On September 26, 2002, “In a closed meeting with eighteen lawmakers…[President] Bush had also embraced another unfounded assertion. ‘Saddam Hussein is a terrible guy who is teaming up with al-Qaeda,’ he told the lawmakers, ignoring the lack of any hard evidence of such an alliance. One of the lawmakers asked him what would happen [in Iraq] after Hussein was toppled, and Bush seemed almost to dismiss the concern. ‘Nothing can be worse than the present situation,’ he said. The ‘timeframe,’ he added, ‘would be six months.’ ”
– Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 221