All these articles contain links to documents that you will find useful in your arguments.

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/iraq.html

http://www.uwec.edu/grossmzc/philligr.html

yuricareport.com

Perspective

"It is the Oil, Stupid!"

by Joseph Clifford

The Russians got into their Vietnam right after we got out of ours? Isn't that strange?

We supported Bin Laden and the Taliban for years, and viewed them as freedom fighters against the Russians? Isn't that strange?

As late as 1998 the US was paying the salary of every single Taliban official in Afghanistan? Isn't that strange?

There is more oil and gas in the Caspian Sea area than in Saudi Arabia, but you need a pipeline through Afghanistan to get the oil out. Isn't that strange?

UNOCAL, a giant American Oil conglomerate, wanted to build a 1000 mile long pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. Isn't that strange?

UNOCAL spent $10,000,000,000 on geological surveys for pipeline construction, and very nicely courted the Taliban for their support in allowing the construction to begin. Isn't that strange?

All of the leading Taliban officials were in Texas negotiating with UNOCAL in 1998. Isn't that strange?

1998-1999 the Taliban changed its mind and threw UNOCAL out of the country and awarded the pipeline project to a company from Argentina. Isn't that strange?

John Maresca VP of UNOCAL testified before Congress and said no pipeline until the Taliban was gone and a more friendly government was established. Isn't that strange?

1999-2000 The Taliban became the most evil people in the world. Isn't that strange?

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Isn't that strange?

9/11 WTC disaster.

Bush goes to war against Afghanistan even though none of the hijackers came from Afghanistan. Isn't that strange?

Bush blamed Bin Laden but has never offered any proof saying it?s a "secret". Isn't that strange?

Taliban offered to negotiate to turn over Bin Laden if we showed them some proof. We refused; we bombed. Isn't that strange?

Bush said: "This is not about nation building. It's about getting the terrorists." Isn't that strange?

We have a new government in Afghanistan. Isn't that strange?

The leader of that government formerly worked for UNOCAL. Isn't that strange?

Bush appoints a special envoy to represent the US to deal with that new government, who formerly was the "chief consultant to UNOCAL". Isn't that strange?

The Bush family acquired their wealth through oil? Isn't that strange?

Bush's Secretary of Interior was the President of an oil company before going to Washington. Isn't that strange?

George Bush Sr. now works with the "Carlysle Group" specializing in huge oil investments around the world. Isn't that strange?

Condoleezza Rice worked for Chevron before gong to Washington. Isn't that strange?

Chevron named one of its newest "supertankers" after Condoleezza. Isn't that strange?

Dick Cheney worked for the giant oil conglomerate Haliburton before becoming VP. Isn't that strange?

Haliburton gave Cheney $34 Million dollars as a farewell gift when he left Haliburton. Isn't that strange?

Haliburton is in the pipeline construction business. Isn't that strange?

There is $6 Trillion dollars worth of oil in the Caspian Sea area. Isn't that strange?

The US government quietly announces Jan 31, 2002 we will support the construction of the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. Isn't that strange?

President Musharref (Pakistan), and Karrzai, (Afghanistan -Unocal) announce agreement to build proposed gas pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan. (Irish Times 02/10/02) Isn't that strange?

"It?s the Oil, Stupid!"

Mr. Joseph Clifford contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from James Town, Rhode Island, USA

Source

How about if Iraq had no oil? What if they were a country of potato farms without WMD's. That will make them stumble. Ask them if they were on board to invade a soverign nation, get 1400 GI's killed, 10,000 seriously injured, and 100,000 civilians killed over potato's?

I dont really mean stupid. Is just an expression, but Iraq has the highest volume per day production of any oil region in the world. More oil. Faster. Than ANYONE ELSE.

My sergeant put it best a week before we left for the Middle East: "Don't think you're going to be heroes. You're not going for weapons of mass destruction. You're not going to get rid of Saddam, or to make Iraq safe for democracy. You're going for one reason, and that's oil."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1364244,00.html

Timeline of 9/11
by Paul Thompson
Selected topic: Central Asian oil, Enron, and the Afghanistan pipelines
1991: Future National Security Advisor Rice joins Chevron's board of directors, and works with Chevron until being picked as Bush's National Security Advisor in 2001. Chevron even names an oil tanker after her. Rice is hired for her expertise in Central Asia, and much of her job is spent arranging oil deals in the Central Asian region. Chevron also has massive investments there, which grow through the 1990s. [ Salon, 11/19/01 ]

1991-1997: The Soviet Union collapses in 1991, creating many new nations in Central Asia. Major US oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell and Enron, directly invest billions in these Central Asian nations, bribing heads of state to secure equity rights in the huge oil reserves in these regions. The oil companies commit to future direct investments in Kazakhstan of $35 billion. These companies face the problem however of having to pay exorbitant prices to Russia to use Russian pipelines to get the oil out. These oil fields have an estimated $6 trillion potential value. US companies own approximately 75 of the rights. [ New Yorker, 7/9/01 , Asia Times, 1/26/02 ] FTW

March 8, 1992: The Defense Planning Guidance, “a blueprint for the department's spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” is leaked to the New York Times. [ New York Times, 3/8/92 , Newsday, 3/16/03 ] The paper causes controversy, because it hadn't yet been “scrubbed” to replace candid language with euphemisms. [ New York Times, 3/10/92 , New York Times, 3/11/92 , Observer, 4/7/02 ] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role it “must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” [ New York Times, 3/8/92 , New York Times, 3/8/92 (B) ] As the Observer summarizes it, “America's friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington.” [ Observer, 4/7/02 ] The document is mainly written by Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, who hold relatively low posts at the time, but under Bush Jr. become Deputy Defense Secretary and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, respectively. [ Newsday, 3/16/03 ] The document conspicuously avoids mention of collective security arrangements through the United Nations, instead suggesting the US “should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted.” [ New York Times, 3/8/92 ] It also calls for “punishing” or “threatening punishment” against regional aggressors before they act. Interests to be defended pre-emptively include “ access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism.” [ Harper's, 10/02 ] Senator Lincoln Chafee (R), later says, “It is my opinion that [Bush Jr.'s] plan for preemptive strikes was formed back at the end of the first Bush administration with that 1992 report.” [ Newsday, 3/16/03 ] In response to the controversy, in May 1992 the US releases an updated version of the document that stresses the US will work with the United Nations and its allies (see also January 1993). [ Washington Post, 5/24/92 , Harper's, 10/02 ]

The Dabhol power plant. [Enron]
November 1993: The Indian government gives approval for Enron's Dabhol power plant, located near Bombay on the west coast of India. Enron has invested $3 billion, the largest single foreign investment in India's history. Enron owns 65 percent of Dabhol. This liquefied natural gas powered plant is supposed to provide one-fifth of India's energy needs by 1997 [ Asia Times, 1/18/01 , Indian Express, 2/27/00 ] It is the largest gas-fired power plant in the world. Earlier in the year, the World Bank concludes that the plant is “not economically viable” and refuses to invest in it. [ New York Times, 3/20/01 ] Enron apparently tries to make the plant financially viable by investing in gas fields in nearby Uzbekistan (see June 24, 1996), but it cannot get that gas to Dabhol without a gas pipeline through Afghanistan (see June 24, 1996 and June 1998 (B)). Construction of the plant is abandoned just before completion (see June 2001 (J)).

October 21, 1995: The oil company Unocal signs a contract with Turkmenistan to export $8 billion worth of natural gas through a $3 billion pipeline which would go from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Political considerations and pressures allow Unocal to edge out a more experienced Argentinean company for the contract. Henry Kissinger, a Unocal consultant, calls it “the triumph of hope over experience.” [ Washington Post, 10/5/98 ]

This map shows how Enron planned to connect its gas fields in Turkmenistan to its Dabhol power plant. The pipelines in blue are preexisting; the rest needed to be built. [Albion Monitor]
June 24, 1996: Uzbekistan signs a deal with Enron “that could lead to joint development of the Central Asian nation's potentially rich natural gas fields.” [ Houston Chronicle, 6/25/96 ] The $1.3 billion venture teams Enron with the state companies of Russian and Uzbekistan. [ Houston Chronicle, 6/30/96 ] On July 8, 1996, the US government agrees to give $400 million to help Enron and an Uzbeki state company develop these natural gas fields. [ Oil and Gas Journal, 7/8/96 ] However, the deal is later canceled when it becomes apparent a gas pipeline will not be built across Afghanistan, and there is no easy way to get the gas out of the region (see November 1993 and June 1998 (B)).

Route of the planned gas pipeline, and other existing pipelines. [Forbes]
August 13, 1996: Unocal and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia come to agreement with state companies in Turkmenistan and Russia to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan, the agreement is finalized the next year (see October 27, 1997). [ Unocal website, 8/13/96 ] The Boston Herald later reports that, “The prime force behind Delta Oil appears to be Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi” (see November 22, 2002 (B)) and that his business interests are “enmeshed” with those of Khalid bin Mahfouz (see for instance 1988and April 1999). Together and separately, al-Amoudi and bin Mahfouz have become “partners with US firms in a series of ambitious oil development and pipeline projects in central and south Asia.” [ Boston Herald, 12/10/01 ] The two are later included in a secret United Nations list of financiers funding al-Qaeda (see November 26, 2002).

September 27, 1996: The Taliban conquer Kabul [ Associated Press, 8/19/02 ], establishing control over much of Afghanistan. A surge in the Taliban's military successes at this time is later attributed to an increase in direct military assistance from Pakistan's ISI. [ New York Times, 12/8/01 ] The oil company Unocal is hopeful that the Taliban will stabilize Afghanistan, and allow its pipeline plans to go forward. In fact, “preliminary agreement [on the pipeline] was reached between the [Taliban and Unocal] long before the fall of Kabul. … Oil industry insiders say the dream of securing a pipeline across Afghanistan is the main reason why Pakistan, a close political ally of America's, has been so supportive of the Taliban, and why America has quietly acquiesced in its conquest of Afghanistan.” [ Telegraph, 10/11/96 ]

October 11, 1996: The Telegraph publishes an interesting article about pipeline politics in Afghanistan. Some quotes: “Behind the tribal clashes that have scarred Afghanistan lies one of the great prizes of the 21st century, the fabulous energy reserves of Central Asia.” “‘The deposits are huge,’ said a diplomat from the region. ‘Kazakhstan alone may have more oil than Saudi Arabia. Turkmenistan is already known to have the fifth largest gas reserves in the world.’” [ Telegraph, 10/11/96 ]

August 1997: The CIA creates a secret task force to monitor Central Asia's politics and gauge its wealth. Covert CIA officers, some well-trained petroleum engineers, travel through southern Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to sniff out potential oil reserves. [ Time, 5/4/98 ]

Zbigniew Brzezinski.
October 1997: Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (see December 26, 1979) publishes a book in which he portrays the Eurasian landmass as the key to world power, and Central Asia with its vast oil reserves as the key to domination of Eurasia. He states that for the US to maintain its global primacy, it must prevent any possible adversary from controlling that region. He notes that, “The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” Furthermore, because of popular resistance to US military expansionism, his ambitious Central Asian strategy could not be implemented “except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” [ The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives , by Zbigniew Brzezinski, 10/97 (the link is to excerpts of the book from a From the Wilderness article)]

October 27, 1997: Halliburton, a company with future Vice President Cheney as CEO, announces a new agreement to provide technical services and drilling for Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia. The press release also mentions that “Halliburton has been providing a variety of services in Turkmenistan for the past five years.” On the same day, a consortium to build a pipeline through Afghanistan is formed. It's called CentGas, and the two main partners are Unocal and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia. [ Halliburton press release, 10/27/97 , CentGas press release, 10/27/97 ]

November 26, 1997: An industry newsletter reports that Saudi Arabia has abandoned plans to have open bids on a $2 billion power plant near Mecca, deciding that the government will build it instead. What's interesting is that one of the bids was made by a consortium of Enron, the Saudi Binladen Group (run by Osama's family), and Italy's Ansaldo Energia. [ Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, 1/22/98 ]

December 4, 1997: Representatives of the Taliban are invited guests to the Texas headquarters of Unocal to negotiate their support for the pipeline. Future President Bush Jr. is Governor of Texas at the time. The Taliban appear to agree to a $2 billion pipeline deal, but will do the deal only if the US officially recognizes the Taliban regime. The Taliban meet with US officials, and the Telegraph reports that “the US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children ‘despicable,’ appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract.” A BBC regional correspondent says “the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea.” [ BBC, 12/4/97 , Telegraph, 12/14/97 ] FTW

December 14, 1997: It is reported that Unocal has hired the University of Nebraska to train 400 Afghani teachers, electricians, carpenters and pipefitters in anticipation of using them for their pipeline in Afghanistan. 150 students are already attending classes. [ Telegraph, 12/14/97 ]

February 12, 1998: Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca—later to become a Special Ambassador to Afghanistan—testifies before the House of Representatives that until a single, unified, friendly government is in place in Afghanistan the trans-Afghani pipeline will not be built. He suggests that with a pipeline through Afghanistan, the Caspian basin could produce 20 percent of all the non-OPEC oil in the world by 2010. [ House International Relations Committee testimony, 2/12/98 ] FTW

