Question: Ha'aretz Bush & God quote

In Dilip Hiro's book "Secrets and Lies," Hiro quotes the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha'aretz of June 24, 2003, reporting that Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas: "God told me to strike at Al Qaida (sic) and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did."

I pulled this from a SF Chronicle article. Can you verify the quote?

Ha'aretz Bush & God quote

This appears to be something that may be debated for a long time, depending upon whether people who were there can (or will) ever produce an actual audiotape - and to what extent we would even be able to trust the authenticity of such an audiotape.

The original article is reprinted at the Ha'aretz web site dated Tue., November 30, 2004 Kislev 17, 5765, but if you format it for printing it says "Last update - 02:45 24/06/2003":
www.haaretzdaily.com. The article is: `Road map is a life saver for us,' PM Abbas tells Hamas. By Arnon Regular.

The quote is repeated many more places, easily found on a google.com search (64 hits). There is much discussion of the reliability of the quote, and of the fact that both Bush and Abbas were speaking through translators, etc. Another librarian found a site that republishes the entire article as: 06/26/03: (Harretz). The quote is at at the end of the article:
...
"Abbas said that at Aqaba, Bush promised to speak with Sharon about the siege on Arafat. He said nobody can speak to or pressure Sharon except the Americans.

According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.""

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In Lexis Academic, the full text search of News Wires, All Wire Reports: [bush and abbas and quoted and god], limiting to 2003 gets 21 hits, including an official denial in a press conference:

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Copyright 2003 Federal Information and News Dispatch, Inc. White House Press Releases

July 1, 2003

SECTION: WHITE HOUSE DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

LENGTH: 6994 words

HEADLINE: Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer

TEXT: For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

July 1, 2003

Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer

The James S. Brady Briefing Room

12: 50 P.M. EDT

(at the end of the briefing)...

Q: Ari, staying on the Middle East. Prime Minister Abbas today, according to Ha'aretz, told a meeting with Hamas -- he quoted the President and at that point, during that meeting, he suggested that the President conveyed that now is the time to move forward or else I'm going to focus on the election, or the election is coming up shortly. Can you tell me whether or not --

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, somebody else asked me about that quote. I never heard the President say it. He certainly didn't say it in the trilateral meeting that I attended, and I'm not aware of any other conversation in which he said it.


Q: So there is no deadline attached --


MR. FLEISCHER: You're seen the President on this issue. He's focused on it all the time. And he will be focused on it now, he'll be focused on it a year from now, he'll be focused on it two years from now.


Q: Part of the same quote, Prime Minister Abbas suggested the President said that God spoke to him about al Qaeda and spoke to him about Saddam. Is that a stretch? Is there anything to that? How would you characterize that part of the --


MR. FLEISCHER: It's beyond a stretch. It's an invention. It was not said.


Q: I was going to ask on that very same point. Just to be clear, to quote, as reported by Ha'aretz, is not true, didn't come up in the meeting?


MR. FLEISCHER: Hasn't become true since I just told Ken it wasn't. (Laughter.)


Q: Well, a few seconds passed there.