'Clinton did not have the will to respond'

International: INTERVIEW: Author Richard Miniter chronicles how the Clinton White House passed up opportunities to seize Osama bin Laden | Mindy Belz

AN AMAZON SEARCH FOR CURRENT books on Osama bin Laden turns up 50 or so choices. But search for books about the terrorist mastermind and Bill Clinton, and you will find precisely one. Losing bin Laden is the first book to explicitly overlay the ephemeral plottings of al-Qaeda with the chimera that was the 42nd president.

George Bush may absorb all current heat for failing to score decisively in the global war on terror, but, in the words of author Richard Miniter, Osama bin Laden "is the unfinished business of the Clinton administration."

During the Clinton years the number of Americans who fell victim to terrorist plots grew steadily and Mr. bin Laden publicly declared war on the United States at least five times. At the same time, Mr. bin Laden learned that his forces could strike prime U.S. targets—the World Trade Center, U.S. soldiers (in Somalia), U.S. warships (USS Cole), and U.S. embassies (Nairobi, Dar es Salaam)—without drawing a serious counterattack from the White House.