Friday, October 18, 2019

My Complete 9/11 Timeline Part 2 by John Heartson



March 1996, prominent US senator Hank Brown, a supporter of the Unocal project, visited Kabul and other Afghan cities. He met with the Taliban and invited them to send delegates to a Unocal-funded conference on Afghanistan in the US. In the same month, the US also exerted pressure on the Pakistani government to ditch its arrangements with Bridas and back the American company.{The Taliban the US and the Resources of Central Asia]

March 1996 - October 1997, Iraq impeded inspectors from entering Iraqi security service and military facilities, and it interfered with some UNSCOM flights.

March 1996 March, 1996, Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa, then the Sudanese Minister of State for Defense, offered to extradite bin Laden either to Saudi Arabia or the United States. U.S. officials turned down the offer of extradition. 'The Washington Post' article that reported this goes into some length quoting U.S. officials attempting to explain exactly why they turned down the offer. The officials are quoted explaining that the Saudis were afraid of a fundamentalist backlash if they jailed and executed bin Laden, that they resented Sudan, that the U.S. resented Sudan, that the U.S. didn't have sufficient evidence to put him on trial. Everything, in fact, except the simplest explanation: that bin Laden was a U.S. asset - either part of the CIA, or someone whom the CIA used. Perhaps the 'Washington Post' writers were hinting at this explanation when they wrote:
"And there were the beginnings of a debate, intensified lately, on whether the United States wanted to indict and try bin Laden or to treat him as a combatant in an underground war." ('The Washington Post,')
Emphasis on the word 'treat' as in 'pretend that he was.' In any case, the Sudanese offer of extradition was turned down.
"[U.S. officials] said, 'Just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia,' Erwa, the Sudanese general, said in an interview. 'We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials!] said, 'Let him.'"
April 1996, Mobil announced that it had purchased from the Kazakh government a 25% share in the consortium developing Tengiz. Given adequate export outlets, Tengiz can reach peak production of 750,000 bbl/d_ by 2010.
DOE/EIA Reports on the Caspian 5/17/00 Page 9

April 1996: In 1995, the government of Sudan offers the US all of its files on bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but the US turns down the offer. Bin Laden had been living in Sudan since 1991. The Sudanese government collected a "vast intelligence database on Osama bin Laden and more than 200 leading members of his al-Qaeda terrorist network... [The US was] offered thick files, with photographs and detailed biographies of many of his principal cadres, and vital information about al-Qaeda's financial interests in many parts of the globe." In April 1996, the US again rejects Sudan's offer of the files [cooperativeresearch.org]

April 30, 1996 In the United States, President Clinton approves the sale of $227 million of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. At current oil prices, roughly 12 million barrels would be sold. The Clinton Administration hopes that the sale will lower gasoline prices in the United States, which are at their highest levels in five years. (WSJ)
May 7, 1996 Tsunao Saitoh, who formerly worked at an HHMI-funded lab at Columbia University, was shot to death on May 7, 1996 while sitting in his car outside his home in La Jolla, Calif. Police also described this as a professional hit.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) funds a tremendous number of research programs at schools, hospitals and research facilities, and has long been alleged to be conducting "black ops" biomedical research for intelligence organizations, including the CIA.

May 13, 1996: Ramsey Yousef is accused of having designed the bomb that blew up in the World Trade Centre in 1993....His idea was to topple one of the twin towers onto the other..... perhaps 50,000 people would have perished. ...Yousef placed a bomb on a Philippines Airlines jet ...... testing a method he intended using to destroy three US passenger planes at a later date. The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 382

May 15, 1996, Foreign Minister Taha sent a fax to Carney in Nairobi, giving up on the transfer of custody. His government had asked bin Laden to vacate the country, Taha wrote, and he would be free to go." ('The Washington Post,' 3 October 2001)
Note: "We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials!] said, 'Let him.'"

Why couldn't the U.S. government have accepted the Sudanese offer to extradite bin Laden? Why couldn't they have jailed him, gotten together their best case and put him on trial? What exactly did the U.S. government have to lose? The worst that could have happened would have been that they failed to convict him and had to let him leave the country... JUST LET HIM GO, OH, ANYWHERE. MAYBE TO - AFGHANISTAN! [http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm]


May 20, 1996 In New York, the United Nations and Iraq agree to U.N. Resolution 986, which provides Iraq with the opportunity to sell $1 billion of oil for 90 days for a 180-day trial period. Under the resolution, proceeds from the sale would be used for humanitarian purposes. The agreement comes following months of heated negotiations. Iraqi oil exports are expected to begin by the Fall of 1996, after a pumping station on the Iraq-Turkey pipeline is repaired and U.N monitoring and aid distribution facilities are put in place. Shortly after the agreement, the White House announces its decision to allow U.S. oil companies to purchase Iraqi oil exports. (FT, PON, WSJ)

June 1996: Mr. Dale Watson was named Deputy Chief of the CIA at the Counter-terrorist Center.

Mid 1996: Pakistan was not the only source of assistance (to the Taliban). Saudi Arabia also provided substantial financial and material aid. Shortly after the Taliban took control of Kandahar, JUI head Maulana Fazlur Rehman began to organise "hunting trips" for royalty from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. By mid-1996, Saudi Arabia was sending funds, vehicles and fuel to support the Taliban’s push on Kabul. The reasons were two-fold. On the political plane, the Taliban’s fundamentalist ideology was close to the Saudi’s own Wahabbism. It was hostile to the Shiite sect and thus to Riyadh’s major regional rival—Iran. On a more prosaic level, the Saudi oil company, Delta Oil, was a partner in the Unocal pipeline and was pinning its hopes on a Taliban victory to get the project off the ground.

