“In a ninety-seven-paragraph unclassified statement [titled ‘Current and Projected National Security Threats’] he [CIA Director George Tenet] issued [to the Senate Armed Services Committee] that winter [February 2, 1999] about rising dangers in an unstable world, Tenet devoted four paragraphs to bin Laden. Also, the CIA director placed virtually no emphasis on Afghanistan as a cause or context of bin Laden’s menace… He did not describe the Taliban as a threat to the United States or to stability in Central and South Asia, or as bin Laden’s most important military allies.”
– Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 454