NYPOST.COM National News: BUSH: WE'LL FINISH THE JOB THAT ISRAELI HERO STARTED By URI DAN

February 6, 2003 -- JERUSALEM - President Bush consoled the children of Israel's first astronaut by telling them he would finish the job begun by their father - who bombed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor.


During a memorial service in Houston on Tuesday, Bush praised Ilan Ramon, an Israeli Air Force colonel, along with the six other Columbia crew members who perished.


Afterward, the president embraced some of four Ramon's children and asked them to "tell me about your father," Israeli newspapers reported yesterday.


The children told Bush their father was a jet-fighter pilot who destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 when Israel feared it would be used to develop atomic weapons.


"Your father started the job," Bush told them. "And I am going to finish it." [Full Story]