Early 1998: Bill Richardson, the US Ambassador to the UN, meets Taliban officials in Kabul (all such meetings are technically illegal, because the US still officially recognizes the government the Taliban ousted as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan). US officials at the time call the oil and gas pipeline project a “fabulous opportunity” and are especially motivated by the “prospect of circumventing Iran, which offered another route for the pipeline.” [ Boston Globe, 9/20/01 ]

June 1998 (B): Enron's agreement to develop natural gas with the government of Uzbekistan is not renewed (see June 24, 1996). Enron closes its office there. The reason for the “failure of Enron's flagship project” is an inability to get the natural gas out of the region. Uzbekistan's production is “well below capacity” and only 10 percent of its production is being exported, all to other countries in the region. The hope was to use a pipeline through Afghanistan, but “Uzbekistan is extremely concerned at the growing strength of the Taliban and its potential impact on stability in Uzbekistan, making any future cooperation on a pipeline project which benefits the Taliban unlikely.” A $12 billion pipeline through China is being considered as one solution, but that wouldn't be completed until the end of the next decade at the earliest. [ Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, 10/12/98 ]

June 23, 1998: Future Vice President Cheney, working for the Halliburton energy company, states: “I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian. It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight.” The Caspian Sea is in Central Asia. [ Cato Institute Library , Chicago Tribune, 8/10/00 ]

August 9, 1998: The Northern Alliance capital of Afghanistan, Mazar-i-Sharif, is conquered by the Taliban. Military support of Pakistan's ISI plays a large role; there is even an intercept of an ISI officer stating, “My boys and I are riding into Mazar-i-Sharif.” [ New York Times, 12/8/01 ] This victory gives the Taliban control of 90 of Afghanistan, including the entire pipeline route. CentGas, the consortium behind the gas pipeline that would run through Afghanistan, is now “ready to proceed. Its main partners are the American oil firm Unocal and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia, plus Hyundai of South Korea, two Japanese companies, a Pakistani conglomerate and the Turkmen government.” However, the pipeline cannot be financed unless the government is officially recognized. “Diplomatic sources said the Taliban's offensive was well prepared and deliberately scheduled two months ahead of the next UN meeting” to decide if the Taliban should be recognized. [ Telegraph, 8/13/98 ]

December 5, 1998: In the wake of the al-Qaeda US embassy attacks (see August 7, 1998), the US gives up on putting a pipeline through Afghanistan. Unocal announces it is withdrawing from the CentGas pipeline consortium, and closing three of its four offices in Central Asia. A concern that Clinton will lose support among women voters for upholding the Taliban also plays a role in the cancellation. [ New York Times, 12/5/98 ] FTW

Late 1998 (B): During the investigation of the 1998 embassy bombings, FBI counter-terrorism expert John O'Neill finds a memo by al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef on a computer. The memo shows that bin Laden's group has a keen interest in and detailed knowledge of negotiations between the Taliban and the US over an oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan. Atef's analysis suggests that the Taliban are not sincere in wanting a pipeline, but are dragging out negotiations to keep Western powers at bay. [ Salon, 6/5/02 ]

June 1999: Enron announces an agreement to build a $140 million power plant in the Gaza Strip. One of the major financiers for the project comes from the Saudi Binladin Group, a company owned by Osama's family. This is the second attempted project between these two companies. 90 complete, the construction is halted because of Palestinian-Israeli violence and then Enron's bankruptcy. [ Washington Post, 3/2/02 ]

July 4, 1999: With the chances of a pipeline deal with the Taliban looking increasingly unlikely, the US government finally issues an executive order prohibiting commercial transactions with the Taliban. [ Executive Order, 7/4/99 ]

December 20, 1999: The BBC explains one reason why the Northern Alliance has been able to hold out for so long in its civil war against the Taliban in Afghanistan: “Iran has stirred up the fighting in order to make sure an international oil pipeline [goes] through its territory and not through Afghanistan.” [ BBC, 12/20/99 ] In the summer of 2001 Pakistan and India appear to be leaning towards putting a gas pipeline through Iran but this plan is apparently canceled after the 9/11 attacks (see June 27, 2001).

People involved in the 2000 PNAC report (from top left): Vice President Cheney, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim, and author Eliot Cohen.
September 2000: The neoconservative think-tank Project for the New American Century writes a “blueprint” for the “creation of a ‘global Pax Americana’” (see also June 3, 1997). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, was written for the Bush team even before the 2000 Presidential election. It was commissioned by future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor and President Bush's brother Jeb Bush, and future Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby. The report calls itself a “blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” The plan shows Bush intended to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power and should retain control of the region even if there is no threat. It says: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The report calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the internet, the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and other countries. It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” A British Member of Parliament says of the report, “This is a blueprint for US world domination—a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world” (see also Spring 2001 and April 2001 (D)). [ Sunday Herald, 9/7/02 , click here to download the think tank report] However, the report complains that these changes are likely to take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [ Los Angeles Times, 1/12/03 ] In an NBC interview at about the same time, Vice Presidential candidate Cheney defends Bush Jr.'s position of maintaining Clinton's policy not to attack Iraq because the US should not act as though “we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.” [ Washington Post, 1/12/02 ] This report and the Project for the New American Century generally are mostly ignored until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).

The Chevron oil tanker named after National Security Advisor Rice [ABC]
January 21, 2001: George Bush Jr. is inaugurated as the 43rd US President, replacing Clinton. The only major figure to permanently remain in office is CIA Director Tenet, appointed in 1997 and reputedly a long time friend of Bush Sr. FBI Director Louis Freeh stays on until June 2001. Numerous figures in Bush's administration have been directly employed in the oil industry, including Bush, Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Rice. It is later revealed that Cheney is still being paid up to $1 million a year in “deferred payments” from Halliburton, the oil company he headed. [ Guardian, 3/12/03 ] Enron's ties also reach deep into the administration. [ Washington Post, 1/18/02 ]

February 9, 2001: Vice President Cheney is briefed that it has been conclusively proven bin Laden was behind the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). Bush has been in office a matter of days, when secret pipeline negotiations with the Taliban have begun. The new administration has already twice threatened the Taliban that the US would hold the Taliban responsible for any al-Qaeda attack. But, fearful of ending those negotiations, the US does not retaliate against either the Taliban or known bin Laden bases in Afghanistan in the manner Clinton did in 1998. [ Washington Post, 1/20/02 ]

Spring 2001: The Sydney Morning Herald later reports, “The months preceding September 11 [see] a shifting of the US military's focus … Over several months beginning in April [2001] a series of military and governmental policy documents [are] released that [seek] to legitimize the use of US military force” “in the pursuit of oil and gas.” Michael Klare, an international security expert and author of Resource Wars, says the military has increasingly come to “define resource security as their primary mission.” An article in the Army War College's journal by Jeffrey Record, a former staff member of the Senate armed services committee, argues for the legitimacy of “shooting in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices.” He also “advocate[s] the acceptability of presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict” and “explicitly urge[s] painting over the US's actual reasons for warfare with a nobly high-minded veneer, seeing such as a necessity for mobilizing public support for a conflict.” In April, Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf/South Asia area, testifies to Congress in April that his command's key mission is “access to [the region's] energy resources.” The next month US Central Command begins planning for war with Afghanistan, plans that are later used in the real war (see May 2001 (F)). [ Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02 ] Other little noticed but influential documents reflect similar thinking (see September 2000 and April 2001 (D)).

April 2001 (D): A report commissioned by former US Secretary of State James Baker and the Council on Foreign Relations entitled “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century” is submitted to Vice President Cheney this month. “The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs.” The report says the “central dilemma” for the US administration is that “the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience.” It warns that the US is running out of oil, with a painful end to cheap fuel already in sight. It argues that “the United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma,” and that one of the “consequences” of this is a “need for military intervention” to secure its oil supply. It argues that Iraq needs to be overthrown so the US can control its oil. [ Sunday Herald, 10/5/02 , Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/02 ] In what may be a reference to a pipeline through Afghanistan, the report suggests the US should “Investigate whether any changes to US policy would quickly facilitate higher exports of oil from the Caspian Basin region… the exports from some oil discoveries in the Caspian Basin could be hastened if a secure, economical export route could be identified swiftly” (see also September 2000 and Spring 2001). [ Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century, 4/01 ]

May 2001 (G): Vice President Cheney's national energy plan is publicly released. It calls for expanded oil and gas drilling on public land and easing regulatory barriers to building nuclear power plants. [ Associated Press, 12/9/02 ] There are several interesting points, little noticed at the time. It suggests that the US cannot depend exclusively on traditional sources of supply to provide the growing amount of oil that it needs. It will also have to obtain substantial supplies from new sources, such as the Caspian states, Russia, and Africa. It also notes that the US cannot rely on market forces alone to gain access to these added supplies, but will also require a significant effort on the part of government officials to overcome foreign resistance to the outward reach of American energy companies. [ Japan Today, 4/30/02 ] The plan was largely decided through Cheney's secretive Energy Task Force. Both before and after this, Cheney and other Task Force officials meet with Enron executives, including a meeting a month and a half before Enron declares bankruptcy (see December 2, 2001). Two separate lawsuits are later filed to reveal details of how the government's energy policy was formed and if Enron or other players may have influenced it, but so far the Bush Administration has resisted all efforts to release these documents (see October 17, 2002 and February 7, 2003 (B)). [ Associated Press, 12/9/02 ] At the very least, it's known that Enron executives met with the Commerce Secretary about its troubled Dabhol power plant in 2001 (see November 1993). [ New York Times, 2/21/02 ]

June 2001 (J): Enron's power plant in Dabhol, India, is shut down. The failure of the $3 billion plant, Enron's largest investment, contributes to Enron's bankruptcy later in the year (see December 2, 2001). Earlier in the year, India stopped paying its bill for the energy from the plant, because energy from the plant cost three times the usual rates. [ New York Times, 3/20/01 ] Enron had hoped to feed the plant with cheap Central Asian gas, but this hope was dashed when a gas pipeline through Afghanistan was not completed (see June 1998 (B). The larger part of the plant is still only 90 percent complete when construction stops at about this time. [ New York Times, 3/20/01 ] It is known that Vice President Cheney lobbies the leader of India's main opposition party about the plant this month. [ New York Times, 2/21/02 ] A lawsuit is in motion to get additional government documents released that could reveal what else the US did to support this plant (see October 17, 2002 and February 7, 2003 (B)). Enron may eventually restart the plant (see October 18, 2002 (B)).

June 27, 2001: The Wall Street Journal reports that Pakistan and India are discussing jointly building a gas pipeline from Central Asian gas fields through Iran. This would circumvent the difficulties of building the pipeline through Afghanistan. [ Wall Street Journal, 6/27/01 ] Iran has been secretly supporting the Northern Alliance to keep Afghanistan divided so no pipelines could be put through it (see December 20, 1999). Presumably the US government would be opposed to this, since much of its support for Afghanistan pipelines has been to prevent them from going through Iran (see Early 1998).

Mid-July 2001 (B): John O'Neill, FBI counter-terrorism expert, privately discusses White House obstruction in his bin Laden investigation. O'Neill says: “The main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.” He adds: “All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia.” O'Neill also believes the White House is obstructing his investigation of bin Laden because they are still keeping the idea of a pipeline deal with the Taliban open. [ CNN, 1/8/02 , CNN, 1/9/02 , Irish Times, 11/19/01 , Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, released 11/11/01 (the link is an excerpt containing Chapter 1) ]

July 21, 2001: Three American officials, Tom Simons (former US Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs) and Lee Coldren (former State Department expert on South Asia) meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in a Berlin hotel. [ Salon, 8/16/02 ] It is the third of a series of back-channel conferences called “brainstorming on Afghanistan.” Taliban representatives sat in on previous meetings, but boycotted this one due to worsening tensions. However, the Pakistani ISI relays information from the meeting to the Taliban. [ Guardian, 9/22/01 ] At the meeting, former US State Department official Lee Coldren passes on a message from Bush officials. He later says, “I think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action.” [ Guardian, 9/26/01 ] Accounts vary, but former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik later says he is told by senior American officials at the meeting that military action to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan is planned to “take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The goal is to kill or capture both bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, topple the Taliban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place. Uzbekistan and Russia would also participate (see also December 19, 2000, March 15, 2001 and June 26, 2001). Naik also says “it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.” [ BBC, 9/18/01 ] One specific threat made at this meeting is that the Taliban can choose between “carpets of bombs”—an invasion—or “carpets of gold”—the pipeline. [ Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, released 11/11/01 (the link is an excerpt containing Chapter 1) ] Niaz Naik says Tom Simons made the “carpets” statement. Simons claims: “It's possible that a mischievous American participant, after several drinks, may have thought it smart to evoke gold carpets and carpet bombs. Even Americans can't resist the temptation to be mischievous.” Naik and the American participants deny that the pipeline was an issue at the meeting. [ Salon, 8/16/02 ] FTW

August 2, 2001: Christina Rocca, the Director of Asian Affairs at the State Department, secretly meets the Taliban ambassador in Islamabad, apparently in a last ditch attempt to secure a pipeline deal. Rocca was previously in charge of contacts with Islamic guerrilla groups at the CIA, and oversaw the delivery of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujaheddin in the 1980s. [ Irish Times, 11/19/01 , Salon, 2/8/02 , Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, released 11/11/01 (the link is an excerpt containing Chapter 1) ] FTW

October 5, 2001: Contrary to popular belief, Afghanistan “has significant oil and gas deposits. During the Soviets' decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s.” Nonstop war since has prevent further exploitation, but that soon changes. [ Asia Times, 10/5/01 ] A later article suggests the country may also have as much copper as Chile, the world's largest producer, and significant deposits of coal, emeralds, tungsten, lead, zinc, uranium ore and more. Estimates of Afghanistan's natural wealth may even be understated, because surveys were conducted decades ago, using less-advanced methods and covering limited territory. [ Houston Chronicle, 12/23/01 ]

October 9, 2001 (B): US Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin meets with the Pakistani oil minister. She is briefed on the gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, to Pakistan, which appears to be revived “in view of recent geopolitical developments.” [Frontier Post, 10/10/01 ] FTW

October 15, 2001 (C): According to the Moscow Times, the Russian government sees the upcoming US conquest of Afghanistan as an attempt by the US to replace Russia as the dominant political force in Central Asia (see also June 2001 (D)), with the control of oil as a prominent motive: “While the bombardment of Afghanistan outwardly appears to hinge on issues of fundamentalism and American retribution, below the surface, lurks the prize of the energy-rich Caspian basin into which oil majors have invested billions of dollars. Ultimately, this war will set the boundaries of US and Russian influence in Central Asia—and determine the future of oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea.” [ Moscow Times, 10/15/01 ] The US later appears to gain military influence over Kazakhstan, the Central Asian country with the most resource wealth, and closest to the Russian heartland (see also December 19, 2001 and March 30, 2002).

