The Military Policy staff of the 9/11 Commission concluded on March 23, 2004, that actionable intelligence was lacking in order for President Bill Clinton to respond militarily to the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000: “The problem was in assigning responsibility for the attack. The intelligence community immediately suspected al Qaeda, but they could not come to a firm conclusion; without a definitive finding pointing to Bin Ladin or al Qaeda, the Clinton administration felt constrained from taking action, and a finding was not reached until the summer of 2001.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent, Pages 159-160