that i write in my book but i'm sure they're experimenting with what they call nonofficial cover or noc the problem is they're hard to manage and expensive so there's a big ka gray of naysayers at langley who say don't do this. >> now pakistan. you paint a picture of the interservices intelligence directorate that from what i can tell is very true to life. in this particular sense, they have lots of connections with all these militant groups, always had them. at some level they don't deny they have them. they say these are elements of pakistani society and yet they are quite reluctant to do anything about them, to shut them off in any way. do you think that that part of the book that you describe is true to life? >> yes. i think that the tragedy of the iss -- isi and arguably of pakistan as a whole is that it's caught in a web that it's spun, with our help, it must be said, that it now can't escape from. it's a web first of connections with jihadi organizations. the isi is, above all, a paramilitary organization. it doesn't do all that much collection of intelligence. it's not a very go