Enron's logo.
December 2, 2001: Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy—the biggest bankruptcy ever (that is, until WorldCom some months later). [ BBC, 1/10/02 ] However, Enron reorganizes as a pipeline company, and it may yet complete its controversial Dabhol power plant (see October 18, 2002 (B)). [ Houston Business Journal, 3/15/02 ]

December 8, 2001: During a visit to Kazakhstan in Central Asia, Secretary of State Powell states that US oil companies are likely to invest $200 billion in Kazakhstan alone in the next five to 10 years. [ New York Times, 12/15/01 ]

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
December 22, 2001: Afghani Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and his transitional government takes power in Afghanistan. It was revealed a few weeks before that he had been a paid consultant for Unocal, as well as Deputy Foreign Minister for the Taliban. [ Le Monde, 12/13/01 , CNN, 12/22/01 (B) ] FTW

A Mirage 2000-D fighter in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. [Reuters]
January 2002 (D): It is reported that now the US is improving bases in “13 locations in nine countries in the Central Asian region” (see also September 22, 2001-December 2001 and Early October 2001). [] 60,000 US military personnel now work in these new bases surrounding Afghanistan. [ Los Angeles Times, 1/6/02 ] “Of the five ex-Soviet states of Central Asia, Turkmenistan alone is resisting pressure to allow the deployment of US or other Western forces on its soil….” [ Guardian, 1/10/02 ] “The task of the encircling US bases now shooting up on Afghanistan's periphery is only partly to contain the threat of political regression or Taliban resurgence in Kabul. Their bigger, longer-term role is to project US power and US interests into countries previously beyond its reach. … The potential benefits for the US are enormous: growing military hegemony in one of the few parts of the world not already under Washington's sway, expanded strategic influence at Russia and China's expense, pivotal political clout and—grail of holy grails—access to the fabulous, non-OPEC oil and gas wealth of central Asia .” [ Guardian, 1/16/02 ] On January 9, the speaker of the Russian parliament states, “Russia would not approve of the appearance of permanent US bases in Central Asia,” but Russia seems helpless to stop what a Russian newspaper calls “the inexorable growth” of the US military presence in central Asia. [ Guardian, 1/10/02 ]

January 1, 2002: Zalamy Khalilzad, already a Special Assistant to the President (see May 23, 2001), is appointed by Bush as a special envoy to Afghanistan. [ BBC, 1/1/02 ] Khalilzad, a former employee of Unocal, took part in negotiations with the Taliban to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. He also wrote op-eds in the Washington Post in 1997 supporting the Taliban regime, back when Unocal was hoping to work with the Taliban. [ Independent, 1/10/02 ] FTW

February 9, 2002: Pakistani President Musharraf and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai announce their agreement to “cooperate in all spheres of activity” including the proposed Central Asian pipeline, which they call “in the interest of both countries.” [ Irish Times, 2/9/02 ] FTW

February 14, 2002: The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv astutely notes: “If one looks at the map of the big American bases created [in the Afghan war], one is struck by the fact that they are completely identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean.” Ma'ariv also states, “Osama bin Laden did not comprehend that his actions serve American interests… If I were a believer in conspiracy theory, I would think that bin Laden is an American agent. Not being one I can only wonder at the coincidence.” [ Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02 ] FTW

March 30, 2002: With US troops already in many Central Asian countries (see January 2002 (D)), it is now reported that US Special Forces soldiers are training Kazakhstan troops in a secret location. [ London Times, 3/30/02 ] An anonymous source in the Kazakh government previously stated, “It is clear that the continuing war in Afghanistan is no more than a veil for the US to establish political dominance in the region. The war on terrorism is only a pretext for extending influence over our energy resources ” (see October 11, 1996). [ Observer, 1/20/02 ]

May 13, 2002: The BBC reports that Afghanistan is about to close a deal for construction of the $2 billion gas pipeline to run from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. “Work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck” at a summit scheduled for the end of the month. Afghan leader Hamid Karzai (who formerly worked for Unocal) calls Unocal the “lead company” in building the pipeline. [ BBC, 5/13/02 ] FTW The Los Angeles Times comments, “To some here, it looked like the fix was in for Unocal when President Bush named a former Unocal consultant, Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan late last year.” [ Los Angeles Times, 5/30/02 (B) ]

May 30, 2002 (B): Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, Turkmenistan's President Niyazov, and Pakistani President Musharraf meet in Islamabad and sign a memorandum of understanding on the trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project. [ Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, 6/8/02 , Dawn, 5/31/02 ] FTW The agreement is finalized by the end of the year (see December 27, 2002).

July 10, 2002: A briefing given to a top Pentagon advisory group states, “The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader … Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies.” They are called “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent.” This position still runs counter to official US policy, but the Washington Post says it “represents a point of view that has growing currency within the Bush administration.” The briefing suggests that the Saudis be given an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States . The group, the Defense Policy Board, is headed by Richard Perle. [ Washington Post, 8/6/02 ] An international controversy follows the public reports of the briefing in August 2002 (for instance, [ Scotsman, 8/12/02 ]). In an abrupt change, the media starts calling the Saudis enemies, not allies of the US. Slate reports details of the briefing the Post failed to mention. The briefing states, “There is an ‘Arabia,’ but it needs not be ‘Saudi’”. The conclusion of the briefing: “Grand strategy for the Middle East: Iraq is the tactical pivot. Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot. Egypt the prize.” [ Slate, 8/7/02 ] Note that a similar meeting of the Defense Policy Board appears to have preceded and affected the US's decision to take a warlike stance against Iraq (see September 17, 2001 (B) and August 6, 2001).

Deena Burnett speaks on behalf of the relatives suing the Saudis. [CNN]
August 15, 2002: More than 600 relatives (later rising to over 2,500 out of 10,000 eligible [ Newsweek, 9/13/02 ]) of victims of the September 11 attacks file a 15-count, $1 trillion lawsuit against various parties they accuse of financing al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. The defendants include the Binladin Group (the company run by Osama bin Laden's family), seven international banks, eight Islamic foundations and charities, individual terrorist financiers, three Saudi princes, and the government of Sudan. [ CNN, 8/15/02 , Washington Post, 8/16/02 ] Individuals named include Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan (see June 1998 (D), August 2001 (G), and August 31, 2001), former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal (see July 1998, August 31, 2001, and October 18, 2002), Yassin al-Qadi (see October 12, 2001), and Khalid bin Mahfouz (see 1988, August 13, 1996, April 1999, and Early December 2001 (B)). [ Associated Press, 8/15/02 , MSNBC, 8/25/02 ] “The attorneys and investigators were able to obtain, through French intelligence, the translation of a secretly recorded meeting between representatives of bin Laden and three Saudi princes in which they sought to pay him hush money to keep him from attacking their enterprises in Saudi Arabia.” [ CNN, 8/15/02 ] The plaintiffs also accused the US Government of failing to pursue such institutions thoroughly enough because of lucrative oil interests. [ BBC, 8/15/02 ] Ron Motley, the lead lawyer in the suit, says the case is being aided by intelligence services from France and four other foreign governments, but no help has come from the Justice Department. [ Minneapolis Star Tribune, 8/16/02 ] The plaintiffs acknowledge the chance of ever winning any money is slim, but hope the lawsuit will help bring to light the role of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks. [ BBC, 8/15/02 ] A number of rich Saudis respond by threatening to withdraw hundreds of billions of dollars in US investments if the lawsuit goes forward. [ Telegraph, 8/20/02 ] Saudi businesses withdraw more than $100 billion from the US in response to the suit (see August 20, 2002), and the US government later threatens to block or limit the suit (see November 1, 2002).

October 18, 2002 (B): “The massive mothballed Dabhol power project that bankrupt US energy company Enron Corp. built in western India could be running within a year, with a long-standing dispute over power charges close to being renegotiated, a government official said.” Dabhol is the largest foreign investment project in India's history. Despite reorganizing from a bankruptcy, Enron still holds a controlling 65 percent stake in the plant, while General Electric Co. and Bechtel Corp. hold 10 percent each. The local Indian state electricity board holds the remaining 15 percent (see also November 1993 and June 2001 (J)). [ Associated Press, 10/18/02 ]

Henry Kissinger [AP]
December 13, 2002: Henry Kissinger resigns as head of the new 9/11 investigation (see November 27, 2002). [ Associated Press, 12/13/02 , Associated Press, 12/13/02 , Kissinger's resignation letter ] Two days earlier, the Bush Administration argued that Kissinger was not required to disclose his private business clients. [ New York Times, 12/12/02 ] However, the Congressional Research Service insists that he does, and Kissinger resigns rather than reveal his clients. [ MSNBC, 12/13/02 , Seattle Times, 12/14/02 ] It is reported that Kissinger is (or has been) a consultant for Unocal, the oil corporation, and was involved in plans to build pipelines through Afghanistan (see October 21, 1995, and August 9, 1998). [ Washington Post, 10/5/98 , Salon, 12/3/02 ] Kissinger claimed he did no current work for any oil companies or Mideast clients, but several corporations with heavy investments in Saudi Arabia, such as ABB Group, a Swiss-Swedish engineering firm, and Boeing Corp., pay him consulting fees of at least $250,000 a year. A Boeing spokesman said its “long-standing” relationship with Kissinger involved advice on deals in East Asia, not Saudi Arabia. Boeing sold $7.2 billion worth of aircraft to Saudi Arabia in 1995. [ Newsweek, 12/15/02 ] In a surprising break from usual procedures regarding high-profile presidential appointments, White House lawyers never vetted Kissinger for conflicts of interest. [ Newsweek, 12/15/02 ] The Washington Post says that after the resignations of Kissinger and Mitchell, the commission “has lost time” and “is in disarray, which is no small trick given that it has yet to meet.” [ Washington Post, 12/14/02 ]

Thomas Kean
December 16, 2002: President Bush names former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean as the Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, after his original choice, Henry Kissinger, resigned (see November 27, 2002 and December 13, 2002). [ Washington Post, 12/17/02 ] In an appearance on NBC, Kean promises an aggressive investigation. “It's really a remarkably broad mandate, so I don't think we'll have any problem looking under every rock. I've got no problems in going as far as we have to in finding out the facts.” [ Associated Press, 12/17/02 ] However, Kean plans to remain President of Drew University and devote only one day a week to the commission. He also claims he would have no conflicts of interest, stating: “I have no clients except the university.” [ Washington Post, 12/17/02 ] However, he has a history of such conflict. Multinational Monitor has previously stated: “Perhaps no individual more clearly illustrates the dangers of university presidents maintaining corporate ties than Thomas Kean,” citing the fact that he is on the Board of Directors of Aramark (which received a large contract with his university after he became president), Bell Atlantic, United Health Care, Beneficial Corporation, Fiduciary Trust Company International, and others. [ Multinational Monitor, 11/97 ] Most disturbing is his Board of Director and Executive Committee positions at Amerada Hess, an oil company with extensive investments in Central Asia. [ Amerada Hess, 2002 ] Fortune magazine points out that through this investment, “Kean appears to have a bizarre link to the very terror network he's investigating—al-Qaeda.” [ Fortune, 1/22/03 ] In 1998, Amerada Hess created an alliance with the Saudi oil company Delta Oil, calling it Delta Hess. [ Azerbaijan International, 2002 ] Delta Hess is invested in a number of oil field and pipeline projects in Central Asia (see for instance [ Azerbaijan International, 1998 ]). Delta Oil has been one of the main financial partners in a controversial oil pipeline designed to go through Afghanistan. The company has been financially controlled by Khalid bin Mahfouz, and is connected to Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi (see August 13, 1996). Both men are on a secret United Nations list of al-Qaeda financers (see November 26, 2002), and bin Mahfouz is bin Laden's brother-in-law (see 1988). Fortune calls it an “interesting coincidence” that three weeks before his appointment onto the 9/11 commission, Amerada Hess quietly severed its ties with Delta Oil. [ Fortune, 1/22/03 ] George Mitchell resigned from the commission a few days earlier in part because of ties with al-Amoudi (see December 11, 2002), yet Kean's conflict of interest with Amerada Hess and ties with al-Amoudi and bin Mahfouz have only been mentioned in a short Fortune article and briefly at the end of an AP article. [ Associated Press, 1/20/03 , Fortune, 1/22/03 ]

Leaders sign the pipeline agreement [AP]
December 27, 2002: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan sign an agreement for the building of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, a US$3.2 billion project that has been delayed for many years. [ Associated Press, 12/26/02 , BBC, 12/27/02 ] A study by the Asian Development Bank stated that the pipeline would move natural gas from Turkmenistan's huge Dauletabad-Donmez fields to the Pakistani port city of Gwadar. The pipeline was originally launched in 1996 (see August 13, 1996), but was abandoned when a consortium led by Unocal withdrew over fears of being seen as supporting the Taliban and because the US launched missile attacks on Afghanistan in 1998 (see December 5, 1998). The Afghan, Pakistani and Turkmen leaders relaunched the project in May 2002 (see May 30, 2002 (B)). Unocal has denied it is interested in returning to Afghanistan. Skeptics say the project would require an indefinite foreign military presence in Afghanistan. [ Associated Press, 12/26/02 , BBC, 5/30/02 ]

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Generated from the 9/11 timeline database, Version 2004-03-23, last updated by Paul Thompson

http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/pipeline_timeline.htm
(Bridas has since merged with BP Amoco Argentina)
1992
January Gas exploration rights for Yashlar block in eastern Turkmenistan awarded to Argentine firm; Bridas Production profits to be split 50-50 between Bridas and Turkmenistan government.
1993
February Bridas awarded Keimir Oil and Gas Block in western Turkmenistan. 75-25 split in profits, in favor of Bridas.
March President Niyazov of Turkmenistan hires Alexander Haig (former U.S. National Security Adviser) to lobby for increased U.S. investment in Turkmenistan. and for a softening of position on pipelines through Iran.

