Oil, Pipelines and 9/11

I posted a diary at Daily Kos earlier today in response to Jerome a Paris’s diary in which he purported to debunk any claim that the invasion of Afghanistan for a pipeline was all conspiracy theory.

There is a teaching moment here; no matter how much you’ve previously researched, there is always more information out there you missed.

I know this, because I missed something very important…

While my diary does a fair job of documenting the history of the gas pipeline in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq being about oil, I missed a very important piece of information that relates to 9/11.

In June 2002, Salon.com did an article on Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan and the gas pipeline.  It concerns an email found on a laptop computer.  Now, remember that the invasion of Afghanistan began in October 2001.

The e-mail memo was found in 1998 on a computer seized by the FBI during its investigation into the 1998 African embassy bombings, which were sponsored by al-Qaida. Atef’s memo was discovered by FBI counter-terrorism expert John O’Neill, who left the bureau in 2001, complaining that U.S. oil interests were hindering his investigation into al-Qaida. O’Neill, who became security chief at the World Trade Center, died in the Sept. 11 attack.

Atef’s memo shines new light on what al-Qaida knew about U.S. efforts to normalize relations with the Taliban in exchange for the fundamentalist government’s supporting the construction of an oil and gas pipeline across Afghanistan. As documented in the book I coauthored with Guillaume Dasquie, “Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth,” the Clinton and Bush administrations negotiated with the Taliban, both to get the repressive regime to widen its government as well as look favorably on U.S. companies’ attempts to construct an oil pipeline. The Bush White House stepped up negotiations with the Taliban in 2001. When those talks stalled in July, a Bush administration representative threatened the Taliban with military reprisals if the government did not go along with American demands.

When I read that, I had to do a double-take.  The Bush administration threatened the Taliban with military reprisals in JULY 2001 if it did not give into American demands for a gas pipeline?  In 1998, President Clinton launched missiles into Afghanistan to attack al-Qaeda camps.  In July 2001, what possible casus belli could the Bush administration use to attack the Taliban when it issued the threat?  

Then, I looked at another timeline — the 9/11 timeline.  In June and July 2001, we were intercepting “intelligence chatter“.

Evidence that a large terrorist attack was in the works in the spring and summer of 2001:

March 2001: An intelligence source claimed bin Laden operatives were planning a strike in the following month.

April 2001: U.S. intelligence received reports of a possible terrorist plot in New York and California.

May-July 2001: The National Security Agency received at least 33 communications suggesting a terrorist attack was imminent. None provided any specific information on locations, dates or methods.

May 2001: U.S. intelligence received reports that al-Qaeda operatives were planning to enter the United States from Canada to conduct bombings. No specifics were provided, but this report was widely distributed.

May 2001: The Pentagon learned that seven bin Laden associates had departed various places for Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

June 2001: The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center learned that key bin Laden operatives were disappearing, while others were preparing for martyrdom.

July 2001: A U.S. intelligence source reported that numerous people in Afghanistan were “talking about an impending attack.”

So, as reported by Jean-Charles Brisard at Salon and written in his co-authored book, “Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth,” the Bush administration was threatening the Taliban with military attack if they didn’t give into the administration demands for a gas pipeline during the same time that our intelligence agencies knew that there was talk in Afghanistan about a coming al-Qaeda attack.

Another coincidence?  You all know I don’t believe in coincidences.

Here is the State Department on Afghanistan:

By the end of 1998, the Taliban occupied about 90% of the country, limiting the opposition largely to a small mostly Tajik corner in the northeast and the Panjshir valley.

So, with the Taliban occupying 90% of Afghanistan, just how did the Bush administration believe they would attack the Taliban militarily?  Massive carpet-bombings?  Or, invasion in retaliation for a terrorist attack yet to be committed?

This question is now a key question given all we now know about the Bush administration and how little about 9/11 other than it was the springboard that gave Bush/Cheney the casus belli for all they did.

Thus, I think we must take another look at the timeline:

We know that early-2001 was dominated by Cheney’s secret energy task force meetings.  We know that those meetings involved oil executives and they were looking at Iraqi oil and gas fields.

We know that in the summer-2001, intelligence “chatter” gave plenty of warnings of a coming attack by Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda, if not the specifics.

We know that in July 2001, the Bush administration threatened the Taliban with military reprisal if they didn’t accept the administration’s demands for the gas pipeline.

We know that in September 2001, al-Qaeda did carry out its attack with stunning efficiency.

We know that the Bush administration gave the Taliban an ultimatum, give up Bin Laden or be military attacked and removed from power.  The Taliban refuse and the U.S. invades Afghanistan in October 2001.

We know that the CIA, under the Bush administration, tried to oust Hugo Chavez in a failed coup in Venezuela in April 2002.

We know that the Bush administration used false intelligence to invade Iraq in 2003.  We know because Tyler Drumheller’s 60 Minutes interview told us that the Bush administration knew in the fall of 2002 that Saddam Hussein had no WMD programs.  We know because the al-Qaeda cell the did relocate to Iraq after the Afghanistan invasion was located in the Khurmal region, which OUR planes patrolled in the no-fly zone, yet we did not attack this cell until AFTER our invasion of Iraq.

We know that the Bush administration helped install President Karzai in Afghanistan and in December 2002 Karzai signed the gas pipeline deal.

We know that the Bush administration wanted the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law, opening up Iraqi oil reserves to western oil companies.

And, as you read that diary of mine, you see just how central Iran, Iraq and Venezuela were in oil and natural gas reserves.  You also see how Afghanistan was needed to get an energy pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and possibly India.  And, that between the Middle East and Afghanistan lies Iran, the one country necessary to link all of the lines together.