While this piece does not provide equal time to supporters of the Bush Administration to defend Mr. Bush's assertions, this piece still provides balance by stating those assertions. Good use of quotes from experts and as one would anticipate non attributed intelligence agency and military sources.

The NYT plays a useful role in giving some balance to the President's questionable assertions, and pointing out the mis-information about al-Qaeda he has been pushing.

The article starts by questioning Bush again blasting out lies about ties between Iraq and 911 in order to bolster support for his invasion of Iraq for oil. Then the article diverts into some good details about present day Al Qaeda that has spawned in the wake of the US destruction of Iraq. The original point gets a little lost, but the article is still informative. Al Qaeda, both in Iraq and globally, thrives on the American occupation.

In-depth reports on groups claiming the Al-Qaeda name are rare, and this one is clearly written. This piece also goes into the complex Sunni - Shi'i issues that inform everything happening in the region. It does all this without any hint of giving the Sunni extremists any excuse for their behavior. It's a balanced piece of analysis.

Nice to see the mainstream media finally doing its job by showing the duplicity of the White House's linking of the Iraqi "Al Qaeda" with Bin Laden's 9/11 group, when it's actually a Sunni front in a war against the Shiites. Remains to be seen if those funded by right wing "think" tanks like Michael Yon will get the message, when their job requires them not to.

Gordon knows the word 'assertion' wow. Gordon as reporter and not just rubber stamp of the WH. What about the link between Washington and Al Qaeda or Bush and 9/11....still a lot of debunking to start....a new honest 9/11 commission is needed. The original reasons for this war have not been dealt with and are not questioned here.

Wonder how things would have turned out if the news media had done their jobs with this kind of reporting early in the Bush administration? However, it illustrates one of the favorite tactics of ultra conservatives: evoking the threat of terrorism as justification for their actions.

This is good journalism because the truth is finally down in black and white, showing us the normal misleading policies of this Bush Administration. Do they really think that the opublic is so stupid? The average educated American is well aware of the lies and, above all, the fears our beloved President instills into the country. There is only one thing to fear and that is the Bush Administration itself.....or should I call it the Cheney Administration?

Al Qaeda had close ties with the Iraqi dictatorship since the mid 1990s. Saddam Hussein was training their operatives in Iraq before the liberation. It is well documented that Al Qaeda has brought many foreigners into Iraq. Why do the authors keep using the strange phrase "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" instead of the more accurate "Al Qaeda in Iraq"? Probably because the editors of the paper wanted this to be a typical hit piece on the administration.