1994
September Bridas prevented from exporting oil from Keimir Block.
November Working group established to study gas pipeline routes. Taliban capture Kandahar.

1995
January Keimir Block deal is renegotiated. Bridas's share of profits reduced to 65 percent. Oil exports allowed.
March Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Turkmen president Niyazov conduct feasibility study of Afghan pipeline.
April Turkmenistan and Iran to build first 180 miles of proposed pipeline via Iran to Turkey. United States oppose financing pipeline through Iran. Turkmen officials in Texas at invitation of Bridas. While there, they also meet meet Unocal officials.
August Oil and gas discovered by Bridas at Yashlar. Bridas representatives meet Taliban for first time.
October President Niyazov signs agreement in New York with Unocal/Delta.
December Ban on Bridas's oil exports from Keimir imposed by Turkmenistan for second time.

1996
February Agreement between Afghan government and Bridas signed. Suit filed by Bridas in Texas against Unocal/Delta for interference in its business in Turkmenistan.
March U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Tom Simmons, urges Bhutto to give exclusive rights to Unocal. Bhutto offended and demands apology.
May Turkmenisatn, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan agree that Turkmenistan should name the consortium to build the pipeline. Opening of 100-mile railway route linking Turkmenistan and Iran.
August Unocal/Delta and Turkmenistan's Turkmenrosgaz along with Russia's Gazprom enter into agreement for pipeline project.
Septmeber Unocal says it will give aid to to Afghan warlords once they agree to form a council to supervise the project. Taliban take Kabul.
October Unocal expresses suport for Taliban takover, saying it makes pipeline project easier. Unocal later says it was misquoted.
November Bridas signs agreement with Taliban and Gen. Dostum to build pipeline.
December Turkey to buy Turkmen gas through Iran.

1997
January Turkmenistan signs exploration agreement with Mobil and Monument Oil. U.N. Under Secretary General Akashi criticizes oil companies and warlords for pipeline projects.
February Taliban in Washington to seek recognition. Taliban meet with Unocal. Taliban travel to Argentina as guests of Bridas. Upon return, Taliban meet with Saudi Intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faysal, in Jeddah.
March Unocal sets up office in Kandahar; Bridas does likewise in Kabul.
April Taliban announce criteria for awarding contract: The company that starts work first wins.
Unocal President John Imle baffled by statement.
June Unocal says peace is necessary for construction of pipeline, otherwise the project could take years. Bridas officials meet Taliban and say that they are "interested in beginning work in any kind of security situation."
July Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Unocal sign new contract extending Unocal's deadline by one year to start project by December 1998. In a policy shift, United Staes says it will not object to Turkmenisatn-Turkey pipeline through Iran.
August Shell's Alan Parsley meets Niyazov and promises help on Turkmenistan-Turkey pipeline. Taliban say Bridas offer better terms and expect to enter into agreement with them.
September Turkmenistan opens tenders for oil companies to take up new concessions along the Caspian. Niyazov, 57, has heart operation in Munich—concern grows about his health, and who would replace him should he die. Bridas sells 60 percent of the company's stakes in Latin America to Amoco. The two agree to form a new company to run operations jointly. Taliban delegation in Argentina to discuss pipeline deal with Bridas.
October Taliban delegation visits Ashkhbad and agrees to set up tripartite commission with Pakistan and Turkmenistan to explore Unocal pipeline project. Centgas Pipeline Ltd. formed in Ashkhabad: Unocal owns 46.5 percent, Delta Oil owns 15 percent, Turkmenistan's national gas company owns 7 percent, Itochu Oil owns 6.5 percent, Inpex owns 6.5 percent, Crescent Group owns 3.5 percent, Hyundai Engineering owns 5 percent. Taliban undecided which consortium to join.
November Taliban in United States to visit Unocal and U.S. State Department officials.
December Turkmenistan and Iran inaugarate 120-mile-long gas pipeline between the two countries.
1998
January Bridas awarded US$50 million by International Court of Arbitration in Paris for money owed by Turkmen government for refined products provided to Keimir refinery.
February Gazprom pulls out of Unocal consortium, shares re-distributed, giving Unocal 54 percent.
March Unocal says pipeline on hold as unfeasible because of Afghan war. Turkmenistan anxious for work to begin soon. Unocal asks Pakistan to extend deadline to October 1998. Deadline cannot be met, says Unocal, because of Afghan civil war.
June Objections to Afghan pipeline deal by some shareholders at Unocal's annual meeting. Unocal says it has spent US$10-15 million on the project since 1995 and intends to give US$1 million to Afghan charities in 1998.
August After U.S. missile strikes against Afghanistan, Unocal suspends pipeline project and asks American staff to leave.
September Environmentalists in California ask Attorney General to dissolve Unocal for crimes against humanity, the environment, and for its relationship with the Taliban.
October A Texas judge dismisses Bridas's US$15 billion suit against Unocal for preventing them developing gas fields in Turkmenistan. Judge says dispute covered by Turkmen and Afghan law, not Texas law.
November Unocal withdraws from a US$2.9 billion pipeline project to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey.
December Citing low oil prices, concerns over Osama bin Laden, and pressure from women's groups, Unocal withdraws from Afghan pipeline consortium. Unocal also announces a 40 percent drop in capital spending for 1999 because of low oil prices.
1999
January Turkmenistan's foreign minister visits Pakistan; says pipeline project still alive.
February Carlos Bulgheroni, co-chairman of Bridas, visits Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia for talks with leaders.
March Turkmenistan's Foreign Minister Sheikh Muradov meets with Mullah Omar in Kandahar to discuss pipeline.
April Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Taliban sign agreement to revive pipeline project.
May Taliban delegation signs agreements with Turkmenistan to buy gas and electricity.

This timeline owes a heavy debt to Ahmed Rashid's excellent study, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (Yale UP, 2000). Wherever possible, the information has been cross-checked against Unocal and BP Amoco Argentina's archives of press releases, Pratt's Oil Digest, Oil and Gas Magazine, Pravda, Moscow's Interfax News Agency, the ITAR-TASS news agency, the U.S. Department of Energy...

Bridas Versus the New World Order

Unocal and the Afghanistan pipeline

by Larry Chin
Online Journal , 6 March 2002

Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca , March 2002

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CRG's Global Outlook, premiere issue on "Stop the War" provides detailed documentation on the war and the "Post- September 11 Crisis." Order/subscribe. Consult Table of Contents

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Part One of a two-part series Players on a rigged grand chessboard: Bridas,

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Argentine oil company Bridas, led by its ambitious chairman, Carlos Bulgheroni, became the first company to exploit the oil fields of Turkmenistan and propose a pipeline through neighboring Afghanistan. A powerful US-backed consortium intent on building its own pipeline through the same Afghan corridor would oppose Bridas' project.

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The Coveted Trans-Afghan Route

Upon successfully negotiating leases to explore in Turkmenistan, Bridas was awarded exploration contracts for the Keimar block near the Caspian Sea, and the Yashlar block near the Afghanistan border. By March 1995, Bulgheroni had accords with Turkmenistan and Pakistan granting Bridas construction rights for a pipeline into Afghanistan, pending negotiations with the civil war-torn country.

The following year, after extensive meetings with warlords throughout Afghanistan, Bridas had a 30-year agreement with the Rabbani regime to build and operate an 875-mile gas pipeline across Afghanistan.

Bulgheroni believed that his pipeline would promote peace as well as material wealth in the region. He approached other companies, including Unocal and its then-CEO, Roger Beach, to join an international consortium.

But Unocal was not interested in a partnership. The United States government, its affiliated transnational oil and construction companies, and the ruling elite of the West had coveted the same oil and gas transit route for years.

A trans-Afghanistan pipeline was not simply a business matter, but a key component of a broader geo-strategic agenda: total military and economic control of Eurasia (the Middle East and former Soviet Central Asian republics). Zbigniew Brezezinski describes this region in his book "The Grand Chessboard-American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives" as "the center of world power." Capturing the region's oil wealth, and carving out territory in order to build a network of transit routes, was a primary objective of US military interventions throughout the 1990s in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Caspian Sea.

As of 1992, 11 western oil companies controlled more than 50 percent of all oil investments in the Caspian Basin, including Unocal, Amoco, Atlantic Richfield, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Pennzoil, Texaco, Phillips and British Petroleum.

In "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" (a definitive work that is a primary source for this report), Ahmed Rashid wrote, "US oil companies who had spearheaded the first US forays into the region wanted a greater say in US policy making."

Business and policy planning groups active in Central Asia, such as the Foreign Oil Companies Group operated with the full support of the US State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA and the Department of Energy and Commerce.

Among the most active operatives for US efforts: Brezezinski (a consultant to Amoco, and architect of the Afghan-Soviet war of the 1970s), Henry Kissinger (advisor to Unocal), and Alexander Haig (a lobbyist for Turkmenistan), and Dick Cheney (Halliburton, US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce).

Unocal's Central Asia envoys consisted of former US defense and intelligence officials. Robert Oakley, the former US ambassador to Pakistan, was a "counter-terrorism" specialist for the Reagan administration who armed and trained the mujahadeen during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s. He was an Iran-Contra conspirator charged by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh as a key figure involved in arms shipments to Iran.

Richard Armitage, the current Deputy Defense Secretary, was another Iran-Contra player in Unocal's employ. A former Navy SEAL, covert operative in Laos, director with the Carlyle Group, Armitage is allegedly deeply linked to terrorist and criminal networks in the Middle East, and the new independent states of the former Soviet Union (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrghistan).

Armitage was no stranger to pipelines. As a member of the Burma/Myanmar Forum, a group that received major funding from Unocal, Armitage was implicated in a lawsuit filed by Burmese villagers who suffered human rights abuses during the construction of a Unocal pipeline. (Halliburton, under Dick Cheney, performed contract work on the same Burmese project.)

Bridas Versus the New World Order

Much to Bridas' dismay, Unocal went directly to regional leaders with its own proposal. Unocal formed its own competing US-led, Washington-sponsored consortium that included Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil, aligned with Saudi Prince Abdullah and King Fahd. Other partners included Russia's Gazprom and Turkmenistan's state-owned Turkmenrozgas.

John Imle, president of Unocal (and member of the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce with Armitage, Cheney, Brezezinski and other ubiquitous figures), lobbied Turkmenistan's president Niyazov and prime minister Bhutto of Pakistan, offering a Unocal pipeline following the same route as Bridas.'

Dazzled by the prospect of an alliance with the US, Niyazov asked Bridas to renegotiate its past contract and blocked Bridas' exports from Keimar field. Bridas responded by filing three cases with the International Chamber of Commerce against Turkmenistan for breach of contract. (Bridas won.) Bridas also filed a lawsuit in Texas charging Unocal with civil conspiracy and "tortuous interference with business relations." While its officers were negotiating with Pakistani and Turkmen oil and gas officials, Bridas claimed that Unocal had stolen its idea, and coerced the Turkmen government into blocking Bridas from Keimir field. (The suit was dismissed in 1998 by Judge Brady G. Elliott, a Republican, who claimed that any dispute between Unocal and Bridas was governed by the laws of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, rather than Texas law.)

In October 1995, with neither company in a winning position, Bulgheroni and Imle accompanied Niyazov to the opening of the UN General Assembly. There, Niyazov awarded Unocal with a contract for a 918-mile natural gas pipeline. Bulgheroni was shocked. At the announcement ceremony, Unocal consultant Henry Kissinger said that the deal looked like "the triumph of hope over experience."

Later, Unocal's consortium, CentGas, would secure another contract for a companion 1,050-mile oil pipeline from Dauletabad through Afghanistan that would connect to a tanker loading port in Pakistan on the coast of the Arabian Sea.

