Two Developments This Morning Raise Questions About What Bush Administration Was Willing to Do in Pursuit of Oil

Two Developments This Morning Raise Questions About What Bush Administration Was Willing to Do in Pursuit of Oil

CNN, American Morning With Paula Zahn
January 9, 2002

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0201/09/ltm.07.html
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0201/09/ltm.06.html

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Two developments this morning raise some questions about what the Bush administration was willing to do, allegedly, in the pursuit of oil both domestically and internationally. Vice President Richard Cheney's office says administration officials met half a dozen times with the failed energy trading company Enron, including one meeting just days before Enron filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. And there are some disturbing new claims about America's relationship with the Taliban prior to 9-11.

The authors of a new book claim that the administration conducted secret oil negotiations with the Taliban and they claim those talks may have actually interfered with efforts to get at Osama bin Laden. The book is called "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth."

Joining us now from Paris are its authors, Guillaume Dasquie and Jean-Charles Brisard. Thank you both for being with us this morning.

GUILLAUME DASQUIE, CO-AUTHOR: Thank you.

ZAHN: Mr. Brisard, in your book, you claim before September 11 the U.S. administration cared more about its oil interests and the oil in the region than it did about getting Osama bin Laden. Let me put up on the screen a little bit of what is the, in the book along these lines. You say a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia.

What evidence do you have that this is the case?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD, CO-AUTHOR: You know, there is some very important evidence and the first one maybe is the contract, deal signed in October 1995 between Enoch Carr (ph), an American, a famous American company, and Delta Oil, a Saudi Arabia company, and the Turkmenistan government so at the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of Afghanistan. And according to this deal, the pipeline across, would cross the Afghanistan to take over Afghanistan some gas and oil which is inside now Central Asia.

So the deal and the negotiation with the Taliban and at the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in Kabul was very hard and was very important because energy security for U.S. but also for all developed countries.

ZAHN: All right, but Mr. Brisard, or Mr. Dasquie, you go even further than that and you suggest that shortly after President Bush took office, his administration sent Christine Rocca (ph), who was an undersecretary of state for South Asian affairs, to Islamabad to sit down and talk with the Taliban. And you write, "Christine Rocca has met with Taliban officials only once, in August of 2001. She met with a Taliban representative in Islamabad. During that meeting, she once again pushed for the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden, as the international community had been demanding for more than two years. She also pressed the Taliban representative on humanitarian issues."

Ms. Rocca never had any talks with the Taliban about oil and neither did any of her predecessors. And, in fact, what you write in the book is the exact opposite of that. What did you find?

BRISARD: Yes, that's right. Yes. You know, we find a lot of archives in Pakistan, Islamabad, about the meeting between Christina Rocca, who now works, of course, in the State Department. But before, during the '80s worked in the CIA and in the CIA she managed the relationship between the State Department and the Islamic group in Afghanistan.

So Christina Rocca is very important because she deals in her last meeting with the Taliban in Islamabad and for the Bush administration. And since the Bush administration arrived in last January with the first meeting with some Taliban officials in Washington like Mr. Ashimi (ph) in last March, she always says the same thing.

The thing is very clear. This is, you know, the control of Afghanistan for oil reasons. This is a strategy, a very important strategy aspect. And inside this fight, Osama bin Laden is, this is just a crim -- a small criminal in terms for diplomatic issues.

So that's the reason why she discussed and there is a lot of evidence in the State Department archives that the reason why she discussed with the Taliban officer not to capture Osama bin Laden, but to deal with Taliban and to deal for oil reasons and energy security reasons.

ZAHN: All right, Mr. Brisard and Mr. Dasquie, we have to leave it there. Our own ambassador in residence, Richard Butler, will respond to that as well as to more of the reporting in your book where you suggest that the FBI counter-terrorism expert actually accused the U.S. government of suspending its war on terrorism to protect these oil interests you talk about.

Thank you both for your time this morning. We will address the rest of that in about five minutes or so.

