Former CIA Director George Tenet described the terrorism response needed in Afghanistan: ” ‘We need to go in fast, hard, and light,’ we told the president [Bush]. ‘Everyone, including al-Qa’ida and the Taliban are expecting us to invade Afghanistan the same way the Soviets did in the 1980s.’ …Ours was a strategy unlike any other in recent American history. The plan CIA laid out for the president on September 13 [2001]…stressed one thing: we would be the insurgents…Our plan was to build on relationships that had been carefully forged with regional factions over recent years to give us allies who might help oust the Taliban. This war would never be ‘Americans against Afghans,’ we told the president. Rather, it would always be about helping Afghans rid their own country of a foreign menace, al-Qa’ida, and of the Taliban, who had allowed terrorists to hijack their country.”
– George Tenet with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm, Page 207