Although Unocal had agreements with the governments on either end of the proposed route, Bridas still had the contract with Afghanistan.

The problem was resolved via the CIA and Pakistani ISI-backed Taliban. Following a visit to Kandahar by US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robin Raphael in the fall of 1996, the Taliban entered Kabul and sent the Rabbani government packing.

Bridas' agreement with Rabbani would have to be renegotiated.

Wooing the Taliban

According to Ahmed Rashid, "Unocal's real influence with the Taliban was that their project carried the possibility of US recognition, which the Taliban were desperately anxious to secure."

Unocal wasted no time greasing the palms of the Taliban. It offered humanitarian aid to Afghan warlords who would form a council to supervise the pipeline project. It provided a new mobile phone network between Kabul and Kandahar. Unocal also promised to help rebuild Kandahar, and donated $9,000 to the University of Nebraska's Center for Afghan Studies. The US State Department, through its aid organization USAID, contributed significant education funding for Taliban. In the spring of 1996, Unocal executives flew Uzbek leader General Abdul Rashid Dostum to Dallas to discuss pipeline passage through his northern (Northern Alliance-controlled) territories.

Bridas countered by forming an alliance with Ningarcho, a Saudi company closely aligned with Prince Turki el-Faisal, the Saudi intelligence chief. Turki was a mentor to Osama bin Laden, the ally of the Taliban who was publicly feuding with the Saudi royal family. As a gesture for Bridas, Prince Turki provided the Taliban with communications equipment and a fleet of pickup trucks. Now Bridas proposed two consortiums, one to build the Afghanistan portion, and another to take care of both ends of the line. By November 1996, Bridas claimed that it had an agreement signed by the Taliban and Dostum—trumping Unocal.

The competition between Unocal and Bridas, as described by Rashid, "began to reflect the competition within the Saudi Royal family."

In 1997, Taliban officials traveled twice to Washington, D.C. and Buenos Aires to be wined and dined by Unocal and Bridas. No agreements were signed.

It appeared to Unocal that the Taliban was balking. In addition to royalties, the Taliban demanded funding for infrastructure projects, including roads and power plants. The Taliban also announced plans to revive the Afghan National Oil Company, which had been abolished by the Soviet regime in the late 1970s.

Osama bin Laden (who issued his fatwa against the West in 1998) advised the Taliban to sign with Bridas. In addition to offering the Taliban a higher bid, Bridas proposed an open pipeline accessible to warlords and local users. Unocal's pipeline was closed—for export purposes only. Bridas' plan also did not require outside financing, while Unocal's required a loan from the western financial institutions (the World Bank), which in turn would leave Afghanistan vulnerable to demands from western governments.

Bridas' approach to business was more to the Taliban's liking. Where Bulgheroni and Bridas' engineers would take the time to "sip tea with Afghan tribesmen," Unocal's American executives issued top-down edicts from corporate headquarters and the US Embassy (including a demand to open talks with the CIA-backed Northern Alliance).

While seemingly well received within Afghanistan, Bridas' problems with Turkmenistan (which they blamed on Unocal and US interference) had left them cash-strapped and without a supply.

In 1997, they went searching for a major partner with the clout to break the deadlock with Turkmenistan. They found one in Amoco. Bridas sold 60 percent of its Latin American assets to Amoco. Carlos Bulgheroni and his contingent retained the remaining minority 40 percent. Facilitating the merger were other icons of transnational finance, Chase Manhattan (representing Bridas), Morgan Stanley (handling Amoco) and Arthur Andersen (facilitator of post-merger integration). Zbigniew Brezezinski was a consultant for Amoco.

(Amoco would merge with British Petroleum a year later. BP is represented by the law firm of Baker & Botts, whose principal attorney is James Baker, lifelong Bush friend, former secretary of state, and a member of the Carlyle Group.)

Recognizing the significance of the merger, a Pakistani oil company executive hinted, "If these (Central Asian) countries want a big US company involved, Amoco is far bigger than Unocal."

Clearing the Chessboard Again

By 1998, while the Argentine contingent made slow progress, Unocal faced a number of new problems.

Gazprom pulled out of CentGas when Russia complained about the anti-Russian agenda of the US. This forced Unocal to expand CentGas to include Japanese and South Korean gas companies, while maintaining the dominant share with Delta.

Human rights groups began protesting Unocal's dealings with the brutal Taliban. Still riding years of Clinton bashing and scandal mongering, conservative Republicans in the US attacked the Clinton administration's Central Asia policy for its lack of clarity and "leadership."

Once again, violence would change the dynamic.

In response to the bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania (attributed to bin Laden), President Bill Clinton sent cruise missiles into Afghanistan and Sudan. The administration broke off diplomatic contact with the Taliban, and UN sanctions were imposed.

Unocal withdrew from CentGas, and informed the State Department "the gas pipeline would not proceed until an internationally recognized government was in place in Afghanistan." Although Unocal continued on and off negotiations on the oil pipeline (a separate project), the lack of support from Washington hampered efforts.

Meanwhile, Bridas declared that it would not need to wait for resolution of political issues, and repeated its intention of moving forward with the Afghan gas pipeline project on its own. Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan tried to push Saudi Arabia to proceed with CentGas (Delta of Saudi Arabia was now the leader). But war and US-Taliban tension made business impossible.

For the remainder of the Clinton presidency, there would be no official US or UN recognition of Afghanistan. And no progress on the pipeline.

Then George Walker Bush took the White House.

-------------------------

Larry Chin writes for the Online Journal. He is a frequent CRG Contributor. Copyright Larry Chin, Online Journal 2002. Reprinted for Fair use only.

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The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHI203A.html

--------------------------

CRG's Global Outlook, premiere issue on "Stop the War" provides detailed documentation on the war and the "Post- September 11 Crisis." Order/subscribe. Consult Table of Contents

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1984459.stm

Afghanistan hopes to strike a deal later this month to build a $2bn pipeline through the country to take gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India.
Afghan interim ruler Hamid Karzai is to hold talks with his Pakistani and Turkmenistan counterparts later this month on Afghanistan's biggest foreign investment project, said Mohammad Alim Razim, minister for Mines and Industries told Reuters.

"The work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck at the coming summit," Mr Razim said.

The construction of the 850-kilometre pipeline had been previously discussed between Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, US oil company Unocal and Bridas of Argentina.

The project was abandoned after the US launched missile attacks on Afghanistan in 1999.

US company preferred

Mr Razim said US energy company Unocal was the "lead company" among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30bn cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually.

Unocal - which led a consortium of companies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Japan and South Korea - has maintained the project is both economically and technically feasible once Afghan stability was secured.

"Unocal is not involved in any projects (including pipelines) in Afghanistan, nor do we have any plans to become involved, nor are we discussing any such projects," a spokesman told BBC News Online.

The US company formally withdrew from the consortium in 1998.

"The Afghan side assures all sides about the security of the pipeline and will take all responsibilities for it," Mr Razim said.

Reconstructing

Afghanistan plans to build a road linking Turkmenistan with Pakistan parallel to the pipeline, to supply nearby villages with gas, and also to pump Afghan gas for export, Mr Razim said.

The government would also earn transit fees from the export of gas and oil and hoped to take over ownership of the pipeline after 30 years, he said.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been surveying routes for transferring local gas from northern Afghan areas to Kabul, and to iron ore mines at the Haji Gak pass further west.

"ADB will announce its conclusion soon," Mr Razim said.

The pipeline is expected to be built with funds from donor countries for the reconstruction of Afghanistan as well as ADB loans, he said.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/oil.html

http://fahrenheit_fact.blogspot.com/2004/06/fahrenheit-fact-no-10-unocal...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.30A.afgh.pipe.htm

http://www.earthrights.org/unocal/index.shtml

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/10/pipedreams.html

http://www.burmaproject.org/ca031000.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/freeburma/boycott/oil/pipeline.html

http://www.india-invest.com/news/Unocal_Utilizes.html

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/7787911.htm?template=conte...

Blood in the pipeline

You count on us to deliver the truth, in spades, when called upon. If you want proof we just delivered. Let's just hope the "Bush Hawk" in the original post listens.

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/oil_war.htm

thirdworldtraveler.com

http://www.endgame.org/dtc/u.html

http://www.citypaper.net/pipeline/
My Government Went to Afghanistan And All I Got Was This Stupid Pipeline
The Complete Truth About the U.S. Attack on Afghanistan

By Ted Rall
© 2002 All Rights Reserved

“American soldiers, oilmen, and diplomats are rapidly getting to know this remote corner of the world, the old underbelly of the Soviet Union and a region that’s been almost untouched by Western armies since the time of Alexander the Great. The game the Americans are playing has some of the highest stakes going. What they are attempting is nothing less than the biggest carve-out of a new U.S. sphere of influence since the U.S. became engaged in the Mideast 50 years ago.” (0)

—“The Next Oil Frontier,” Business Week, May 27, 2002.

PART 1: Bush’s Fake War on Terror
The Official Story goes like this:

Within days of the September 11 suicide attacks, U.S. intelligence zeroed in on perpetual-enemy-of-America Osama bin Laden as the diabolical mastermind behind the plot that had killed more than 3,000 innocent civilians in New York and Washington. Top Bush Administration officials told the public that they possessed proof that bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization were the culprits of 9-11 (1); Great Britain and Pakistan asserted that the evidence was strong enough to convict the “evildoer” in a court of law -- their courts of law, in any case (2). Although bin Laden and his men had enjoyed the protection of Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban regime, a government diplomatically recognized by just three other countries (3), the United States politely requested extradition of these mass murderers to face justice in the West. When that demand -- er, request -- was supposedly refused, an America determined not to allow more of its citizens to die at the hands of terrorists had no choice but to defend itself against an ongoing threat: it took advantage of Afghanistan’s long-standing civil war to drive the Taliban -- bin Laden’s protectors -- out of power.

Regrettably, the official line continues, bin Laden and his followers sneaked off into the mountains of Tora Bora (where bin Laden was, according to some reports, possibly killed) as American bombs dropped. But though the United States failed to capture its most wanted man, the bombing campaign was a huge success in grander respects. It liberated ordinary Afghans, stabilized Central Asia, and struck a blow against Islamic extremism. Soon after the Northern Alliance swept into power, residents of Kabul and Herat rushed outside to shave their Taliban-mandated beards and burn their burqas. Music and kite-flying, both inexplicably banned under Taliban rule, filled the streets. Afghans freed to indulge their taste in Indian musical films, went the thinking, would lose their taste for flying planes into buildings in American cities.

The U.S., it was posited, had turned the tide of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.

Freedom, pundits wrote, wasn’t sufficient to ensure the long-term stability that counteracts the terrorist impulse among Afghans. In order to ensure that it didn’t lapse into another post-Soviet phase of “Mad Max”-like anarchy, Afghanistan required the paved roads, schools and strong central government that would allow a resumption of economic activity that would lift its long-suffering people, with an average life of expectancy of 43, out of grinding poverty. And so, under the watchful yet benevolent eye of the United States and its Western allies, the Afghans convened that clumsy yet charming tribal democratic gathering, the emergency loya jirga. At first the new transitional Afghan government was expected to take the form of an English-style ceremonial monarchy, along with that format’s institutions of representative democracy; the Americans went so far as to convince the elderly Afghan King Zahir Shah, who had been living in exile for nearly 30 years, to return to Kabul to serve as his country’s figurehead. But emerging instead from that convocation with overwhelming support to become the country’s new president was a man whose ethnically-inclusive philosophy extended to his eclectic wardrobe, a 45-year-old Pashtun tribal leader and former mujahed named Hamid Karzai (4). Karzai was well-bred, well-spoken and well-connected -- the latter with Bush Administration officials. (This cozy relationship was lauded as a boon for a nation in need of American financial assistance.) The old king was duly set aside (though told to remain in Kabul, as something less than a symbol),the United States pronounced itself pleased with the Afghans’ choice (though many delegates carped that the loya jirga had been as fixed as a Florida election), and pledged not to “abandon” Afghanistan to poverty and war as it had done after the Soviet withdrawal.

Karzai’s first duties as interim president were to bring Afghanistan’s provinces, then under control of local warlords, into the fold of his own central government, and to begin reconstruction of a nation devastated by 22 consecutive years of war. In the course of the latter function, he supposedly revived a long-abandoned idea: to revive the cross-cultural notion of the ancient Silk Road, this time with Caspian Sea oil and natural gas substituting for textiles in the economic exchanges of goods that has always characterized Central Asian economic activity.

Even before “liberating” Afghanistan, the United States had long supported the idea of a trans-Afghan oil/gas pipeline as a win-win scenario under which Afghans would gain jobs and revenues and American industry would enjoy the benefits of an additional source of fuel from a friendly ally. Kazakhstan had struck oil years before in its section of the Caspian Sea, discovering enough reserves to far surpass Saudi Arabia’s, but the shortest route for a pipeline to the Indian Ocean would have had to pass through “Axis of Evil” member Iran, an alleged backer of state terrorism. Turkmenistan possesses less oil than Kazakhstan, but enormous amounts of natural gas -- by some estimates, the world’s second-largest reserves. Connecting those Turkmen gas fields to an existing Soviet-era Russian network was considered unreliable -- the Russians had the unfortunate habit of diverting the oil without paying for it during the immediate post-independence period of the early ’90s -- and a proposed route across China was considered too long and too expensive.

Plans for a pipeline dated back to the mid-’90s, even before the Taliban seized power in 1996. After the Taliban consolidated control over more than 90 percent of the country, Western oil companies restarted negotiations with renewed vigor; the hardline Islamist regime crushed the warlordism that threatened the safety of a pipeline.

California-based Unocal Corporation had dropped previous plans for an Afghan pipeline deal in 1998, after it had become evident that the Taliban leadership were too unstable and unreasonable to make the idea feasible. But in the latter days of the Afghan war, although Unocal had officially lost its appetite for Caspian oil and moved on to focus on business in other parts of the world, reviving the idea made sense. Seizing the moment in anticipation of a new stable, safe and unified Afghanistan, Karzai signed a memorandum of understanding with its neighbors Turkmenistan and Pakistan in order to begin the process of calling for bids to construct a pipeline. The Kazakhs, Turkmen and other Central Asian republics would finally get their oil and gas to sea and on to market, the United States would enjoy cheaper gasoline and the Afghan people would benefit from construction jobs and transit fees. From the horrors of war would emerge a significant player in the lucrative world of international fossil fuel exploitation.

Most Americans believe the above scenario, and why shouldn’t they? Since 9-11 print and broadcast media in the United States have disseminated the Bush Administration line without question. On no subject has that been truer than on plans to run a pipeline across Afghanistan. Yet the role of energy resources in the U.S. “war on terror” has been anything but unreported. In Europe, mainstream media outlets like Reuters and the BBC have reported extensively on the subject. Wire services have distributed hard news about U.S.-led meetings, bank funding and related issues to every American newspaper, radio and television station in the United States.

American media has uniformly chosen to ignore these wire dispatches. Perhaps editors feel that their readers and viewers aren’t ready to hear unpleasant truths about their government’s actions in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. Perhaps they hope that other media -- some other media, somewhere -- will begin the coverage that would allow them to pick up the ball. Whatever the reason for the silence of the American media, it has contributed to the sense that those who mention oil, natural gas and Afghanistan in the same breath are “conspiracy theorists” on the political fringe.

The pipeline machinations are no theories; they are facts. All of the information in this piece is readily available from widely-respected mainstream media sources, and these outlets are cited throughout. The purpose of this endeavor is to group all of that information , most of it scattered in bits and pieces over the course of the last terrible year, into one place so that Americans can begin to understand the actions that are being taken under their name.

Why Attack Afghanistan?
The scenario summarized above -- a sleeping giant, rudely awakened by 19 Muslim hijackers on a sunny day in late summer, who rises to wreak vengeance to spread democracy and wealth among the world’s downtrodden -- is a charming one. It speaks well of the United States, its intents and its actions. However, it asks one to accept the following preposterous assumptions:

1. That the logical response to the September 11 attacks was a military campaign to curb Islamist terrorism, that Islamist terrorist groups (including the group responsible for 9-11) were based in Afghanistan, and that the obvious goal of that effort was the replacement of the terrorist-allied Taliban with the pro-U.S. Northern Alliance.

2. That the bombing campaign against Afghanistan, never even considered before 9-11, was planned from start to finish in three weeks (5).

3. That only after peace had been achieved in Afghanistan and after the United States had achieved its war aims did Bush Administration officials begin to consider the viability and desirability of a revived Unocal-style pipeline deal, not so much to obtain cheap oil as to help the Afghan people rebuild their country.

4. That a trans-Afghan pipeline deal -- never seriously contemplated before 9-11 due to security concerns -- was now determined to be possible in a newly safe Afghanistan, that it was discussed, negotiated and signed between the governments of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan within just three months.

As we shall see, the facts -- strong, well-reported evidence rather than shrill conspiracy theories concerning Enron and other recent scandals du jour making the rounds on the Internet -- do not support these assumptions. The following pages will demonstrate to the satisfaction of a reasonably open-minded reader that United States involvement in Central Asia and in Afghanistan specifically, a gruesome and cruel exercise that has already cost more lives than those taken on September 11 (6), is motivated primarily -- if not solely -- by the desire to control a significant stake of the world’s largest untapped reserves of oil and natural gas.

The United States began undermining the Taliban regime using covert CIA military operatives within Afghanistan more than a year before 9-11. By the summer of 2001, the U.S. government, amplifying policies previously in place under Bill Clinton, had decided to replace the Taliban regime, and had developed the air strategy to do so.

Did George W. Bush know in advance that the United States would be attacked on September 11? We do not know. When the attacks came, however, the Bush Administration had to decide how to react. In the end, their response was a call for a worldwide “war on terrorism” in which other nations would have to choose to side with the U.S. or be treated as its enemy (“you’re either with us or against us”); the first American implementation of that policy was its undeclared war in Afghanistan. And because the contingency plans for invading Afghanistan had already been developed (7), all that was needed was the few weeks necessary to transport U.S. troops halfway around the globe.

The decision to attack Afghanistan surprised experts on Central Asia and the Islamist terrorist organizations that were based there. Osama bin Laden lived in Afghanistan (near Kandahar) and Al Qaeda operated training camps there, but Al Qaeda’s primary operations were (and remain) in the dusty towns of the remote tribal areas and occupied sections of Kashmir -- places like Quetta and Gilgit -- in Pakistan. Pakistan was also the main source of money and weapons to the Taliban militia. The Pakistani intelligence service had helped install Mullah Omar’s Taliban in 1996. And General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in September 1999, had invited Taliban and Al Qaeda “holy warriors” into Pakistani Kashmir to fight the Indian army (8). Sharing a Pashtun majority with Afghanistan, Pakistan treated Afghanistan the way the U.S. often deals with Mexico -- as a sort of back lot, a place where more unsavory business can take place away from the prying eyes of curious reporters. To be sure, bombing Afghanistan inconvenienced Al Qaeda, but the heart and soul of the group remained unharmed after the war.

After 9-11 Pakistan’s government, the greatest exporter of anti-American jihadism in Central and South Asia, chose to abandon its Taliban allies for a new, cozier and more profitable relationship with the United States. Saudi Arabia, the source of most funding for radical Islamist groups and the Wahhabist madrassas that trained their members, remained immune from U.S. criticism because of American reliance on its oil; if anything its stock rose as Bush officials planned an attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. And Egypt, the country of origin of the 19 hijackers and the group to which they belonged, Islamic Jihad, was never even mentioned by U.S. officials. The “war on terrorism” was less about fighting terrorism, or finding the perpetrators of 9-11, than about bombing Afghanistan.

The Afghan bombing campaign also demonstrated a monumental lack of understanding of both Muslim sentiment and the porous nature of Central Asian borders. The Taliban had created their regime as a grand Islamic experiment to create the world’s “purest” Muslim state. So dedicated to this proposition was this militia of former mujahedeen that it didn’t bother to write a constitution -- disputes were settled by village mullahs who interpreted the Koran. While most other Muslims throughout the world are comparably modern and secular, the bombing of Taliban Afghanistan appeared to many of these urban Arabs and Turks as a direct attack on Islam itself -- much as American Jews tend to react strongly to attacks against Israel because of its status as the world’s only Jewish state, Muslims were disinclined to believe the official U.S. line that a war on terrorism required the dispatch of the Taliban.

The choice of an air campaign over a ground assault inevitably led to the outcome that followed: the escape en masse of individuals wanted for involvement with militant groups. Many Islamist groups had been based in neighboring countries to begin with -- for example, the Taliban-aligned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which threatens to topple the regime of President Islam Karimov in Tashkent, is based in Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan. After American bombs began dropping, Talibs and assorted Islamists fled to join their comrades in those countries as well as Pakistan. This outcome might have been prevented by a full-scale ground invasion closing the Afghan borders with those states (9).

It’s also worth noting that there was little cause to consider the Northern Alliance any more pro-U.S. or less prone to cooperating with Islamist terror organizations than the Taliban. As it does in the case of such civil conflicts as the split between Taiwan and mainland China, the U.S. State Department played a double game with the two factions, recognizing the Northern Alliance diplomatically as the legitimate government of Afghanistan (though it rudely dismissed its ruler, President Rabbani, after the invasion) while treating the Taliban as de facto rulers. Neither side ever got what it wanted from the United States -- to be treated as a fully realized state. In numerous meetings and negotations from 1996 to 2001, the U.S. promised diplomatic recognition, including Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations, to the Taliban, in exchange for various considerations. But when the Northern Alliance, who did hold that seat, asked for even the slightest economic assistance from Washington, it was denied until they gained military ground in the civil war against the Taliban.

Russia armed the Northern Alliance, often using money that originated with U.S. intelligence. Pakistan armed the Taliban, but most Pakistani munitions were themselves paid for by American dollars. Although -- or because -- both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance received their weapons from the United States, neither side trusted it. The leadership and militiamen of both sides shared common ideology and religion; all were hardcore Islamist, former anti-Soviet fighters whose factions had turned on each other after the Russians had withdrawn in 1989. Both sides, including the Northern Alliance, believed that the United States had used them to fight a brutal proxy war to finish off the Soviet Union, only to abandon them to a wasteland of violence and despair after they had succeeded. From the American point of view, deposing the Taliban, therefore, was tantamount to replacing one band of Islamist cynics with another.

Finally, despite Bush’s initial statements that the United States’ top priority was the arrest or death of Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, little was done to achieve that end. The Taliban, desperate to avoid the onslaught to come, offered to turn over bin Laden upon the presentation of evidence of 9-11 culpability, but the U.S. refused even to discuss extradition (10). Months later, after Bush had to admit that his expeditionary force was no closer to capturing bin Laden than on September 11, he claimed that capturing the billionaire Saudi dissident had never been important (11) -- and the actions of the military during that period appeared to confirm his assertion.

Why, then, had the United States targeted Afghanistan? If the war wasn’t central to eliminating anti-American Islamist terrorist groups, if the perpetrators of 9-11 were several time zones away, if Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were allowed to slip away because their capture hadn’t ever been a priority -- then why? Why had the United States deployed 100,000 troops to Central Asian bases in Kygryzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan? Why was it spending $1 billion per month on this operation? Why was it willing to put its young men and women in harm’s way, much less drop so much ordnance that well over 3,000 Afghan civilians were killed in the process?

Why was Afghanistan so important?

PART 2: The Most Underreported Story -- Only in America
During the year following September 11, American newspapers and television news outlets studiously avoided mentioning oil, gas and Afghanistan in the same breath. Citing European and South Asian news sources, however, a few Western writers tried to draw the attention of a befuddled American public to its government’s impure interests in the “war on terrorism.” Historically, it’s no secret that war almost always goes hand in hand with economic motives, and economic incentives for American involvement often involves control of fossil fuels (12). U.S. intervention in Somalia, for instance, had less to do with feeding hungry Africans than controlling the strategic Gulf of Aden (13), through which oil tankers pass from the Indian Ocean en route to the Suez Canal via the Red Sea. While the Vietnam conflict is popularly believed to have stemmed from the Cold War-era “domino theory” obsession among U.S. officials, energy company interest in South Vietnamese natural gas reserves played at least as vital a role in American military intervention as anti-Communist ideology. And few doubt a relationship between the importance of Venezuela as the biggest producer of oil in the Western hemisphere and a botched Bush Administration coup attempt against its democratically-elected president, Hugo Chávez (14). Given the enormous energy resources at stake in Central Asia, these cynics suggested, there was much more to American adventurism in Afghanistan than immediately met the eye.

George W. Bush’s popularity has remained largely unaffected by intimations of dark intentions related to the war on terrorism (15), even though his use of 9-11 as a transparent ploy to fight an oil war is potentially a scandal of gargantuan proportions. It certainly helps that this, the biggest unreported story of 2001, received virtually no airing on American network news or in daily newspapers.

But in an environment in which even soft-spoken Democratic leader Tom Daschle is smeared as “anti-American” for “questioning the President in time of war,” even these below-the-radar discussions have drawn disproportionately heavy fire. “Apart from the popular theory (in some parts of Europe as well as the Middle East) that this is a war on Islam,” the BBC’s Malcolm Haslett typically editorialized, “there is also the theory that it is a war motivated mainly -- or even purely -- by long-term economic and political goals. This line of argument falls down on a number of points.”

Haslett’s main point was that a trans-Afghan pipeline is intrinsically unfeasible, and that, presumably, countries don’t wage war over such lousy ideas: “Very few Western politicians or oil companies have taken Afghanistan seriously as a major export route -- for the simple reason that few believe Afghanistan will ever achieve the stability needed to ensure a regular and uninterrupted flow of oil and gas.” (16)

And yet, while American bombs were still falling, well before wedding guests were dying “accidentally” (July 1) (17) and an Afghan vice president was being assassinated in Kabul (July 6) (18), the presidents of three Central and South Asian nations were meeting to sign an agreement to seek investors for just that “bad idea”: a trans-Afghan pipeline.

Despite continuing internal strife and instability throughout Afghanistan, not to mention almost inconceivable poverty and chaos in the areas for which it is planned, the project became the transitional Afghan government’s top priority. On May 30, 2002, the BBC reported, “Pakistani President Musharraf, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and Turkmen President Niyazov agreed on the construction of a $2 billion pipeline to bring gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. Officials in Islamabad said the 950-mile pipeline would take natural gas from the huge Daulatabad-Donmez fields in Turkmenistan to the southwestern Pakistani port of Gawadar.” (19)

The Bush Administration and its mainstream media allies ask us to believe that the United States bombed Afghanistan solely in order to kill or arrest Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and their Taliban protectors. It was while doing that, in the words of journalist and author John Flynn in 1944, we "blundered accidentally into their oil wells." (20) It was, conservative pundits claimed, only after the United States-backed Northern Alliance victory that thoughts turned to the possibility of building a potentially lucrative pipeline project across Afghanistan. (21) But the effort to revive an oil and gas pipeline through this link between Central and South Asia actually began during the very first days of the bombing campaign, while the Taliban still held power in Kabul.

