“Both [incumbent Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and Kofi Annan, then the head of the United Nations, wanted to post international peacekeepers around Afghanistan in early 2002. But the Bush administration blocked any non-U.S. troops from deploying outside Kabul for the first two years of the occupation. [Ambassador to Afghanistan James] Dobbins recalls a meeting in the White House Situation Room in February 2002 in which [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld killed any idea of expanding the role of the largely European International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) then securing Kabul. Not only was the United States unwilling to police Afghanistan; it wasn’t going to let anyone else do it, either.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Peter Bergen, The Longest War, Page 181