Youssef Ibrahim

"Al-Qaida is proving that their capacity is unlimited and they can go anywhere, yet we have our president focused completely on Iraq, which is almost a sideshow to what al-Qaida is doing," said Youssef Ibrahim, an expert on Iraq at the Council on Foreign Relations."If al-Qaida has proved anything in the past three days, it is that we are very far away from having won the war on terror."

President Bush agreed with at least part of that sentiment Monday, saying that, "It's going to take a while to succeed," but he also warned that Saddam might use al-Qaida to "do his dirty work," and that ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction is just as integral a part of the war on terrorism as pursuing al-Qaida.

"We will fight, if need be, the war on terror on two fronts.We've got plenty of capacity to do so," the president told reporters on the south lawn of the White House."There is a connection between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein.The war on terror -- Iraq is a part of the war on terror.And (Saddam) must disarm."