June 24, 1996: The Central Asian nation of 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]

July 8, 1996: The US government agrees to give $400 million to help Enron and a Uzbeki state company develop natural gas fields in the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan. [Oil and Gas Journal, 7/8/96]

July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 bound for Paris, exploded shortly after takeoff from New York's Long Island, killing all 230 people on board.

July 18, 1996 The United Nations formally approves an Iraqi aid distribution plan, a major step forward in the direction of allowing Iraq to sell oil under Resolution 986. (DJ)

July 21, 1996: Officials of Al Hayat, a prominent Arabic-language newspaper, said they received faxes in London and Washington early on Wednesday, warning of a planned attack on an American target. The letter was signed by a group identifying itself as the Movement of Islamic Change, the Jihad wing. [New York Times]. This was learned shortly after TWA 800 was shot down it.....a connection to Sheikh Rahman, and a threat that apparently the U.S. government does not consider to be credible ?.
August 1996: Osama Bin Laden began issuing public calls for a jihad against the US in August 1996 [The Taliban, the US and the resource of Central Asia]

August 13, 1996: Unocal and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia come to agreement with state companies in Turkmenistan and Russia to to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. [Unocal website, 8/13/96]

August 25, 1996 U.S. officials investigating reports that Islamic terrorists have smuggled Stinger ground-to-air missiles into the United States from Pakistan. Senior Iranian sources close to the fundamentalist regime in Tehran claimed this weekend that TWA flight 800 was shot down last month by one of three shoulder-fired Stingers of the type used by Islamic guerrillas during the Afghanistan war. The sources said the missiles arrived in America seven months ago... [Times of London]

September 22, 1996: More than 150 credible witnesses saw a missile destroy TWA 800. "Some of these people are extremely, extremely credible," a top federal official said. U.S. military experts, who debriefed them and independently confirmed for the FBI that their descriptions matched surface-to-air missile attacks.. Investigators are reviewing an anonymous threat received after the October 1, 1995 conviction of radical sheik Omar Abdel Rahman .... the threat was that a New York airport or jetliner would be attacked in retaliation........ (The New York Post)
Three high-speed objects were picked up on radar crossing the aircraft's flight path just before it began its fatal dive. On June 18, 2000 the Chairman of the Egyptian Civil Authority hand delivered a letter (Click for pdf file) to the Administrator of the FAA requesting assistance in identifying these high-speed returns but was denied the information he requested. (For similar reports of high speed objects reported by other aircraft flying into and out of Kennedy airport please read The Tale of the Tapes.) Were these objects missiles fired in the same sequence as that which brought down TWA 800? (See the article "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever").

September 27, 1996: The Taliban conquer Kabul [AP, 8/19/02], establishing control over much of Afghanistan. The oil company Unocal is hopeful that the Taliban will stabilize Afghanistan, and allow its (gas) 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]

September 1996: Greased with over $1.8 million in contributions from the big three utility companies, California lawmakers unanimously enact deregulation law. Legislation promises competition, 20% decreases. Gov. Pete Wilson signs the bill into law, saying that the landmark legislation is a major step in our efforts to guarantee lower rates, provide consumer choice and offer reliable service, so no one literally is left in the dark. We've pulled the plug on another outdated monopoly and replaced it with the promise of a new era of competition. ("Energy 'Crisis' Was A $71 Billion Hoax, And It's Not Over, Report Says", http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/utilities/pr/pr002170.php3 )

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]

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is one of the most important think-tanks advising the US government, as well as many other governments abroad. CFR members include the Pentagon's top advisers,
Currently: Richard Perle, Henry Kissinger, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, ex-CIA chief James Woolsey,
Richard Perle is currently Head of the Defense Policy Board, Department of Defense which advises the Pentagon. Perle is also Director of Hollinger Inc, Hollinger Digital also owns Onset Technology which cooperates with spy messenger software of Comverse and Odigo. Hollinger Inc. owns more than 400 newspapers worldwide and controls almost 50% of the Canadian press. They are the third largest newspaper chain in the Western world, after Gannett and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Chairman and CEO of Hollinger is Conrad Black who controls about 78% of Hollinger through a private holding company. Hollinger also owns the Sydney Morning Herald, the Chicago Sun Times and the Daily Telegraph. On the board of Daily Telegraph is Henry Kissinger, ex-CIA-Director James Woolsey, Newt Gingrich, former Admiral David Jeremiah, Dan Quayle, former US-ministers James Schlesinger and Harold Brown. On 26th of October Daily Telegraph tried to promote the Iraq-October-anthrax theory: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F10%2F26%2Fwirq26.xml
Hollinger and their board members, including Henry Kissinger, have connections to Sunday Times, Chase Manhattan Bank, AT&T, American Express, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, Hasbro and Israeli Yellow Pages.
Hollinger also owns the Jerusalem Post. It's very convenient to follow Richard Perle’s strategy, supported by his friends James Woolsey, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage. Richard Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson's office in the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing Highly-Classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam.


CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) Meeting February 13, 1997
"World Energy Outlook and Opportunities for Oil and Gas Investment"
Speaker: Harald Norvik President and Chairman, Executive Board, Statoil Group
Presider: William F. Martin
[www.cfr.org]


February 24, 1997 Qatar inaugurates the world's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporting facility and formally launches Qatar Liquefied Gas Co., which will have total output capacity of 6 million tons per year of LNG. The facilities are part of a new $7.2 billion industrial zone which also includes a sea port with a capacity to handle 25-30 million tons of LNG annually. Qatar plans to build more gas liquefaction plants in the area to exploit its natural gas reserves of around 237 trillion cubic feet. (DJ)
CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) Meeting February 27, 1997
"Business-Government Partnership in the Global Economy"
Speaker: Rebecca P. Mark Chairman and CEO, Enron International
Presider: Ivan Selin
[www.cfr.org]



1997: World oil supply increases by 2.25 million barrels per day in 1997, the largest annual increase since 1988. Driving oil prices down further (to approx $17 per barrel)

1997: Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski 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. Almost prophetically, he notes that because of popular resistance to US military expansionism, his ambitious 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, 1997 (the link is to excerpts of the book from a From the Wilderness article)]

1997: Battelle Memorial Institute, a military contractor in Ohio, has experience making powdered germs participated in a secret Central Intelligence Agency program, code-named Clear Vision and begun in 1997, that used benign substances similar to anthrax to mimic Soviet efforts to create small bombs that could emit clouds of lethal germs. 1997 BioPort, from Lansing, Michigan (former Michigan Biologics Products Institute MBPI) is founded by Fuad al-Hibri (Ex-Porton International UK) and Admiral William Crowe, 76, former military chief under President Ronald Reagan. Their main purpose is to develop anti bio-agents.

April 1, 1997: The Indian village of Katalwadi, at the forefront of protests against Enron's Dabhol Power project, is attacked by Enron supporters armed with swords, sharpened hoes (colloquially known as "choppers"), wooden sticks, light bulbs filled with acid, and explosive soda bottles. Following the attack, the police arrests and charge the anti-Enron villagers with criminal offenses, including attempted murder, under the Indian Penal Code. The perpetrators of the attack, however, are detained only briefly the following day and are not charged with assault. 1997 sees a number of attacks on people opposed to Enron's power plant. ("The Enron Corporation: Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations", http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/enron/enron5-0.htm )

May 1997: Police beat and arrest nearly 180 protesters who are demonstrating peacefully outside the Dabhol Power Corporation gates. ("The Enron Corporation: Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations", http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/enron/enron5-0.htm )

May 16, 1997 A final agreement creating the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is signed by project participants: Russia (24 percent), Kazakstan 19%, Chevron Corp. 15%, AO Lukoil/Arco Corp. 12.5 %, Mobil Corp. 7.5%, AO Rosneft/Shell Corp. 7.5 %, Oman 7%, Agip SpA 2%, British Gas PLC 2%, Oryx Corp. 1.75%, and Kazakstan Pipeline Ventures, a joint venture of Kazakstan's state oil company and Amoco Corp. 1.75%. The Russian government plans to transfer its stake to two Russian oil companies, AO Lukoil and AO Rosneft. CPC plans to begin building a 932-mile pipeline to transport crude oil from the Caspian region to Russia's Black Sea coast in 1998 and begin shipping around 558,000 barrels per day of oil in 1999 (planned peak capacity is 1.4 million barrels per day). (DJ) Agreements Signed in Historic Caspian Pipeline Consortium Restructuring [Law Firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld]

May 20, 1997 President Clinton signs an executive order barring new U.S. investment in Burma (also known as Myanmar), effective May 21 and renewable annually. U.S. companies have invested about $250 million in Burma, primarily in the oil and gas sector. The biggest U.S. investor is Unocal, which is building (with France's Total) a $1.2 billion pipeline from Burma's Yadana natural gas field to an electric power plant in Thailand. (DJ)
June 1997: Maharashtra police raid a fishing village where many residents oppose the Enron power plant.They arbitrarily beat and arrest dozens of villagers, including Sadhana Bhalekar, the wife of a well-known protester against the plant. They break down the door and window of Bhalekar's bathroom and drag her naked into the street, beating her with batons. Bhalekar is three months
pregnant at the time. ("Enron: History of Human Rights Abuse in India", http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/01/enron_012302.htm )

Jun 4, 1997 Akin Gump Expands Russian Practice [Law Firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld]

Jul 1, 1997 Akin Gump Enhances Energy Practice in Brussels [Law Firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld]

Jul 11, 1997 Akin Gump Expands Corporate Technology Practice [Law Firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld]

July 17, 1997 A Federal grand jury in Manhattan is investigating whether a renegade Saudi millionaire .... has been funneling money to terrorist groups in the United States.... An official ... said that the money had been delivered to groups in Detroit, Jersey City and Brooklyn ....He (bin Laden) was ... linked to Ramzi Ahmed Yousef ...in the three years before the attack on the Trade Center ..... Yousef lived in Pakistan in a house paid for by bin Laden, the State Department report said.[New York Times]

July 1997 The U.S. State Department decided in July 1997 that proposed exports of natural gas from Turkmenistan to Turkey via Iran did not technically violate U.S. law. In addition, the State Department has opposed large-scale oil swaps with Iran by U.S. companies. Officials from Turkmenistan and Pakistan and representatives from Unocal and Saudi Arabia’s Delta Oil signed an agreement to build the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan line. The 900+mile pipeline would have cost between $2 billion and $2.7 billion, and would have carried approximately 700 Bcf of gas from Turkmenistan’s Daulatabad gas field to the central Pakistani city of Multan. [DOE/EIA Reports on the Caspian 5/17/00]

July 1997: In the immediate aftermath of the Mazar-e-Sharif debacle, an abrupt policy about-face, the Clinton administration ended its opposition to a Turkmenistan-Turkey gas pipeline running across Iran. The following month, a consortium of European companies including Royal Dutch Shell announced plans for such a project. A separate deal struck by Australia’s BHP Petroleum proposed another gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and eventually India. US and Turkey jointly sponsored the idea of a "transportation corridor," with a major oil pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey’s Ceyhan port on the Mediterranean. Washington began to urge Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to participate in the plan by constructing gas and oil pipelines, respectively, under the Caspian Sea, then along the same corridor. [The Taliban, the US and the Resources of Central Asia]

