Nexus - 1303 - New Times Magazine-pages

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The wealthy Saudi families of al-Alamoudi (as Delta Oil) and For Unocal to advance its own funds for the Taliban conquest bin Mahfouz (as Nimir Oil) participated in the Western oil would have been in violation of US law, which is why such consortium along with the American firm Unocal. In October companies customarily resort to middlemen. No such restraints 2001, the US Treasury Department named among charities would have inhibited Unocal's Saudi partner in its Centgas allegedly supporting terrorism the Saudi charity Muwafaq (Blessed consortium, Delta Oil. Delta Oil certainly had the assets; it was Relief), to which the al-Alamoudis and bin Mahfouz families had “owned by a Jeddah-based group of 50 prominent investors close been identified as major contributors. (It should be noted that the to the [Saudi] royal family". Delta was already an investor with entire bin Mahfouz family has emphatically condemned terrorism — Unocal in the oilfields of Azerbaijan, and may have been a factor in all of its manifestations.) in the October 1995 decision of Turkmenistan to sign a new It is unclear whether MEGA Oil was a front for the US pipeline contract with Unocal.” government or for US oil companies and their Saudi allies. US oil As I wrote a decade ago, citing the case of a US oil company in companies have been accused of spending millions of dollars in Tunisia, "it is normal, not unusual, for the entry of major US firms Azerbaijan, not just to bribe the government but also to install it. into Third World countries to be facilitated and sustained, indeed According to a Turkish intelligence source who is an alleged made possible, by corruption".” This has long been the case, but eyewitness, major oil companies including Exxon and Mobil were in the Reagan 1980s it was escalated by a new generation of "behind the coup d'état" which in 1993 replaced the elected aggressively risk-taking, law-bending, "cowboy" entrepreneurs. president, Abulfaz Elchibey, with his The pace was set by new corporations like successor, Heydar Aliyev. The source Enron, a high-debt merger that was in part claimed to have been at meetings in Baku with guided by the junk-bond impresario Michael "senior members of BP, Exxon, Amoco, Milken. Mobil and the Turkish Petroleum Company". Some have speculated that Enron also had a "The topic was always oil rights and, on the . potential interest in the Unocal gas pipeline insistence of the Azeris, supply of arms and "When the Taliban project through Afghanistan. By 1997, Enron mercenaries to Oren aE seer took power in was negotiating a $2 bittion joint venture with service documents allege middlemen paid o: . eftegas o zbekistan to develop key officials of the democratically elected Afghanistan (1996), Uzbekistan's natural gas. This was a huge government of the ouch nation just before it was largely project ae bya $400 miltion POPC like its president was overthrown. rom the US government throug e The true facts and backers of the Aliyev orchestrated by Overseas Private Investment Corporation]. coup may never be fully disclosed. But the Pakistani secret Uzbekistan also signed a memo of agreement unquestionably before the coup, the efforts of Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, Ed Dearborn and Hekmatyar's mujahedin helped contest Russian influence and prepare for Baku's shift away to the West.* Three years later, in August 1996, Amoco's president met with US President Clinton and arranged for Aliyev to be invited to Washington.* In 1997, Clinton said: In a world of growing energy demand...our nation cannot afford to rely ona single region for our energy supplies. By working closely to participate in the Centgas gas ipeline. But the Enron Uzbek negotiations collapsed in 1998." Enron's short-term plans had been to export Uzbek gas west to Kazakhstan, Turkey and Europe. However, it has een claimed that Enron hoped eventually to supply, via the Centgas pipeline, its failing energy plant in Dabhol, India. (Without a cheap gas supply, the cost of electricity from Dabhol was so great that Indians refused to buy it.)* In my book Drugs, Oil and War, 1 service [ISI] and the oil company Unocal, with its Saudi ally Delta." with Azerbaijan to tap the Caspian's resources, we not only quote again from Olivier Roy: help Azerbaijan to prosper, we also help diversify our energy It is the Americans who have made inroads in Central Asia, supply and strengthen our energy's security.” primarily because of the oil and gas interests. Chevron and Unocal are political actors who talk as equals with the States Unocal, the Taliban and Bin Laden in Afghanistan (that is, with the presidents). tA Le + Th nd Moahil in took power in Afghanistan (1996), it was largely orchestrated by aL MeL a service [ISI] and the oil company Unocal, with its Saudi ally Delta." Unocal, the Taliban and Bin Laden in Afghanistan The accusations against Amoco, Exxon and Mobil in Azerbaijan parallel those from European sources against Unocal in Afghanistan, which has been accused, along with Delta Oil, of helping to finance the Taliban's seizure of Kabul in 1996. (This was at a time when the Taliban was also receiving funds from Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden.) The respected French observer Olivier Roy has charged: "When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan (1996), it was largely orchestrated by the Pakistani secret service [ISI] and the oil company Unocal, with its Saudi ally Delta."* Unocal executive John Maresca then testified in 1998 to the House Committee on International Relations on the benefits of a proposed oil pipeline through Afghanistan to the coast of Pakistan.” A second natural gas pipeline (Centgas) was also contemplated by Unocal. It is clear they talk as equals in the current Bush administration. Both the president and vice-president are former oilmen, as are some of their oldest friends and political backers, like Kenneth Lay of Enron. Many observers have noted, from as early as 1992, that George W. Bush's first oil venture, Arbusto, received a $50,000 investment from a Texan, James Bath, "who made his fortune by investing money for [Khalid bin] Mahfouz and another BCCI-connected Saudi, Sheikh [Salim] bin Laden [Osama's brother)". Such little investments purchased political influence. According to Kevin Phillips [American Dynasty, 2004]: James Bath, who invested fifty thousand dollars in the 1979 and 1980 Arbusto partnerships, probably did so as US business representative for rich Saudi investors Salem bin APRIL — MAY 2006 NEXUS = 13 "When the Taliban the Pakistani secret www.nexusmagazine.com