As the Pentagon was laying out targets, the State Department was mapping pipelines.

U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain met with Pakistan’s oil minister to discuss reviving the old Unocal deal on the third day of the bombing campaign, October 10, 2001. This was when the U.S.-aligned Northern Alliance still controlled just five percent of the country and defeat of the Taliban was still anything but guaranteed. (22) On December 31, 2001, Bush appointed Afghan-American academic Zalmay Khalilzad as his special envoy and likely future U.S. ambassador to Hamid Karzai’s then nine-day-old interim government. (The Karzai regime was called “interim” before the loya jirga and “transitional” afterward.) Khalilzad was a former Unocal Corporation consultant who, as a member of the National Security Council on Persian Gulf- and Southeast Asian-related affairs, had reported to former ChevronTexaco general counsel Condoleezza Rice. (23)

The Karzai and Khalilzad appointments were understandably interpreted by Central Asia Kremlinologists as a move that signaled American support for a trans-Afghan pipeline in general and Unocal’s involvement in particular. (24) Karzai, after all, is himself a former Unocal consultant. (25) In February 2002, Khalilzad traveled to Ashkhabat to sign an initial letter of intent on the pipeline with Turkmenistan’s autocratic president-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov. And on March 7, 2002, Reuters reported that Karzai had gone to Islamabad to cover the Pakistani side of the deal with that country’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. (26) Two and half months later, all three countries met in Pakistan to ink a formal letter of understanding.

Will a pipeline ever be built? Probably not. At this writing, Afghanistan remains as politically and socially fractured as ever. At least seven major warlords and hundreds of minor warlords known locally as “commanders” control districts outside the control of Karzai’s American-backed regime, which mainly consists of his tiny Kabul city-state. Fighting has broken out repeatedly, claiming hundreds of lives at internal borders and checkpoints separating the turf of rival warlords and with representatives of the Karzai government. No fewer than three versions of the Afghan flag fly over a nation filled with an estimated five to ten million mines, where most boys over 14 years of age carry an AK-47 and where a culture of violence, theft and hostage-taking have been both historically and culturally endemic.

Experts say that a trans-Afghan pipeline would be subject to continuous threats of sabotage committed by local warlords in the sectors through which it ran, and immense amounts of ever-increasing protection fees would have to be paid to safeguard the steady flow of fossil fuels. In addition, a large foreign -- read, American -- occupation force would be required for many years to enforce comparative law and order, and it remains to be seen whether the Bush Administration -- much less future American presidents -- will be inclined to devote substantial financial and military resources to the aftermath of our 2001 Afghan adventure. If pragmatism triumphs over ideology, it seems likely that the oil companies involved, reported to be led once again by the California-based Unocal Corporation (27), will reconsider their decision to bypass the shorter, cheaper and infinitely more workable Iranian proposal.

For the time being, however, the Bush Administration and its puppet regime in Kabul are working furiously to make this highly dubious scheme become reality. And various parties -- Russia, Japan and the Asian Development Bank -- are already committing millions of dollars to the job.

Right-wing commentators -- the same guys who previously denied the existence of any pipeline scheme -- now shrug: so what? To the victor goes the spoils, their logic goes, and if a country ever deserved to be compensated for its travails -- in this case with cheap fuel -- it’s the United States. We lost more than 3,000 lives and billions of dollars in property on September 11 -- maybe an unlimited supply of 50-cent-per-gallon gas will help soothe our pain.

There is no smoking gun, no leaked White House memo, dated August 2001, signed by George W. Bush, that calls for invading Afghanistan on whatever pretext imaginable to secure it as a possible pipeline route. There is, however, a preponderance of evidence that the drive to establish an American-friendly regime in Kabul was undertaken not to protect American interests from the attacks of Islamist radicals, but to enter the “New Great Game” for Central Asian oil. This is certainly the accepted view among leaders and ordinary citizens of other Western nations, and it is one that is impossible to avoid after examining the published evidence.

The profoundly cynical Bush Administration war against Afghanistan that was waged during the fall of 2001, while body parts were still being extracted from smoldering rubble at Ground Zero, has profoundly negative implications for the United States at home and around the world. These include, but are hardly limited to the following:

1. Rather than attempt to bring the perpetrators of September 11 to justice, rather than end the reign of terror carried out over the years by Islamist extremists, the United States allowed the real criminals -- officials in the Egyptian, Saudi and Pakistani governments who tolerated and worked with Islamic Jihad and their allies -- to get away, as it let bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives escape. These people and these groups will kill again, and the Bush Administration will be partly responsible for those deaths.

2. The U.S. was so desperate to control a key exit route for landlocked Central Asian oil that it was willing to cause the deaths of thousands of innocent Afghan civilians and remove from power the first Afghan government in two decades to bring some measure of stability and order to the country. The Muslim world, disgusted by the carnage caused by the U.S. in Afghanistan as well as our impudent coup de bombe against an attempt to create the purest Islamic state in the world, will merely experience further shudders of anti-Americanism in response to a perceived war against Islam. This will fuel the popularity and funding of radical groups bent on spreading Islamic fundamentalism.

3. Rather than take up the Iranian government on its recent overtures to thaw relations, the U.S. established a puppet regime on Iran’s eastern border whose express purpose is to “freeze out” Iran. If Iran drifts away from Western-style reforms, if anti-Americanism sweeps the richest, most culturally and politically potent nation in the Middle East, the Bush Administration will certainly be to blame.

4. The U.S. has lost its moral imperative to wage war, and its bull-in-a-china-shop sort of unrepentant arrogance is now seen as a problem that needs to be addressed by the world’s diplomatic community. Had the U.S. waited a respectful period before allowing Karzai to begin discussing a pipeline -- a year or two, say -- our European allies might have looked the other way as the United States spread its domination over Afghanistan and built military bases throughout the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. As it is, American intent is indecently obvious -- and Europe is far less likely to join our next oil-related conflict, whether against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein or elsewhere. If we fail to secure the support of our allies when we genuinely need it, we may lose our status as a superpower -- and this will be the Bush Administration’s responsibility. The geopolitical consequences of this breach are currently unknowable.

5. Russia is understandably dismayed to watch the United States building permanent military bases throughout its former Soviet republics -- Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan all have American troops stationed on their territory -- in order to safeguard American oil interests. (28) The Chinese government is worried about the establishment of an U.S. puppet state bordering its wild western underbelly, the Xinjiang Muslim Autonomous Region. It’s the Cuban missile crisis all over again, but this time we’re playing the role of Russia. If war with one of these nuclear superpowers somehow develops from the rash actions taken today, the Bush Administration will have been responsible.

The fundamental question is whether the trans-Afghan pipeline idea is a happy by-product of American -backed victory in its morally justified and strategically vital war in Afghanistan, or rather the culmination of a cynical ploy to kill and maim innocent people living in the world’s poorest nation for the sake of securing access to cheap energy.

The answer to that question tells us what kind of leaders currently reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, what kind of people we are for allowing them to govern on our behalf and how we’re likely to be perceived abroad. This last issue -- the state of our reputation overseas -- will determine the level of resentment against the United States. It will also increase the likelihood that radicals angry at American foreign policy will again target American civilians. On September 11, 2001, we became victims who enjoyed the support and best wishes of the world. We destroyed that positive image in a few months of haphazard militarism, but it’s not too late to stop the clumsy bullying that got us into this mess.

Part 3: The Central Asian Oil and Gas Sweepstakes
The republics of Central Asia that became independent in 1991 -- Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- didn’t leave the Soviet Union voluntarily. They were thrown out, ejected unceremoniously by a newly-independent, impoverished Russia no longer willing to pay enormous one-way subsidies that had been draining Moscow’s coffers for years.

With the exception of the relatively democratic Kyrgyz Republic, all of what U.S. State Department insiders jokingly refer to as the “icky Stans” are governed by the former Communist Party strongmen who were appointed by Moscow to run their Soviet Socialist Republic predecessors. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan -- the Central Asian countries possessing substantial amounts of Caspian Sea oil and natural gas -- are autocratic police states with rigidly controlled state media, banned or nominal opposition parties and ferociously totalitarian policies of social control. In one of the great ironies of recent geopolitical history, Russia couldn’t afford to hold on to the largest untapped oil reserves in the world, yet ended up maintaining a significant military presence only in oil-poor, impoverished, civil-war-wracked Tajikistan -- the “ickiest” of the Stans -- because the Tajik government otherwise could not control its southern border with violent, unstable Afghanistan.

In the parlance of the oil business, “proven” oil reserves are those that geologists judge to be 90 percent probable and “possible” oil reserves are considered 50 percent probable. The landlocked Caspian Sea, home to a huge sturgeon that produces most exported Russian caviar, sits on top of an estimated 10 billion barrels of proven reserves and 233 billion barrels of possible reserves -- in total, more than six percent of the world’s proven oil and 40 percent of its gas reserves. (29) At the current rate of $26 per barrel, this amounts to an astonishing $6 trillion in potential gross revenues.

Compare this to Saudi Arabia, currently the world’s largest oil producer, which possesses a mere 45 billion barrels of possible reserves. The Caspian region also enjoys some 293 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (30)

Caspian Sea oil and natural gas have always drawn the attention of superpowers; Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi war machine was hobbled by an Allied fuel embargo, launched a disastrous front against the Soviet Union in a desperate bid to secure Baku’s (then the capital of the Azeri S.S.R., now Azerbaijan) oil rigs for the fight against England and the United States. Nowadays, the Caspian is divvied up among five countries: Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

In 1999, Kazakh drillers hit the Caspian jackpot at the remote northwestern cities of Tengiz and Kashagan. Thanks to these two strikes, the biggest in the history of oil exploration, Kazakhstan is estimated to possess 5.4 billion barrels of proven and 92 billion barrels of possible reserves (31). So while American foreign policy has always been influenced by the discovery of oil, the gigantic Kazakh strike changes everything.

Kazakhstan, a U.S. client dictatorship the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River run by the notoriously corrupt Nursultan Nazarbayev, possesses more than twice as much oil as Saudi Arabia.

During the first months after independence in 1991, the unsophisticated autocrats of Central Asia got taken for a ride by foreign investors. “Naive Turkmen officials auctioned off choice oil and gas fields for as little as $100,000 to foreign opportunity seekers,” The Washington Post reports. “Among those who picked up cut-rate concessions were a Dubai car salesman, a Swedish real estate magnate and Roger E. Tamraz, the Lebanese-American entrepreneur who subsequently became entangled in a U.S. Senate investigation of his donations to the Democratic National Committee.” (32)

But the leaders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan quickly learned the value of the Caspian Sea oil beneath their windswept deserts and steppes. Beginning under the Clinton Administration and continuing under Bush-Cheney, the U.S. government has tried to help Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan and Niyazov’s Turkmenistan get their oil and gas out to sea. The reasons are simple: Increased production means lower oil prices, which means less reliance on OPEC. Lower oil prices would have a positive impact on corporate profits as transportation, production and power costs inevitably fall (33). And one hardly needs an agile imagination to suspect the interest of a White House headed by former oil men in cutting deals to help their former partners and friends in Texas.

By all accounts the most direct and cheapest route to extract Caspian Sea oil is across the narrow shoulder of Iran to the Persian Gulf. But “the U.S. wants a pipeline that will help its friends in the region and freeze out its enemies -- especially the Iranians,” reported Business Week in late May 2002, while Unocal Pipeline 2.0 was getting signed in Islamabad (34). This project (taken over in 1995 from Argentina’s Bridas Corporation, which had conceived it in 1993) runs from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.

After the Iranian artery, this is the second-shortest route.

The Trans-Afghan Pipeline: Alive and Well

S. Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, told The New York Times’ Steven Kinzer for an article published March 17, 2002: “Whoever can shape the way that pipeline map looks will shape the future of a huge part of the world. The main feature of these states is their remoteness. Pipelines are the only way they can overcome their isolation. Transit fees are real money, and who gets that real money will go a long way toward determining which of these countries succeed and which don't.”

There are many pipelines slated for Caspian Sea oil, some further along than others. In rough order of desirability, they are:

1. Turkmenistan-Iran: The shortest, cheapest and safest route, from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, yet indefinitely on hold because Iran is subject to U.S. trade sanctions.

2. Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan: The project originally pushed by Unocal Corporation. A (primarily) gas pipeline that begins in southeast Turkmenistan, crosses Afghanistan from its northwest to southeast and debouches in Pakistan on the Arabian Sea. Now being developed after establishment of Karzai government in Afghanistan despite substantial danger and instability.

3. Azerbaijan-Georgia: Also called Baku-Supsa, a pipeline would carry oil and gas to the Black Sea. Tankers would carry it through the Bosphorus strait to the Mediterranean. Cost of construction through the Caucasus mountains would be high. Also, the Turkish government is concerned about oil spills in the already congested Bosphorus. (Both Kazakh and Turkmen oil and gas can be shipped by tanker to Baku across the Caspian Sea.)

