WASHINGTON - The White House charged Wednesday that former president Bill Clinton had overseen a steep erosion in US intelligence capabilities from which the United States is only now recovering.
"Even with the buildup since September 11th, we are only now beginning to achieve the same sort of levels that we had in terms of intelligence assets that we had at the beginning of the Clinton administration," spokesman Tony Snow told reporters.
Snow said that Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the architect of the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the United States, had "noticed that the United States had, in fact, been cutting back dramatically on intelligence assets and on military assets" after 1993.
His comments came three days after Clinton sharply criticized US President George W. Bush for not doing more after taking office in January 2001 to capture or kill bin Laden.
09/27/2006 17:12 GMT