As the Opposition leader in 2003, Stephen Harper delivered a speech about Iraq in the House of Commons that repeated many of the same words spoken two days earlier by then-Australian prime minister John Howard.

Today, Liberal foreign-affairs critic Bob Rae released tapes of a March 20, 2003 speech by Harper, which included about half the speech delivered by Howard, which  endorsed an attack on Iraq.

"How does a leader in Canada's Parliament, on such a crucial issue, end up giving almost exactly the same speech as another country's leader, let alone   a leader who was a key member of George W. Bush's Coalition of the Willing?" Rae asked in a news release.

Harper raised the spectre of Iraq having "weapons of mass destruction", which has never been proven.

The speeches of Harper and Howard can be seen on the Liberal Web site.