Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice fired back at Sen. Hillary Clinton on Sunday, accusing the Clinton administration of not doing enough to stop Osama bin Laden during the 1990s as his al-Qaida network attacked U.S. interests with impunity.
Asked about Mrs. Clinton's complaint last week that in the four years since Sept. 11 the Bush adminsitration still hadn't been able to find "the tallest man in Afghanistan," Rice noted that the United States had succeeded in hobbling the terrorist kingpin - in marked contrast to what happened during the Clinton years.
"He's not the figure who sat for the entire period of the 1990s in Afghanistan, with training camps there, able to carry out operations, able to use the territory of Afghanistan as a base for his operations, able to launch effective attacks against the United States, against our embassies, against 'The Cole' and ultimately against us in Sept. 11th, 2001," Rice said.
The top diplomat didn't mention Mr. Clinton's decision to refuse a 1996 offer by the Sudanese to round up bin Laden and hand him over to the United States, but instead concentrated on Bush administration successes.