Clinton, most of his advisors, the congressional Republicans, the FBI under Freeh, the media, looks like nobody really had any clue about the real danger posed by OBL.

Sandy Berger was the only one in the Clinton circle who seemed aware of it.

from review of book by Joe Klein (centrist Democrat):

Then, there's the postscript to the Clinton Presidency: the war on terrorism. In the aftermath of September 11, the Clintonites' earlier failure to come to grips with international terrorism looms as a major shortcoming of the peace-and-prosperity era over which he presided. It will take more historical perspective than we have today--and a resolution of Bush's open-ended war on terrorism--to assess fairly the responsibility for America's lack of preparation. Klein, though, offers some fascinating insights from inside the Clinton White House.

Among those bearing degrees of responsibility, he asserts, are former Treasury Secretaries Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers. Klein claims they opposed "the use of cyber-warfare against the financial assets of terrorists" on the grounds that "it might threaten the stability of the international financial system." Then there was the FBI, led by Clinton critic Louis J. Freeh, which told the White House that the danger posed by bin Laden was exaggerated. "Their standard line was that Osama bin Laden wasn't a serious domestic security threat," Klein quotes an anonymous Clinton official as declaring. The stoutest anti-terrorism warrior, according to Klein, was National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger, who fought many a losing battle to keep the endeavor on the radar screen at the White House.

The events of August, 1998, raise questions about the motives behind the Clinton Administration's limited anti-terrorist actions. Bin Laden's minions bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania just days before Clinton's infamous grand jury appearance. His retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan came just three days after he lashed out at independent counsel Kenneth Starr on nationwide TV. "There were suspicions," Klein writes, "even among the President's foreign-policy team, that the scandal had influenced Clinton's decision to go after bin Laden." It is a sad commentary on the Clinton years that official Washington, from the White House to the Clinton-haters on Capitol Hill to the Inspector Clouseaus of the press corps, was obsessed with a former intern and blind to the threat posed by bin Laden.