After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush famously declared that he would capture Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.” However, less than a year later — in March 2002 — Bush said that he was “not that concerned” about the al Qaeda leader. Today on CNN’s Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer asked Vice President Cheney, “How frustrating is this to you personally, knowing he’s [bin Laden] still at large?” Cheney hesitated, then simply replied that he would “obviously…like to solve that problem.” He added that it’s more “important” to “keep…this country safe,” indicating that bin Laden is inconsequential. Watch it:

Because of the Iraq war, the CIA has been unable to devote enough resources to capturing bin Laden, as Newsweek revealed in 2005. Lacking this attention, U.S. News reported in 2007 that senior officials were privately admitting that bin Laden and his network may be “stronger than ever.”