In a speech he gave on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, President Bush said: ” ‘The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have 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 that regime is no more.’ ”
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 357