After his meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on December 2, 1998, President Bill “Clinton made clear that he expected his aides to follow up on the offer [from Sharif to assist in capturing bin Laden], to put the plan in motion. ‘We tried to get the Pakistanis involved in this, realizing that it was a difficult thing for them,’ Clinton said later. ‘They had both the greatest opportunity, but the greatest political risk in getting him,’ Clinton believed.”
– Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 443