1995
Mujahedin attempts to take over Bosnia are thwarted by CIA.

1995
Plot to blow up planes coming out of Philipines stopped. The Phillippine government uncovers a plot to fly planes into the Pentagon and the WTC.

1995
Oklahoma City: Tim McVeigh was caught, tried, and executed.

1996
Khobar Towers bombed.

1996
Clinton sends 40 FBI investigators and forensic experts to work with Saudi authorities.

1996
Clinton appoints General Wayne Downing as head of commission to review and improve security for overseas military installations.

1996
Clinton advises G7 in Lyon on steps to take to fight terrorism.

1996
CIA is ordered to focus its Counterterrorism Center exclusively on Osama bin Laden.

1996
Sudan is urged by Clinton to expel Bin Laden. Sudan complies and Bin Laden flees to Afghanistan.

1996
Clinton sends in marines to guard U.S. embassy in Albanian, thwarting an Al Qaeda attack, and begins working with Albanians to break up Al Qaeda cell there.

1996
Clinton begins talks with Pakistan regarding Al Qaeda and Taliban.

1997
Terrorist plan to bomb Holland and Lincoln tunnels thwarted.

1997
All parties responsible for Khobar towers are executed by Saudi government.

1998
U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, are bombed by Al Qaeda.

1998
Clinton okays a strike against Bin Laden, and the Navy launches cruise missiles, destroying the site in the Sudan where Bin Laden had been reported to be, but had left.

1998
Clinton okays a missile strike against Al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan.

1998
Clinton briefs Congress on the reasons for the missile strike and receives nearly unanimous approval.

1998
Clinton signs Order 13099 imposing economic sanctions against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

1998
Clinton orders General Shelton and General Clark to develop commando raid plans for Afghanistan.

1998
Clinton signs several Memoranda of Notifications authorizing the CIA to use lethal force against Bin Laden and his associates.

1999
Clinton signs an executive order freezing the assets of the Taliban.

1999
U.S. officials begin training Pakistani commandos to go into Afghanistan after Bin Laden.

1999
Musharraf takes over Pakistani government in military coup, cancels commando program. Clinton begins talks with Musharraf to reinstate program.

1999
A terrorist is caught crossing the border with Canada. Based on information provided by him, terrorist cells in the northeast U.S. and in Canada are broken up.

9/1999
U.S. study reports that Al Qaeda might crash planes into the Pentagon.

1999
Al Qaeda attacks in Jordan are thwarted.

2000
Clinton okays an additional $300 million to anti-terrorism budget of $9 billion.

2000
USS Cole is attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden.

2000
A missile strike is nearly carried out against Obama, but is aborted on the advice of the CIA, who believe evidence of Obama's presence was insufficiently reliable.

2000
On December 19th, Clinton and Sandy Berger briefed newly appointed President Bush on the threat from Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban. At that time it the urgency of pursuing al Qaeda was explained to George Bush.

1/10/2001
Sandy Berger spoke at a "passing the baton" event, "The survivors of the USS Cole reinforced the reality that America is in a deadly struggle with a new breed of anti-Western jihadists. Nothing less than a war, I think it's fair to describe this.

1/18/2001
Richard Clarke sends Condoleeza Rice the plan for retaliation adopted by the Clinton administration should it become evident that al Qaeda was behind the USS Cole bombing.

1/18/2001
FBI concludes that al Qaeda was responsible for the USS Cole bombing. In response, Bush did not order strikes or escalations of Clinton measures.

1/25/2001
Richard Clarke sent Rice a memo with an attached document, "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of Al Qida: Status and Prospects"

Among other things, that memo stressed that Al Qaeda should not be taken lightly and that the position taken by the administration at that time, that Al Qaeda issues should be lumped in with other regional issues, was tragicly flawed.

Rice responded that the terrorist policies of the former administration weren't working because regional policies (Afghanistan, Pakistan) weren't working. She didn't elucidate.

Clarke was unable to effectively escalate the matter because Bush downgraded terrorism below Cabinet-level issues, delegating it to the deputy level. The deputies didn't meet to address terrorism until April.

2/2001
Still choosing not to attack Al Qaeda, Bush instead writes a letter to Pakistani President Musharraf about al Qaeda's role in the USS Cole bombing.

2/27/2001
In Bush's address to Congress, he asserts that the only way to defend U.S. interests is to beef up our missile defenses, a la Reagan, even though this would not have helped prevent the USS Cole bombing, the first World Trade Center attack, the embassy bombings, or any other attack we've undergone in the last decade.

2/26/2001
Frmr National Committee on Terrorism Chairman Paul Bremer, after being refused an audience with the Bush administration to discuss the terrorist threats they'd been studying intensely, said, "What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'"

2/27/2001
Saudi Arabia offered to hand Osama bin Laden to the United States in exchange for a cessation of sanctions. The Bush Administration never responded to the offer.

3/2001
NYC testimony reveals that Bin Laden was sending agents to acquire planes

4/2001
At the deputies meeting, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz announced that the real terrorism threat wasn't Al Qaeda, but Iraq.

6/21/2001
Sen. Carl Levin, Armed Services Committee expressed concern in Congressional hearings that Bush's policies were misguided.

7/2001
FBI is told that Zacarias Moussaoui is interested in learning to fly jumbo jets.

7/16/2001
Deputies submit the same plan that Clarke submitted in January. But the cabinet principals didn't meet to hear the plan until September.

8/2001
Bush writes another letter to Pakistani President Musharraf the USS Cole bombing.

8/6/2001
In the presidential briefing entitled, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US": "Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparation for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

9/2001
FBI memo says Moussaoui might "fly something into the World Trade Center."

9/4/2001
The president's cabinet principals meet and discuss, for the first time, issues concerning terrorism.

9/10/2001
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein requests a meeting with Dick Cheney to urge him to escalate counter terrorism measures. She is put off, told that Mr. Cheney will need about 6 months to prepare and educate himself on the topic first.

9/10/2001
NSA intercepts a message from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia: "Tomorrow is zero hour."

9/11/2001.
Al Qaeda operatives commandeer and fly 4 commercial planes on suicide missions against the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and theoretically, the White House itself.

9/12/2001
Message intercepted by NSA is translated into English.

9/25/2001
Condoleeza Rice in the New York Post "We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda." "I don't think anyone thought these people might take a plane and slam it into a building."