'Honest' John

John Howard in his April 9, 2013 speech to the Lowy Institute:

"I never believed that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks nor did president Bush..."

George Bush in his May 1, 2003 announcement that major combat operations in Iraq have ended:

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 - and still goes on. That terrible morning, nineteen evil men - the shock troops of a hateful ideology - gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the 'beginning of the end of America'. By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed... The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain. No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more." (The Iraq Papers, edited by Ehrenberg, McSherry, Sanchez & Sayej, 2010, p 176)