Afghan oil news

[Richard Romeo]

The Village Voice
James Ridgeway
November 27 issue

When George Bush Courted the Taliban
Match Made in Washington

A new book published in Paris last week, Bin Laden, la Verité Interdite 
('Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth'), by French intelligence analysts 
Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, claims a top FBI official told 
them the major obstacles to investigating terrorism are big oil companies 
and Saudi Arabia. This argument, seldom depicted in the U.S. press, holds 
that U.S. policy until September 11 was aimed at consolidating—not 
destroying—the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The idea was for Western 
interests to exploit Caspian Sea oil, which would be transported across 
Afghanistan to ports in Pakistan.

The negotiations continued in Washington and Islamabad through August, with 
the Taliban employing Laili Helms (see 'The Accidental Operative,' June 19, 
2001) to push their cause. Helms is a niece by marriage of Richard Helms, 
former CIA director. Since the September 11 attacks, she has essentially 
stopped answering calls from the press about her work representing the 
fundamentalist regime.

Other major discussions on the future of Afghanistan—tabbed 6 + 2, for the 
six nations surrounding Afghanistan, with the U.S. and Russia—were carried 
forward under UN auspices. At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. 
representatives told the Taliban, 'Either you accept our offer of a carpet 
of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs,' Brisard told the Inter 
Press news service.

Brisard and Dasquie are big in the French spook world, with Brisard a former 
member of the secret service and author of a 1997 report on Al Qaeda, and 
Dasquie a respected journalist and publisher of a Web dope sheet called 
Intelligence Online.



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

Additional reporting: Sarah Park, Meritxell Mir, and Curtis Lang






>From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Afghan oil news
>Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 12:49:11 -0500
>
>Richard--does the new book you mention contain evidence that the collusion
>actually happened. I mean has some believable insider who actually was in 
>the
>deal spilled the beans? Without something solid a editor isn't going to
>authorize a whole lot of expense in digging into the story. Of course the
>charges MIGHT  be true in the same way the charges that the CIA 
>deliberately
>undermined Watts with crack cocaine MIGHT be true. (true enough to keep the
>alternative media occupied for months). I wouldn't put such things beyond 
>the
>imaginatiion of oilmen but merely the fact that oilmen in high places might
>profit from such shananigans won't cut it. So my question is: Did the 
>French
>jounalists really turn up anything substantial? Of is it merely 
>circumstantial?
>I'd like to know because I dislike the Bushes a great deal and the war has
>nothing to do with it.
>
>
>         P.
>
>Richard Romeo wrote:
>
> > The US press has also not pursued the story regarding allegations in a 
>new
> > book by two french journalists that the bush admin. called off the 
>crackdown
> > on al qaeda in hopes of gaining oil concessions from the taliban early 
>last
> > year.
> >
> > Rich
> >
> > >From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>
> > >To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> > >Subject: Afghan oil news
> > >Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 14:54:06 -0800
> > >
> > >
> > >"The United States' new special envoy to Kabul once lobbied for the 
>Taliban
> > >and worked for an American oil company that sought concessions for
> > >pipelines in Afghanistan. [...] his oil contacts are bound to raise
> > >suspicions about both his priorities and those of the Bush 
>administration.
> > >At the NSC, Mr Khalilzad worked for the National Security Adviser,
> > >Condoleezza Rice, who had served on the board of the Chevron 
>Corporation as
> > >an expert on another central Asian state with major oil reserves,
> > >Kazakhstan.
> > >
> > >President Bush and Vice-president Dick Cheney have extensive 
>backgrounds in
> > >the oil business, too, and it will not be lost on any of them that 
>central
> > >Asia has almost 40 per cent of the world's gas reserves and 6 per cent 
>of
> > >its oil reserves.
> > >
> > >In addition, Mr Khalilzad has links to the most hawkish wing of the
> > >administration. In the 1980s, he worked on Afghanistan alongside Paul
> > >Wolfowitz, now the Deputy Secretary of Defence and an ardent advocate 
>of
> > >military action to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq - a hardline view that 
>has
> > >also sometimes been voiced by Mr Khalilzhad. "
> > >
> > >http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=113662
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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