Yes, there were dropped balls in the war against terrorism, and most of them took place during the Clinton years.

Rich Lowry on Bill Clinton & Khobar Towers on National Review Online: "In this battle, it's useful to stick to specifics. Let's take, for instance, the Clinton administration's handling of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996. If Clinton was as vigilant against terrorism as he says — handing over a wondrous counterterrorism policy to an inept and inattentive Bush administration — it should be clear in cases like that of Khobar. Instead, as I write in my new book Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years, the Clinton administration deliberately looked the other way after the Khobar bombing and made a near-apology to the perpetrator of the attack."