July? 1997: Bush advisor, Karl Rove, arranges a job for Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, at Enron. ("Associates of Bush Aide Say He Helped Win Contract", http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/business/25REED.html ) The Rove associates say the recommendation, which Enron accepted, was intended to keep Mr. Reed's allegiance to the Bush
campaign without putting him on the Bush payroll. Mr. Bush, they say, was then developing his "compassionate conservativism" message and did not want to be linked too closely to Mr. Reed, who had just stepped down as executive director of the Christian Coalition, an organization of committed religious conservatives. At the same time, they say, the contract discouraged Mr.
Reed, a prominent operative who was being courted by several other campaigns, from backing anyone other than Mr. Bush.

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]

August 4, 1997 The FBI has linked two suspects in a Brooklyn suicide-bombing plot to the militant Mideast group Hamas. Palestinian security officials think the two suspects could be members of a new group, financed by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, which takes its orders from Hamas or another Islamist group. (The Brooklyn group knew that their colleagues had brought down TWA 800 and told their story to the FBI. It preferred not to believe them .... ) TIME.com
August 9, 1997 Swissair Flight 127 nearly hit by an unidentified flying object, possibly a missile, near the area off New York where a TWA airplane crashed in 1996. The 747 was cruising at 23,000 when the pilot interrupted an address to passengers to report the near miss by a round white object, says a report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. [Canadian Press] The captain and co-pilot said an oblong and wingless object shot past at great speed - only fifty metres away from their Boeing Seven-Four-Seven. The American air traffic authorities said it was probably a weather balloon. The U.S. preferred a "balloon" to a "rocket" explanation despite the pilots objections ..... [Neue Zuricher Zeitung]

October 1997 Unocal set up the Central Asian Gas Pipeline (CentGas) consortium to build the (natural gas) pipeline. Construction was scheduled to begin in 1998. [DOE/EIA Reports on the Caspian 5/17/00 Page 64[

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]

Nov 4, 1997 Akin Gump has New Vision for the Energy Marketplace Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, L.L.P. announced G. Gail Watkins, Glenn E. Johnson and Catherine J. Webking joined the firm in Austin. Becky M. Bruner joins the firm's Washington office as of counsel. The four lawyers are from Haynes & Boone, L.L.P. Two long-time FERC legal personalities, Charley Moore, and Gail Watkins, have combined their practices. Ms. Watkins, formerly legal assistant to FERC Chairman C.M. Butler III and Commissioner Oliver G. Richard III and Chief of Staff to Chairman Martha O. Hesse, moved her practice to Akin Gump to link her experience with Moore's. The purpose, according to Mr. Moore, FERC General Counsel under Chairman Butler, is "to provide legal services focused on adding value to the client's 'bottom line' in the new competitive marketplace. Gail and I believe that the services we provide as a firm, and the way we
 
provide them, must embrace and reflect the challenges facing our clients in the new marketplace. Our clients need innovative approaches and tools for success and with the merger of Gail and her group into our energy section, we offer just what is needed." Ms. Watkins built her practice focused on the regulatory and policy needs of several industries, including electricity, telecommunications and natural gas, before federal and state agencies. While the technical aspects of the industries are different, Ms. Watkins believes that emerging technology and markets suggest a convergence of these and other regulated industries. Another component of Akin Gump's energy practice that attracted Watkins is the energy transactional work headed by Jim Langdon of the firm's Washington office. Langdon's primary focus is on international energy transactions and he has recently been involved in high-profile, international energy deals with European, Central Asian and Russian components. (Jim Langdon – specializing in Oil dealings in the Caspian Sea region was also one of Bush’s Pioneers (campaign contributors)
Mr. Moore's practice has solidly and notably embraced the regulatory and transactional needs of the natural gas industry. While Langdon went east in international energy circles, Moore's international experience has been concentrated in Central and South America. "Charley and Jim have tremendous experience and resources. My international work has focused primarily on Mexico, but I believe forward-looking legal services for regulated industries must include the global marketplace. Akin Gump clients will benefit greatly from our unique, comprehensive and multifaceted services," Ms. Watkins commented.
Currently, Ms. Watkins represents Western Resources in its application to merge with Kansas City Power and Light Company, and her previous electric utility merger experience complements that which the firm gained from its work on the Cinergy and First Energy merger transactions. Along with Western Resources and other electric utility and gas industry clients, Watkins also represents several telecommunications industry entities. Glenn E. Johnson focuses on oil and gas development and gas pipeline regulatory work before the Railroad Commission of Texas, in addition to the associated litigation and appellate work. Mr. Johnson entered private practice in 1976 and served from 1977 until 1979 as a Hearings Examiner in the Gas Utilities Division of the Railroad Commission. He is board certified in administrative law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. A frequent speaker before industry groups, he was appointed by Governor George Bush in 1996 to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission.
Becky M. Bruner is joining the Washington office as of counsel. She has over 10 years of experience working in both state and federal agencies on energy regulatory matters. From 1994 through 1996, she served as legal adviser to FERC Commissioner (now Chairman) James J. Hoecker. Prior to that, she was a trial attorney with the electric litigation section of the FERC. Ms. Bruner also spent three years as a trial attorney and hearings examiner at the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
Catherine J. Webking also concentrates in administrative law matters, representing clients before the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Railroad Commission of Texas. Before law school, Webking was a production engineer with Mobil Oil Corporation. She received her J.D. with honors in 1991 from the University of Texas, where she was elected to Order of the Coif. She earned her B.S. in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University in 1985.
Akin Gump Chairman Bruce McLean stated, "Historically, one of Akin Gump's strengths has been our full-service energy practice devoted to all aspects of the domestic and global markets. With the addition of Gail's regulated industries practice group, we expand our integrated approach to the energy industry's rapidly changing environment, resulting in enhanced services to our clients."

