” ‘The ISI [Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence] is totally inflexible, the Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, then working at the National Security Council, told me [journalist Ahmed Rashid] when I visited Washington in the first week of July [5, 2001]. ‘We wanted a joint project with them to change the Taliban leadership, but the ISI backed out. We don’t want to confront Pakistan, but we may have to.’ ”
– Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos, Page 60