The drones were one component of a broader plan that Clarke, a career government employee, had devised in the final days of the Clinton administration to go after Al Qaeda after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (search). Clinton officials decided just before Christmas 2000 to forward the plan to the incoming Bush administration rather than implement it during Clinton's final days, the officials said.

Why didn’t the Clinton Administration implement this program instead of passing the buck to the new administration? Better yet, why didn’t Clinton accept Syria’s offer to hand over bin Laden?