4. Azerbaijan-Turkey: An alternative to Azerbaijan-Georgia, this route runs from Baku to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Even longer and more expensive than Baku-Supsa, this could run over $3 billion.

5. Azerbaijan-Russia: Baku-Novorossisk would run through lawless Chechnya into nearly-as-lawless Russia. No Central Asian leader trusts the Russians not to cut off the pipeline or divert its flow at whim.

6. Kazakhstan-China: The Chinese government has already promised the cash for this project, which will be enormous due to engineering concerns -- it crosses the Tian Shan mountain range -- and distance (5,300 miles). (35)

Kinzer wrote: “Afghanistan's main hope lies with the huge gas reserves in neighboring Turkmenistan, which other Asian nations crave. Today, the only pipelines through which Turkmen gas and oil can be exported run to Russia. American companies have been seeking to build new lines from Turkmenistan to a port from which this wealth could be shipped to other markets.” (36)

In order to understand the current thinking about the trans-Afghan deal it’s useful to take a look at its recent origins. On October 27, 1997, Unocal Corporation announced the formation of a six-company consortium, the Central Asia Gas Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas) to construct a $2 billion trans-Afghan pipeline across then-Taliban-held Afghanistan. According to the company’s press release (37), the six lead participants in the project would have been Unocal (46.5 percent), Delta Oil Company Limited of Saudia Arabia (15 percent), the Government of Turkmenistan (7 percent), Indonesia Petroleum, Ltd. of Japan (6.5 percent), Itochu Oil Exploration Co., Ltd. of Japan (6.5 percent), Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd. of South Korea (5 percent) and the Crescent Group of Pakistan (3.5 percent). A Russian company, RAO Gazprom, indicated interest initially, but withdrew in January 1998.

As Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid has documented extensively in his seminal book “Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,” Unocal representatives courted Taliban officials from 1995 through 1998, even arranging for a trip to Texas for Taliban officials in 1997. By most accounts, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was favorably disposed toward Unocal and its proposed pipeline route.

However, shortly after terrorists (allegedly sponsored by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization) bombed two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Bill Clinton retaliated with cruise missile attacks against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, and Al Qaeda training camps near Khost and Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, on August 21, 1998 (38). In the aftermath of these actions, Unocal immediately withdrew from the CentGas consortium, formally disbanding it in December 1998. “We met with many factions, including the Taliban, to educate them about the benefits such a pipeline could bring to this desperately poor and war-torn country, as well as to the Central Asian region,” Unocal said in a statement announcing the pullout. “At no time did we make any deal with the Taliban, and, in fact, consistently emphasized that the project could not and would not proceed until there was an internationally recognized government in place in Afghanistan that fairly represented all its people. Our hope was that the project could help bring peace, stability and economic development to the Afghans, as well as develop important energy resources for the region.” (39)

Though Clinton and Bush officials repeatedly tried to resurrect the deal, the Unocal project remained shelved until September 11, 2001. Those conditions -- “peace, stability and economic development” -- had yet to be achieved by any objective standard. But, by May of 2002, Unocal had obviously been satisfied.

The Return of Unocal

Afghanistan’s new Minister of Mines and Industries, Mohammad Alim Razim, announced that Unocal was the “lead company” in the newly revived project. “The work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck at the coming [May 30, 2002] summit,” Razim told reporters (40). He said that the Afghan government would build a new road linking Turkmenistan with Pakistan running alongside the pipeline in order to supply nearby villages with gas and to carry Afghan gas for export, and that additional construction funds would be provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and donor countries. The Afghans would collect “transit fees” amounting to one-twelfth of overall profits (41) until it would take full possession of the conduit after 30 years (42). As further consideration, Turkmen President Sapamurat Niyazov promised to add Afghan cities near the border to Turkmenistan’s electrical grid and to wire Kabul itself within two years. (43)

In a development that confirms Razim’s account, the Asian Development Bank’s Marshuq Ali Shah announced on August 12, 2002 that the ADB had cut a check for $1.5 million for a feasibility study of the trans-Afghan pipeline and would meet on September 20, 2002 in Manila to discuss the project. “The movement is quite fast,” Shah told reporters. (44)

Obviously attuned to the potential controversy surrounding its previous dalliances with the Taliban and the growing perception that George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism” was little more than a cover for neo-colonialist oil exploitation, Unocal officials at first denied Razim’s statement. “Unocal is not involved in any projects (including pipelines) in Afghanistan, nor do we have any plans to become involved, nor are we discussing any such projects,” spokesperson Teresa Covington said (45). But she added: “I don’t think it would serve me to say ‘forever.’” (46) Covington also allowed her employer a rhetorical opening: “We can’t make any decisions based on a snapshot of a country,” Covington said. “There are several things we look for before we invest in a country: an internationally recognized government, peace and stability, and social [standards].” (47)

However, Razim’s right-hand man, Deputy Minister of Mines and Industries Mohammed Ebrahim Adel, readily confirms Unocal’s interest: “Naturally, Unocal is economically and technically stronger...We are sure Unocal will win, because it has big potential and can work better.”

“Business has its secrets and mysteries,” continued Adel, a mining engineer, wondering aloud about the oil company’s reticence. “And maybe, before there is a real contract, they don’t want it to be disclosed in the media.” (48)

In any event, the Afghans have made clear that they’re not waiting for Unocal, or for that matter the West, to start construction. Any pipeline deal will be done on a first-come, first-serve basis. On August 8, 2002, the Russian state oil company Rosneft announced that it had signed an agreement with the Afghan “Mining and Industry Ministry, under which Russian specialists will study the state of [Afghanistan’s] gas fields and pipeline network over the coming month. Russian companies will finance the feasibility study and provide the Afghans with information on the work of Soviet Union specialists in Afghanistan's gas industry prior to 1988. In turn, Rosneft will participate in the development and privatization of oil and gas blocs that Afghanistan will offer in the future.” (49)

Whether Unocal, Rosneft or some other company decides to move forward in Afghanistan, the Bush and Karzai Administrations are moving heaven and earth to break ground on some sort of trans-Afghan pipeline as soon as possible. And that pipeline is identical in virtually every respect to the Unocal project tabled in 1998.

(article continues)

http://www.pipeguild.co.uk/pipeline_world/PWorldApril02%20%28lr%29.pdf#search='unocal%20pipeline'
Turkmenistans gas pipeline plan may revive after Afghan war

http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

http://www.iraqdirectory.com/files/articles/article265.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3522285.stm

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=720

That's the first thing we did after invading Afghanstan was to secure and protect the oik pipelines. They say it's not about oil, yes it is, because all the countries we have bombed happens to have OIL!! Is that just a co-inky dink???

We can look to Cheneys 2002 top secret energy policy meetings with big oils top execs. This is their policies finally taking hold. High oil and gas prices for consumers. Trillions of dollars in profits are being made. In another 2 years when gas prices hit $4 to $5 a gallon American consumers will be clamoring for cheaper Iraqi oil. Thousands of U.S. troops will be sent in to protect and transport the flow of Iraqi oil and Bush will be labeled a hero for his foresight of invading Iraqi, creating a "democracy" and securing the oil for the United States. Bet on it.

CitizenJane, I can't find anything wrong with this node. It appears normal on my setup.

I wrote this in the community yesterday:

I think the real fault is rooted deeper. I think they werent thinking about war, but to create fuzz. You know there was the Clinton administration and no in sight for eight long years. Now just to come up with the idea to start one would create a whole lot of fuzz. Now what i think what Bush problem was is that he had a flat out lie in the end and he didnt know how to win the next election. See, and this is why I think Kerry is nothing but a fucking traitor. He never used the image. He spoke of more troops on the ground after Abu ghraib.
what I like about your thread it leaves this media manipulation shit off the house. Noone manipulated the media, I mean the media had to report it because it was a change from Clinton. So, the Republicans wanted to make the headlines and didnt know how to, I mean the first question is how deep can you go that you want to do it by making a war and the second why would they want to make the headlines in the midst of a term, no election in sight?
The answer to the second question is easy, no asskicker like Dean but some lemming like Kerry who sticks to all the self-imposed questions they put up themselves. How is it going on the ground in Iraq? Kerry: We need 50000 men more! Bush hardcore patriotic superior immediate overkill answer: we need 100000 men more! See, this kicks the papers!
I mean about the first question you could say: we must get Kerry in a year as democratic candidate but this is lousy. Too risky. So why did they have to make the headlines? Did they have to cover sth? Did they reorganize sth?
1st we had recall in California. Schwarzenegger. Energy crisis.
2nd Cheney was always involved in oil. Bush made in oil.
Suddenly everybody was speaking about oil. Did they have to plough under sth?
Basically one could think they were all talking about sources of energy, a very elemental thing. Did they restructure energy supply? You may look at the high oil price. And one thing is also astonishing: That japan today sold drilling permits in the China sea. I mean this thing is called China Sea, so itll belong to China.
So whos paying whose death? Schwarzenegger got into power by a freaking democratic recall mode designed for allied freaks. This fuck of a federal bloodsucker cant even read the letters.
Bush survived on the weapons Clinton built 8 years long, Bush survived on the surplus Clinton made 8 years long.
So if if you add it up and if you leave the war out thats a big minus. They had 911, they had a crashing stock exchange, they had a sum of probs. So they were bound to making a war, because they couldnt top their own bad news.
But lets get back to this energy box once more: whatve seen is energy energy energy and the end of it is Goldman Sachs predicts an oil price of 102$.

Good my first impression is these guys must be a bunch of lunatics and maniacs because THEY speak of it all day long and achieve a shit so they dont care for their asses to burn.
Lets think think a bit more precisely about this: Lets say Enron funded the Republican party and the Republican party funded Enron. This system was at an end. Schwarzenegger comes up waffles sth. about an energy crisis, everything gets reshuffled, some debts ploughed under, Silicon valley plants hanging onto another wire, lets call the firm Enron2.
I mean who did really notice this? A war was going on. Who didnt think of moolah connexions? And after all the US was just attacked by a bunch of scheichs. Good, there were some implications Bush/Bin Laden. But wholl mention this? John F. Kerry?

So lets combine this fuzz and energy box: the only missing unit in this equation was the democratic candidate. So what happened? The only thing the Republicans ever got out about Dean was that he talks bad about things.
Kerry became a serious candidate because he played Bushs Chiwawa in discussing all the serious questions from unmanned drones (many big brother points) to metal plated humvees.

CNN: Iraq blast kills 12 guards
This is a typical Bush headline. I mean this man occupied a country on false pretenses and keeps speaking of energy all day. What do you think the Iraqis think why this man is there? Welfare of human mankind?
So despite you could think every fucking terrorist on this planet must think of the spoo-boom as shining inspiration for further attacks being Robin hood because Bush wont sell the oil that remains underneath for 102$ a barrel but later generations of iraqis can such headlines be intention?

See an there is the point Bush is trying to make: terrorists are assholes. Bush is a federal genius. The oil will cost 120$ in the aftermath.

I mean lets leave off this accumulation of tanker nations Bush led into the war called "coalition of the willing." Lets just say the Americans fight this war. What happens? every time 12 iraqis blow up Bush earns more money. Its just like pretenses are wrong again, they shouldnt blow up by Bushs publicly declared "will." So its the name of every American pulled into the dirt. Good the Polish probably had to pull back the Poznan because after shippering the twelfth time to San Francisco with unleaded (fuel)the lead (of the ship its made of)became stainy.
Yeah, I mean Bush really fights a patriotic war. i read it on a site not too long ago Saddam switched to Euros as exchange currency not too long ago. The iranians want to do so too. And see: Sudden trouble with Iran due to its nuclear program though the reactor is there for 10 freaking years and is even placed in BUSHnell. i mean why in the world would the US need a war with Iran now? 10 million freaking Sunnis and then you kill the Shiites? I think the point is Bush waffled a bit too much about energy and if somebody really tries to get a mark on the results hell experience the most fucking stall he ever experienced in his life. So one goes off the hook, all go off the hook now and the dollar goes cellar and Bush gets a shit for his oil because he sells in dollars.
You know I think Bush is a real patriot. he is a very unselfish person. he doesnt sell fish, he sells oil. I think that seperates him from the average fisherman, the average anglo. You know the framesize is extended. And i think thus George W. Bush is American. the Bushs didnt develop the airplane the internet, they didnt fly to the moon, they drilled in the fucking Texan desert, got a fucking deal with every moolah and scheich around the globe and attacked iraq. I think despite that Im pro allied I want to underline that I think George W. Bush is special. I dont want to call this man the most rotten pig under the sun, I dont want to call him skull and bones 666, I dont want to say hes confederate and not a Yankee and new York blew up because he said so.

Good all the small deals with swiny-arabia. Some pipelines, some air bases. i mean you may not forget the pieces of the puzzle have got to fit. What always makes me wonder is that swines never conclude that one could conclude exactly this. Its all just there for war, war causes death, death is bad. So if youre skull&bones 666, do you think you regard this situation as funny? magic question: Will more refineries blow up?

links and tips:
(a) dont try this at home
(b) send this to the local paper

He's a veteran of the Vietnam War who's still fighting for his fellow soldiers.

http://www.johnkerry.com/features/militaryfamilies/

However, Bush hid behind his family's money and connections and still is.
Bush unselfish? I think not.

Price of Crude Oil Drops

http://tinyurl.com/68f8q

So why in the hell are we getting screwed at the pump paying $3.00/gal ?