Despite counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke’s suggestions for combating al Qaeda at the Bush Administration’s first National Security Council meeting on January 30, 2001, President Bush was focused elsewhere. ” ‘We’re going to correct the imbalance of the previous [Clinton] administration on the Mideast conflict,’ Bush announced. ‘We’re going to tilt it back toward Israel.’ Bush added that America should abandon its efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When [Secretary of State] Colin Powell said that might have some dire consequences for the Palestinians, Bush brushed him off. ‘Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things,’ he said.”
– Craig Unger, The Fall of the House of Bush, Page 201