November 1997, During US Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s visit to Pakistan she denounce the Taliban’s policies towards women as "despicable" and warned Pakistan that it risked international isolation. Washington began to exert pressure on Pakistan over the Taliban’s involvement in the heroin trade and the dangers of "Islamic terrorism".

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 Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon warns Iraq will not allow oil to flow during a third six-month phase of the U.N.'s oil-for-food sale until the U.N. approves aid distribution. The U.N. Security Council approves a third six-month phase following the end of the second six-month phase. Like the first two phases, the third phase allows Iraq to sell up to $1.07 billion of oil in each of two 90-day periods. However, the sales level may be increased by the Security Council in January 1998 after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reports on Iraq's needs. The next day Iraq stops pumping oil into the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline at the end of the second six-month phase of the United Nations (U.N.) oil-for-food program. (WP, NYT)
December 4, 1997: Representatives of the Taliban are invited guests to the Texas headquarters of Unocal to negotiate their support for the (gas) 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 The Taliban visited UNOCAL's Houston refinery operations. Interestingly, the chief Taliban leader based in Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed Omar, (now on America's international Most Wanted List), was firmly in the UNOCAL camp. His rival Taliban leader in Kabul, Mullah Mohammed Rabbani (not to be confused with the head of the Northern Alliance Burhanuddin Rabbani), favored Bridas, an Argentine oil company, for the pipeline project. But Mullah Omar knew UNOCAL had pumped large sums of money to the Taliban hierarchy in Kandahar and its expatriate Afghan supporters in the United States. [The Blacklisted Journalist 4/1/02]
Unocal executives fête Taliban ministers at their homes in Texas. (" Oil barons court Taliban in Texas",http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=006576086753008&rtmo=lzoPFokt&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/97/12/14/wtal14.html ; "Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline",http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/west_asia/newsid_37000/37021.stm )
"The Islamic warriors appear to have been persuaded to close the deal, not through delicate negotiation but by old-fashioned Texan hospitality. Last week Unocal, the Houston-based company bidding to build the 876-mile pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, invited the Taliban to visit them in Texas...The Taliban ministers and their advisers stayed in a five-star hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus...The men, who are accustomed to life without heating, electricity or running water, were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller, a vice-president of Unocal, they marvelled at his swimming pool, views of the golf course and six bathrooms. After a meal of specially prepared halal meat, rice and Coca-Cola, the hardline fundamentalists - who have banned women from working and girls from going to school - asked Mr Miller about his Christmas tree." November 1997, a Taliban delegation was feted by Unocal in Houston, Texas and met with State Department officials during the visit. [The Taliban, the US and the Resources of Central Asia]

Dec. 9, 1997: The Enron executive committee approves a buyout -- that includes a corporate guarantee of $633 million -- of the interest of the California public employees pension fund in the JEDI partnership. ("Enron Directors Backed Moving Debt Off Books ",http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64820-2002Jan30.html )

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] Unocal, with the support of Washington, continued to actively woo the Taliban leaders who, in an effort to obtain the most lucrative deal, were playing the American company off against Bridas. Unocal provided nearly $1 million to set up the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Omaha as a front for an aid program in Taliban-held Kandahar. The main outcome of the company’s "aid" was a school to train the pipefitters, electricians and carpenters needed to construct its pipelines. {The Taliban, the US and the Resources of Central Asia]

1998: Pennzoil-Quaker State Company was formed with merger of Pennzoil and Quaker State. Simultaneous with the Pennzoil-Quaker State merger, the Pennzoil Company's marketing, manufacturing and fast oil change businesses (Pennzoil Products Group) is spun off and renamed the PennzEnergy Company

1998: Officials at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah said that in 1998 scientists there turned small quantities of wet anthrax into powder to test ways to defend against biowarfare attacks.

January 1998: DOE Publishes Strategic Plan for Hydrogen "Dependence of foreign energy sources is expensive. We suffer trade deficits and use our military to protect our energy supply abroad. Environmentally, the Nation is being forced to react to the need for cleaner urban air and—global climate change. –The solution is a clean, sustainable, domestic energy supply. Hydrogen can be one of the answers. ---lowering the cost of technologies to produce hydrogen directly from sunlight and water –"

As the 1998-99 low petroleum price crisis demonstrated, both state and federal governments need to act to reduce regulatory costs on domestic production" [ IPAA Americas Oil and Gas Producers – From Cheney Task Force notes]

February 1998. Zawahiri's al-Jihad formally joins forces with Osama bin Laden and the global Islamist terrorist threat truly emerges. al-Zawahiri, the key personality of global jihad. Fascist Islamism has seized the ideological initiative in the Muslim world against which traditional Islam has so far proved an impotent, indeed often unwilling, opponent. Young Muslims everywhere are captivated by Zawahiri Islamism and jihad to which they attribute selfless idealism and in which they admire ruthless determination. It will be a long war. Bin Laden declaring it the religious duty of all Muslims "to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military ... in any country in which it is possible [cooperativeresearch.org]

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

February 24, 1998: Five years after the first bombing on the WTC, Dale Watson testified about an old plan, called Project Bojinka, which originally was about "simultaneously plant devices on flights" - "The terrorists of tomorrow will have an even more dizzying array of weapons and technologies available to them..."
http://web.archive.org/web/19990502221624/http://www.fbi.gov/congress/wtc.htm
Watson was concerned about "chemical, biological, and nuclear materials within the criminal and terrorist communities. These weapons of mass destruction represent perhaps the most serious potential threat facing the United States today..."

