The US government at the time did not want to do any such thing. Project For A New American Century, the think tank most of the Bush administration officials came from, openly wrote about how they were hoping for a “new Pearl Harbor” they could use to take the US into war with Iraq. Later, President Bush got a memo about how Al Qaeda was going to attack the US mainland and he did nothing. Then 9/11 happened and the government lied the country into a war with Iraq. What part of this makes you think they were going to do anything about Al Qaeda (other than giving them more funds maybe)?