Just Curious: Does Bill Clinton Believe it was a "Big Mistake" to Not have "Destroyed the Terrorist Camps in Afghanistan," Where "Perhaps over 10,000 Terrorists" Trained?

In typical Clinton fashion (and with Bush's poll numbers down), he now says going into Iraq was a "big mistake," but he's glad Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. His remarks remind me of his clever answer to a question on how Gov. Clinton would have voted on the first Gulf War resolution had he been in Congress at the time. "I guess I would have voted with the majority if it was a close vote. But I agree with the argument the minority made," Clinton said in 1991. But does the former president have an opinion on his "big mistake"?

Here's an interview PBS' Frontline conducted with Richard Clarke in March 2002.

Some also say that due to the Lewinsky scandal, more action perhaps was never undertaken. In your eyes?

The interagency group on which I sat and John O'Neill sat -- we never asked for a particular action to be authorized and were refused. We were never refused. Any time we took a proposal to higher authority, with one or two exceptions, it was approved....

But didn't you push for military action after the Cole?

Yes, that's one of the exceptions.

How important is that exception?

I believe that, had we destroyed the terrorist camps in Afghanistan earlier, that the conveyor belt that was producing terrorists sending them out around the world would have been destroyed. So many, many trained and indoctrinated Al Qaeda terrorists, which now we have to hunt down country by country, many of them would not be trained and would not be indoctrinated, because there wouldn't have been a safe place to do it if we had destroyed the camps earlier.