the two men were "alike" because they both behaved "in an irresponsible manner".

Madonna made the comments during an interview in which she tried to draw a line under her wild days, vowing to be "part of the order, not the chaos, of the world".

Madonna's current Re-Invention tour carries a strong anti-war message and her recent video for the song American Life was clear in its opposition to the Iraq conflict.

In the final scene of the video, a President Bush lookalike kisses Saddam on the cheek.

"I don't want to equate George Bush with Saddam Hussein. But I believe that George Bush and Saddam Hussein are both behaving in an irresponsible manner. So, in that respect, they're alike," Madonna said.

She added that she decided not to release the pop video last year as America prepared for war because there was a "lynch-mob" patriotism sweeping the country at the time.

"I have children to protect and I just didn't think it was the right time," she said.

Speaking to ABC, Madonna also sought to complete her transfer from erotic provocateur to spiritually fulfilled mother and wife.

She said she wanted to "be more liberated from my ego" but admitted she still has "a long way to go".

"Once you enter the popularity sweepstakes, which you do when you become famous... you enter the world of `How am I doing? How's my ratings? Where am I in the 50 most beautiful people poll?'," she said.

But she regretted her past wild behaviour.

"The stance of a rebel is `I don't care what you think'. But if it's just for the sake of upsetting the apple cart, you're not really helping people. You turn the apple cart over and then what? Then everyone's looking at an apple cart that's turned over and they're like, well, now what do I do?"

Madonna's latest transformation means her days of shedding her clothes on stage or in front of the camera are also over.

"I thought I was liberating mankind but, like I said, I wasn't really offering an alternative.

"To a certain extent I was saying `Look, you know, why do men only get the job of objectifying women in a sexual way? I want to do it too.'

"There was an element of that, but there was also an element of being an exhibitionist and saying `Look at me.' It wasn't that altruistic. I can admit that."

She added: "I choose to look at myself as a person who's now awake and a person who's now trying to be part of the order, not the chaos, of the world."

Now she loves being a wife and mother, free from the days when she "just ripped through relationships".

Sean Penn, Dennis Rodman and Warren Beatty were among her former lovers.

She is very different from her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, who is "always trying to recapture his youth".

"He did so many fun things as a child that he still loves to do," she said.

"And I don't. I'm not interested in recapturing my childhood at all."

As for her own children, Madonna says she see a lot of herself in her seven-year-old daughter Lourdes, adding: "Girls are so clever - more clever than boys.

"I see myself in her and, you know, sometimes I'm repulsed and sometimes I just want to put my arms around her."

Her relationship with four-year-old son Rocco is less complicated.

"You have a son. It's just, it's just love. They can do no wrong," she said.

And her life has been enhanced through her study of 13th century Jewish mysticism called Kabbalah.

Other stars, including Demi Moore and Britney Spears, are also said to be followers but Madonna insisted she was not jumping on a celebrity bandwagon.

"I'm very serious about it," she said.

In excerpts of the interview released earlier this week, Madonna - who was named after her mother - said wanted to be called Esther as part of her following of Kabbalah.

"My mother died when she was very young, of cancer, and I wanted to attach myself to another name.

"This is in no way a negation of who my mother is. I wanted to attach myself to the energy of a different name," she said.

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