Feb. 28, 1998 Unocal VP International Relations addressed US House of Representatives clearly stating that the Taliban government should be removed and replaced by a government acceptable to his company. He argued that creation of a 42 inch pipeline across Afghanistan would yield a Western profit increase of 500% by 2015.

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 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]

March 1998 Unocal announced a delay in finalizing the pipeline project due to Afghanistan's continuing civil war

March 2, 1998 Security Council agreement, threatening "the severest consequences" if Iraq reneged. Iraq allowed presidential site inspections

April 10, 1998: Jerome Hauer met with Barbara Rosenberg on April 10, 1998, at a "roundtable on genetic engineering and biological weapons" under President Clinton. The small group of outside experts and cabinet members included: William Cohen (at the time Secretary of Defense), CIA boss George Tenet, Craig Ventner (Celera), Joshua Lederberg (Rockefeller University, Defense Science Board), Thomas Monath (Oravax/Acambis, former CDC and USAMRIID), Jerome Hauer, and Barbara Rosenberg. [http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm]

1998: (exact date?)Officials at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah said that in 1998 scientists there turned small quantities of wet anthrax into powder to test ways to defend against biowarfare attacks. 1998 paper study on anthrax in the mail was one secret project. (Dr Rosenberg is making the astonishing suggestion that there may have been a deadly follow-up by somebody else. Last time she questioned the investigation, she was attacked by the FBI and the White House. But she says she's prepared to speak out again because she's so afraid of what might happen next.) The CIA have told Newsnight they totally reject Dr Rosenberg's theory and say they were unaware of ANY project to assess the impact of anthrax sent through the mail.


1998 (exact date?) BioPort signed a new contract with the US government. They have to develop vaccines against anthrax and have 3 years time for that to finish the production. The vaccines should be available in 2001. They got a $50 million contract for developing AVA (Anthrax Vaccine Absorbed) for 2.5 million US Soldiers 1998, the BioPort Corporation was founded for the express purpose of buying the Michigan Biologic Products Institute from the State of Michigan. MBPI was the only firm in the U.S. making Anthrax vaccine, and their sole client was the U.S. government. Until recently, BioPort has not been able to deliver any vaccine due to continuous problems with the FDA in areas such as sterility, contamination, as well as improper procedures and record keeping.

BioPort now has on its Board of Directors Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr. In October 1985 Crowe was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He retired from that position in 1989 and was appointed US Ambassador to Britain. Admiral Crowe, a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was given ownership of 22.5% of BioPort's stock without investing any money. Crowe's role at the company was to facilitate cooperation and good relations with government agencies and to secure military contracts from the Department of Defense.

1998 (exact date?) The OraVax company (Bioweapon Vaccines) had been likewise linked to shady backroom dealings with Clinton administration officials in 1998 regarding government orders for a yet to be tested West Nile Virus vaccine. (source: . Dr. Leonard Horowitz, a Public health consumer advocate and author of Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism and Toxic Warfare (Tetrahedron Publishing Group; 1-888-508-4787),
http://www.baltech.org/lederman/816proof.html "....The role of Oravax, the commercial vaccine manufacturer directly connected to the major players in this issue-the CDC, the Ft. Dietrick bio-warfare lab, Plum Island, former OEM chief Jerry Hauer and Mayor Giuliani-remains unexamined in the media yet Oravax stands to make billions from its West Nile Virus vaccine if WNV hysteria continues to spread. That Oravax was developing a WNV vaccine before the 1999 outbreak, that its VP went to Washington with Jerry Hauer and the head of Rockefeller University in 1998 to pressure President Clinton to stockpile billions of dollars worth of vaccines or that according to the NY Times, Oravax's stock value had lost 90% of its value-making a mosquito-born epidemic the only chance of company survival-are clues of significance that might prove a financial angle to WNV...."


May 11, 1998 India announces that it has conducted three underground nuclear tests, the country's first since 1974. The tests were conducted simultaneously 330 miles southwest of New Delhi, near the Pakistani border. The Indian government indicates that the three tests included a thermonuclear device, commonly known as a hydrogen bomb. Two days later, on May 13, 1998, India announces that it has conducted two more underground nuclear tests in the same desert range. (WP) (DJ)
May, 1998, Osama bin Laden publicly discusses "bringing the war home to America." [cooperativeresearch.org]
May 1998, Jerome Hauer started working at the OEM (Office for Emergency Management) in New York. In the same year, Hauer and (future) anthrax suspect Hatfill both supported the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) as experts in their respective fields. The CFR is one of the most important think-tanks advising the US government, as well as many other governments abroad. CFR members include the Pentagon's top advisers, Richard Perle, Henry Kissinger, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, ex-CIA chief James Woolsey, biosciences specialist Joshua Lederberg, and many others. On May 28, 1998, Hatfill and Hauer spoke together at the same CFR meeting about "Building a 'Biobomb': Terrorist Challenge" http://www.cfr.org/public/resource.cgi?meet!102

1998 (exact date needed) Jerome Hauer convinced New York Mayor Rudi Guilliani to develop a vaccine against the West Nile virus - almost one year before this virus broke out in New York. To this end, Hauer introduced Col. Thomas Monath of Oravax (now Accambis) to Guliani and organised a business deal. [The Fly on the Wall 0802 News Special, August 13, 2002, 5:10 pm]

June 19, 1998 The United Nations (U.N.) Security Council unanimously approves a resolution allowing Iraq to spend $300 million on spare parts for its oil industry. The funding is intended to help Iraq increase oil exports under the fourth phase of the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. The spare parts are expected to expand Iraq's oil export capacity from 1.6 million barrels per day to 1.8 million or 1.9 million barrels per day. (NYT) (DJ)
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]

June 24, 1998 OPEC agrees, to another round of oil production cuts. (Recent oil prices fallen to lowest levels in a decade). OPEC to cut production by 1.355 million barrels per day, effective July 1, 1998, bringing the group's total reductions since March 1998 to 2.6 million barrels per day. Together with promises from non-OPEC nations such as Russia, Oman, and Mexico, world oil producers have pledged to cut world-wide production by approximately 3.1 million barrels per day. (WP) (WSJ) (NYT)
June 1998 (B): Enron's agreement to develop natural gas with the government of Uzbekistan is not renewed. Enron closes its office there. The reason for the "failure of Enron's flagship project", inability to get natural gas out of the region. Uzbekistan's production is "well below capacity" and only 10% 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]

July 1998: Dale Watson was appointed Inspector Deputy Assistant Director of the National Security Division (NSD), FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C

July 1998: "Surprisingly, just a few weeks before the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa, the book tells us...'In July 1998 Prince Turki had visited Kandahar and a few weeks later 400 new pick-up trucks arrived in Kandahar for the Taliban, still bearing their Dubai license plates.''' (Quoted in 'The creation called Osama,' by Shamsul Islam. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/creat.htm

Aug. 4, 1998 -- McCarthy, Crisanti & Maffei, Inc. (MCM), global financial analysis firm merged with and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), a provider of strategic knowledge to the global energy industry. The combined company will have in excess of $70 million in revenues in 1997 and will be known as Global Decisions Group. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Dr. Daniel Yergin, President of CERA is a leading authority on energy and international politics, as well as the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power. His forthcoming book, The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That is Remaking the Modern World,

August 1998 Iraq refused to implement an UNSCOM plan for completing its work and barred UNSCOM from inspecting new facilities.

August 7, 1998: Terrorists bomb the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The bomb in Nairobi, Kenya kills 213 people, including 12 US nationals, and injures more than 4,500. The bomb in Dar es Salaam kills 11 and injures 85. The attack is blamed on al-Qaeda. [PBS Frontline, 2001]

August 9, 1998: Northern Alliance capital Mazar-e-Sharif is conquered by the Taliban, giving them 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]


August 10, 1998 The State Department received information on June 12 that bin Laden was threatening "some type of terrorist action in the next several weeks". Was one of these attacks related to another Swissair incident in mid-June 1998 which Bobet revealed was reported to Swissair but not to the American authorities? In this case the pilots didn't have to duck... The UFO Research Coalition Report on Swissair 127 ISBN 1-928957-00-5 (1999) Page 26 In July 1998, Bobet advised us that Swissair had experienced another UFO sighting in the vicinity of JFK International Airport in mid-June. The airplane had been airborne only several minutes, and was en route to Zurich. All three cockpit crew members saw the object. No report was made to Air Traffic Control authorities at the time, and apparently no notification of U.S. authorities was made subsequently. Only Swissair management was briefed by the crew. But there was a similar incident in England also in mid-June which did involve ducking ...
[International News Electronic Telegraph]

Aug. 20, 1998 Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks (75-80) on Afghanistan and Sudan targets--after bomb attacks on embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam [The US] blamed the bombings on Osama bin Laden, the former Saudi who it accuses of backing many attacks on US targets. It said that the pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum was linked to Mr bin Laden and was used to produce chemical weapons. The US was forced to admit within hours that the plant was not a Sudanese government facility, but a private factory belonging to Salah Idris, a Saudi businessman. But it then said that Mr Idris was himself linked to terrorism and to Mr bin Laden http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B0405918.html August 1998, the Clinton administration launched cruise missiles against Osama bin Laden’s training camps at Khost in Afghanistan [The Taliban, the US and the Resource of Central Asia]

Sudanese factory owner Salah Idris then hired the powerful and prestigeous law firm of Akins, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld to fight back. Even more interesting is that Bob Strauss of this very firm had been nominated in 1991 by, then President George Bush, to be Ambassador to the Soviet Union and then Russia after the collapse. Very interesting that a firm with strong connections to Bush and oil interests would get this case)
Note: Richard Clarke, Adviser to the President (George W. Bush 2001-?) for Cyberspace Warfare. Clarke, who was originally with the State Department during the elder Bush's Administration, was demoted for covering up Israeli violations of the Arms Exporting laws. In August 1998, Clarke was one of the key figures who planted false information about Sudan's involvement in the East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings, which led to U.S. cruise missile attacks on a Sudanese pharmaceutical company in Khartoum. Clarke shopped in disinformation from British-Israeli covert operations stringer Yosef Bodansky that targetted Sudan. ~ Source: Patrick Martin and Michele Steinberg

Hunting Bin Laden Frontline Interview with Milt Bearden
Frontline: The US Government is saying that when Osama bin Laden was in the Sudan, they have now been able to link him to everything from the World Trade Center bombing in terms of supporting various people ... to apparently the Riyadh bombing as well as the Khobar bombing. That he was an active terrorist on the ground, in Khartoum, being allowed to operate openly by the government of the Sudan.
Milt Bearden: ... Nothing I have said suggested Osama bin Laden is not a component in international terrorism. I challenge the fact that Sudan [is] always assumed to be a component in all of the current international terrorism. I think any of those statements that you made should have been trumped at about the time the Sudanese said, "Okay, this is a bad guy, we'll kick him out." And they took that step which was very visible, absolutely documentable, and they did it. ...

