Q The Vice President, who I see standing over there, said yesterday that Saddam Hussein has long-established ties to al Qaeda. As you know, this is disputed within the U.S. intelligence community. Mr. President, would you add any qualifiers to that flat statement? And what do you think is the best evidence of it?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Zarqawi. Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda. He's the person who's still killing. He's the person -- and remember the email exchange between al Qaeda leadership and he, himself, about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?
Saddam Hussein also had ties to terrorist organizations, as well.
In other words, he was affiliated with terrorism -- Abu Nidal, the paying of families of suiciders to go kill innocent people. I mean, he was no doubt a destabilizing force. And we did the absolute right thing in removing him from power. And the world is better off with him not in power.
Seems to me that they are not singing from separate pages.
In fact, they have been singing from the same page since 9/11...
Today, on the noon news, the President said (in very strong terms) that there was a link between Al Qaida and Iraq. This was in response to the 9/11 Commission stating that there was not a link...