AMERICAN MORNING WITH PAULA ZAHN
New Book Say Negotiations by U.S. with Taliban for Oil May Have Interfered With Efforts to Get Bin Laden
Aired January 9, 2002 - 07:34 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As you heard in our last half-hour, the authors of a new book say secret negotiations by the U.S. with the Taliban for oil may have actually interfered with efforts to get Osama bin Laden.

For his reaction, we turn to our own ambassador-in-residence -- I love that flourish of music -- Richard Butler, former chief U.N. weapons inspector, now with the Council on Foreign Relations. That must make you feel very special.

RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Absolutely.

ZAHN: All right. Let's talk a little about the most explosive charges in this book. These authors essentially are saying, because of information given to them by an FBI counterterrorism officer that they believe that the prosecution against terrorism in Afghanistan was suspended because of oil interests.

Now, this gets very tricky, because this FBI counterterrorism officer left that job, went on to head up security at the World Trade Centers...

BUTLER: Right.

ZAHN: ... and tragically died on September 11.

BUTLER: John O'Neill, right. That's right. It does. Paula, this is a web. You and I can't assess precisely the veracity of what these two French authors have said. But this has got a cast of characters in it that is fascinating. We've got a former CIA officer, Christina Rocca, who is now in the State Department who went to Afghanistan weeks before September 11, and to Pakistan, and talked with the Taliban, a group that we did not recognize, and you now know what we have done to them. You have got Laila Helms (ph), the niece of the former head of the CIA, who was a public relations agent.

ZAHN: Hired by the Taliban.

BUTLER: Hired by the Taliban. And you've got oil, and this is a fundamental thing. Let us not lose sight of this basic reality. The population of the United States of America represents 5 percent of the population of the world. Yet, we use 40 percent -- 40 percent of the world's oil. So oil is a big issue, and as we were saying yesterday, there is very substantial oil in Central Asia. And to get that out to the sea, the best possible way to do it would be to build a pipeline across Afghanistan.

So that's the web, Paula, and I don't think we're being told all of the facts. There are denials, claims that meetings didn't take place, when clearly they did. The most interesting thing those French authors told us today is that they had seen archives. We couldn't quite understand their accent, but I know what that means. That means records of diplomatic conversations that took place.

ZAHN: And...

BUTLER: And they have seen those things.

ZAHN: ... they also went on to say in this book that Laila Helms, this woman that you said was hired by the Taliban...

BUTLER: That's right.

ZAHN: ... to sort of do PR for them...

BUTLER: Right.

ZAHN: ... alleges that at one point, the Taliban actually agreed to give up Osama bin Laden. The Taliban agreed to give the U.S. coordinates for his location.

BUTLER: Right.

ZAHN: Now, this is before 9/11.

BUTLER: Right.

ZAHN: So that the U.S. could get to him. Now, the State Department denies that offer was ever made. What do you make of that allegation?

BUTLER: We need to know more. I mean, I read that with gobbled (ph) eyes. I mean, that's dynamite that we would...

ZAHN: If it's true.

BUTLER: If it's true. That we were given the coordinates and time in which to make a military strike against bin Laden, you know, a fair amount of time. And it is alleged that we turned it down in preference for what? I mean, is it true or not? We need to know that.

Secondly, if we did turn it down, why? For an oil pipeline? Is that what's being said here? That's the web I think is being depicted here. We need to know more about it (UNINTELLIGIBLE) truth.

ZAHN: I can only give you 15 seconds to turn to another segment -- a section that is -- here, the issue of "The New York Times" reporting that the U.S. has changed its policies on nuclear weapons. BUTLER: Right. The Nuclear Posture Review document, about every four years, is about to come out. And consistent with what the president has said, it will show less reliance on nuclear weapons than in the past. But there's an interesting aspect to it. The weapons that will be withdrawn won't be dismantled. They'll just be kept in storage. And that, I think, disappoints a lot of people. It's kind of disarmament halfway. But we'll hear more about that.

ZAHN: And we'll address that in greater detail with you.

BUTLER: OK.

ZAHN: Our ambassador-in-residence, Richard Butler -- thanks so much for your time.

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