A few hours before Bush's remarks, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was asked by reporters traveling with him in Warsaw if there are linkages between al Qaeda and Iraq. "I have no desire to go beyond saying the answer is yes," he replied. Rumsfeld had just appeared before NATO defense ministers with CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin to give an intelligence briefing on the Iraqi threat. Rumsfeld said McLaughlin told them about linkages between Hussein and al Qaeda.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer tried to play down the specificity of Bush's charge, saying the president was talking about what he feared could occur. Fleischer repeated the administration position that it would be a mistake to wait for a smoking gun. "Clearly, al Qaeda is operating inside Iraq," he said. "In the shadowy world of terrorism, sometimes there is no precise way to have definitive information until it is too late."

Bush was in the Oval Office with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia when he was asked whether Hussein was a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda. "That is an interesting question," Bush began. "I'm trying to think of something humorous to say."

"But I can't when I think about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein," the president continued. "They're both risks. They're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government."

Bush then drew another distinction that differs from longtime reports from the country. "Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't," Bush said. In fact, military planners fear finding Hussein could be a challenge if Bush decides to depose him, because the Iraqi leader often works and sleeps at different palaces and other sites.

"The war on terror, you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," he said. "They're both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive."