DALLAS (AFP) ― President Barack Obama lauded George W. Bush Thursday as a leader of “incredible strength and resolve” who faced a storm of terrorism head on, at the opening of his predecessor’s library.

In a rare gathering of all living U.S. presidents, partisan divides were hinted at but put aside, as Bush was painted as a man of courage and compassion, in front of a building meant to shore up his place in history.

“He is comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is ... he is a good man,” Obama said of Bush, who blinked quickly, and set his jaw as he fought back emotion, as he won praise from the exclusive club of presidents.

Obama praised Bush for the “incredible strength and resolve” Bush projected through a bullhorn when he stood on a pile of rubble at Ground Zero in New York after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite his sharp previous claims that Bush stained the U.S. image abroad with the pre-emptive war in Iraq and his anti-terror policies and crashed the American economy, Obama thanked Bush for his advice when he took office.

“No one can be completely ready for this office. America needs leaders who are ready to face the storm head on ... that is what president George W. Bush chose to do,” Obama said.

The new 226,000 square foot building on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas includes an archive of Bush’s presidential papers, a museum stuffed with artifacts of his two terms and a policy institute.

Bush’s facility is dominated by memories of the Sept. 11 attacks, which gave life to Bush’s global war on terror, and includes a steel beam twisted in the inferno of the World Trade Center.

In one of the most poignant moments of the ceremony, 88-year-old George H.W. Bush made a few off the cuff remarks from his wheelchair, to which he is now largely confined following a bout with illness this year.

Both former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter meanwhile praised Bush for his program to fight AIDS and HIV in Africa which is credited with saving millions of lives.

“I like President Bush,” Clinton said.

Former world leaders who were closest to Bush during his terror-seared first term, the march to war with Iraq and the months of recrimination afterwards were also in Dallas to honor their former comrade-in-arms.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who was in Washington on Sept.11, 2001, and ex-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi were on the guest list.

Other guests of honor included Israel’s Ehud Olmert, Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar and former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.