Frontline: You're not saying Osama bin Laden is not a terrorist or is not an enemy of the United States?
Milt Bearden: Osama bin Laden has chosen to make himself an enemy of the United States. He has issued these disputable fatwahs, these Islamic proclamations, to kill all ... Americans and Jews. Therefore, he's made himself a component, and I think that the United States is absolutely justified in taking out Osama bin Laden. But to oversimplify it by linking him to every known terrorist act in the last decade is an insult to most Americans. And it certainly doesn't encourage our allies in this to take us very seriously. Osama bin Laden is a legitimate target for the United States, period. But then, to completely reinforce it with all of these insupportable accusations, I think is a disservice and an oversimplification

Frontline: And you think that we're a target just simply because we're a superpower.
Milt Bearden: Partly, but we're also a superpower who insists on being perceived by the least fortunate of the Islamic world as being somehow against them. It is not missed in Friday prayers that we sent 75 million dollars worth of missiles flying against the two poorest Islamic countries in the world, Afghanistan and Sudan. I spent too many years living in the shadow of one mosque or another not to take what happens at Friday prayers seriously. And that's what's going on. ...

Frontline: Because so much of what we hear about Osama bin Laden comes out of his Afghanistan experience, I'm trying to get this straight, he was mostly a philanthropist and a financial contributor, and a minor combat figure, who happened to dabble in combat?
Bearden: What I can say is that the hype that surrounds Osama bin Laden--most of it generated by the US media and backed up by statements that verge on hyperbole from the United States government--that this man was literally swinging through the valleys of the Hindu Kush with a dagger in his teeth and single-handedly driving out the Soviet army, this did not happen. The Afghan people did that. The Arab role in the combat situation on the ground was minimal to nonexistent, period. And to suggest otherwise is simply to either gloss over history or to create history for your own reasons.

Frontline: I can imagine someone out there watching saying. "This is the CIA talking." You're not going to admit that you created the most dangerous public enemy in the world.
Bearden: You bet I would. If I could look you in the eye and say, "Trust me, Osama bin Laden was my guy. If it wasn't for the CIA he wouldn't be anything then, he wouldn't be anything today," if I could say that with a straight face, I think that would speed up the process of removing Mr. bin Laden as a source of great, great concern for the United States. I can't say that because it's simply not true. You can find nobody who is familiar with the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan in those years that would say bin Laden played any role other than the fund-raiser. ...

Frontline: We've talked to people that say not only was bin Laden in combat, but there are photographs of him with a helmet on, a rifle, commanding troops.
Bearden:... Afghanistan, the jihad, was one terrific photo op for a lot of people. I will give you that he possibly was engaged in a battle in 1987 where the Saudi contingent and the Gulf Arab group carried off their role reasonably well. I have said that. ... But to carry that beyond ... that series of battles, I simply won't go along with [that] regardless of how many pictures someone can cough up showing bin Laden with a walkie talkie or bin Laden with a Kalishnakov. Anybody that goes in can get a photo op in Afghanistan in those years. ...

Frontline: So, really what we're looking at is some fact but a lot of fiction.
Bearden: There's a lot of fiction in there. But we like that. It's the whole Osama bin Laden mythology. It's almost part entertainment. We don't have a national enemy. We haven't had a national enemy since the evil empire slipped beneath the waves in 1991. And I think we kind of like this way. We like this whole international terrorist thing oddly enough at a time when it probably is changing its character dramatically.


August 22, 1998, Unocal announced that CentGas had not secured the financing necessary to begin the work, and on August 22, 1998, Unocal suspended construction plans due to the continuing civil war in Afghanistan. Unocal stressed that the pipeline project would not proceed until an internationally recognized government was in place in Afghanistan. While the governments of Turkmenistan and Pakistan, as well as the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, have continued discussions on the route, there does not seem to be any near-term likelihood that it will be built. (DOE/EIA Reports on the Caspian 5/17/00 Page 64)
Unocal cancels plans to exploit massive natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan. ("Hell to pay",http://www.willpitt.com/WillPitt.htm ) Utilities begin taking steps to divest themselves of power generation plants. Rates they can charge consumers are capped until the utilities complete that task, expected in 2002. ("Chronology of California's power crisis", http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/04/06/state1705EDT0232.DTL )

August 1998 Five months after ascending to CFO of Enron, Andrew Fastow pays $289,000 for 68 wooded acres with a cabin near Norwich, Vt. The mortgage will be paid off in March 2000. ("Architects of Enron's rise bred its demise", http://chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0201200329jan20.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed )

August 14, 1998 The Senate and House passed a resolution, S.J.Res. 54 (P.L. 105-235, signed), declaring
Iraq in "material breach" of the ceasefire.

September 2, 1998 Swissair jet from JFK crashes off Nova Scotia not far from the city of Halifax A Saudi Arabian prince was among those killed in the Swissair plane crash off Canada. The English-language Saudi Gazette quoted a Swissair source confirming that Prince Bandar Bin Saud Bin Saad Abdul Rahman al-Saud was among the 229 passengers and crew killed when the plane plunged into the Atlantic near Nova Scotia (September 5, 1998 The Hindu Online)

September 14, 1998: Yossef Bodansky, director of the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, said 'sama Osam bin Laden) maintains connections' with some of his nearly

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