“The Bush Cabinet met at the White House on September 4 [2001]. Before them was a draft copy of a National Security Presidential Directive, a classified memo outlining a new U.S. policy toward al Qaeda and Afghanistan. The stated goal of the draft document was to eliminate bin Laden and his organization. Its provisions included a plan for a large but undetermined amount of covert action funds to aid [Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah] Massoud in his war against the Taliban. …The Cabinet approved this part of the proposal, although there remained uncertainty about where the money would come from and how much would ultimately be available. …CIA lawyers, working with officers in the Near East Division and Counterterrorist Center, began to draft a formal, legal presidential finding for Bush’s signature authorizing a new covert action program in Afghanistan, the first in a decade that sought to influence the course of the Afghan war.”
– Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Pages 580-581