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November 1997 - Unocal invited a Taliban delegation to Texas and, in early December, the company opened a training center at the University of Nebraska, to instruct 137 Afghans in pipeline construction technology.

February 1998 - Unocal's vice president for international relations, John Maresca, told a House subcommittee hearing on U.S. interests in the Central Asian Republics that an oil pipeline "would benefit Afghanistan, which would receive revenues from transport tariffs, and would promote stability and encourage trade and economic development." Emphasizing that "the proposed Central Asia Oil Pipeline (CentGas) cannot begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place," he urged the administration and the Congress "to give strong support to the United Nations-led peace process in Afghanistan."

Until the 1998 al-Qaida embassy bombings, the Clinton administration's approach toward the Taliban was much the same as Unocal's: All parties agreed that the political stabilization of Afghanistan was crucial to the region, and was also a way to gain access to oil reserves of the Caspian Sea region. Though bin Laden had been in the country since 1996, the U.S. had not pressured the Taliban to hand him over.

August 1998 - Embassy bombing changed everything. The Clinton administration denounced the regime and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright turned up the heat on Taliban human rights abuses. The United Nations imposed sanctions, freezing Afghanistan's foreign assets and limiting its citizens' travel. The U.S. continued to talk to the Taliban, but the emphasis was on extraditing bin Laden in exchange for international recognition; the pipeline was off the table. Unocal, which had been close to finalizing its pipeline deal before the embassy bombings, cancelled it.

March 2001 - several Taliban officials, including Sayed Rahmattulah Hashimi, Mullah Omar's personal advisor, were invited to Washington by their U.S. lobbyist, Leila Helms, the niece of former CIA Director Richard Helms. The agenda included discussions of extraditing bin Laden as well as facilitating American companies' access to oil reserves in central Asia. The delegation met with representatives of the Directorate of Central Intelligence (DCI) and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the State Department.

July 2001 - It was at the July meeting, according to Naik, that Tom Simons (former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan) suggested that Afghanistan could face an open-ended military operation from bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan if it didn't accede to U.S. demands. "Ambassador Simons stated that if the Taliban wouldn't agree with the plan, and if Pakistan was unable to persuade them, the United States might use an overt action against Afghanistan," Naik says. The words used by Simons were "a military operation," according to Naik. Another participant reportedly said the Taliban's choice was clear: either accept a "carpet of gold" riches from the pipeline or "a carpet of bombs," meaning a military strike.

In statements to newspapers, Simons has offered ambiguous explanations of his statements at the July meeting. In September, he told the British Guardian: "I've known Naik and considered him a friend for years. He's an honorable diplomat. I didn't say anything like that and didn't hear anyone else say anything like that. We were clear that feeling in Washington was strong, and that military action was one of the options down the road. But details, I don't know where they came from."

Yet in a November interview with Le Monde, Simons seemed to confirm that there had been some talk of U.S. military action. "It is true that the Taliban was asked to deliver bin Laden and form a [broader] government," Simons told Le Monde. "We said in July that we were investigating the attack against the USS Cole in Yemen, and that if there were solid evidence of the implication of bin Laden, one had to expect a military answer. One can always inflate such a declaration to see a global threat against the Taliban. But the American declaration related only to the response to the USS-Cole.

"As for the 'carpet of gold and the carpet of bombs,' we actually discussed the need for a plan for rebuilding for Afghanistan, which would follow a political agreement," he said, adding that "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."

The last known meeting between U.S. and Taliban representatives took place in August, five weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, when U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asian affairs Christina Rocca met with the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef.

It would be unfair to suggest that the U.S. threat in July led to the al-Qaida strike. But while Simons doesn't admit that he personally threatened the Taliban with reprisal, he confirms that only a few weeks before Sept. 11, American diplomats warned of military action against Afghanistan if its leaders did not meet U.S. economic and political demands. It is worth asking whether, had this threat been widely known, U.S. intelligence agencies might have analyzed the information they were receiving about bin Laden's plots against the U.S. differently.

Now the newly discovered Atef memo makes clear that in 1998, at least, al-Qaida was well informed about negotiations between the Taliban and the U.S. on the oil pipeline and other American concerns. The memo also shows that those negotiations were the Taliban's gambit to extend its power; Mullah Omar's government never had any intention of allowing U.S. firms to construct an oil pipeline, or letting the U.S. dictate the members of its ruling body. Given the inside knowledge al-Qaida had about U.S.-Taliban negotiations, it's reasonable to suspect bin Laden's group also received and understood the U.S. threat of military action delivered in late July as a threat of war.

In the end, though, the U.S. got its way. Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai decided on May 30 to revive the pipeline project with Pakistan and Turkmenistan, signing an agreement under which the three governments agree to implement a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan. Would that U.S. intelligence agencies' investigations into al-Qaida activities in the months before Sept. 11 had such a productive ending.


So was I totally wrong Mr Kanas Bear? this is what I said: "I am sure that had 9/11 not happened, there would have been perhapes strong covert operation aimed at overthrowing the Taliban regime by the US"

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If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon