WASHINGTON, June 20: While president, Bill Clinton told successor George W. Bush that Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network posed the greatest threat to US security, and ranked Iraq last on a list of concerns , according to excerpts of his memoirs released on Sunday.

The two men met at the White House after Bush won the 2000 presidential election. "He was putting together an experienced team from past Republican administrations who believed that the biggest security issues were the need for national missile defence and Iraq," Clinton wrote, in excerpts released by Time magazine.

"I told him that, based on the last eight years, I thought his biggest security problems, in order, would be Osama and Al Qaeda; the absence of peace in the Middle East; the standoff between nuclear powers India and Pakistan, and the ties of the Pakistanis to the Taliban and Al Qaeda; N. Korea; and then Iraq.

"I said that my biggest disappointment was not getting Osama, that we still might achieve an agreement in the Middle East, and that we had almost tied up a deal with N. Korea to end its missile programme, but that he probably would have to go there to close the deal," Clinton said.

Clinton reportedly made a similar statement to an official panel investigating the attacks, and senior Clinton-era officials have said that their plan to topple Al Qaeda got lost during the transition between administrations. But White House has denied that the Clinton administration provided a plan to attack Al Qaeda. -AFP