In an interview aired on Sunday on Fox News Sunday, Mrs Bush says she knows her husband's eight years in office was not a failure, and says she doesn't feel as if she needs to respond to people who view it that way.

She says history will judge the two-term presidency of George W. Bush.

Mrs Bush notes that under her husband's watch, the US has been kept safe from attack since Sept 11, 2001, and that his administration toppled Saddam Hussein and liberated millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq from oppressive governments.

She also talked of her husband's work to provide treatment for disease to millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the same interview, Mrs Bush said President George W. Bush laughed it off, but that it was an 'assault' when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at the president during a news conference in Baghdad.

Mrs Bush said she was not amused.

The president deftly dodged the shoes and was not hit. He continued the news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki after security officials dragged the journalist from the room.

Mrs Bush says the president is a 'natural athlete' and that he 'laughed it off,' but that she thinks people should view the incident as an 'assault.'

On the other hand, she says the incident shows that Iraqis today are enjoying more freedom to express themselves. -- AP