I remember reading that Clinton's team was very concerned about Al Qaeda, but the Bush team ignored their warnings. It might have been very different with Al Go

I remember reading that Clinton's team was very concerned about Al Qaeda, but the Bush team ignored their warnings. It might have been very different with Al Gore in command. But this article portrays it differently: https://time.com/archive/6738066/the-truth-of-the-matter/ https://time.com/archive/6738066/the-truth-of-the-matter/ > In his strongest public statement, to 60 Minutes, [Richard] Clarke said Bush “ignored” the terrorist threat before 9/11. To the commission he testified, more soberly, that, for the Administration, it was an “important issue but not an urgent issue.” Clearly, the Clinton White House worried more. Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger remembers telling his successor, Rice, during the transition that, for the Bush team, “the No. 1 issue that you’re going to be dealing with is terrorism generally and al-Qaeda specifically.” > The record of the Bush Administration’s first half-year suggests its members didn’t buy it. They were more focused on Russia, China and especially missile defense. In his book Bush at War, Bob Woodward quotes Bush himself saying of Osama bin Laden, “There was a significant difference in my attitude after September 11. I was not on point, but I knew he was a menace … But I didn’t feel that sense of urgency.” > Clarke’s strongest argument in this dispute is the pace with which the Administration considered the plan he proposed on Jan. 25, 2001 for combatting al-Qaeda. The program had evolved during the Clinton years, as al-Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and then the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. The Bush team put the proposal through an April meeting of senior officials, took their time with it over the summer and finally brought it to Bush’s Cabinet-level security and foreign policy chiefs, who approved it, just a week before 9/11. None of that suggests it was a national-security priority.