Cheney: "We Didn't Know A Lot About Al-Qaeda" Why Not?

One more thing about Cheney's interview with Sean Hannity, if I may.

Quoting Mr. Cheney in the interview:

"We didn't know a lot about Al-Qaeda. We didn't have the body of knowledge we have today. But, uh, it was a realtively unknown group. We knew a little bit about them, but not a lot."

Why not, Mr. Cheney?

• We're talking about the same group of folks who bombed the USS Cole and killed 17 sailors in 2000.
  
• We're talking about a group that Bush counterterrorist cheif Richard Clarke (I still have his book Against All Enemies on my shelf) spefically asked for more CIA focus on.
  
• We're talking about a group that had "declared war" on the United States.
  
• We're talking about a group that President Clinton's intelligence team had warned the then-new Bush administration about.
  

So why, Mr. Cheney, did you know so little about them before 9/11?