my how the best laid plans can change...

[katty]

source/more:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=pipelinePolitics

-December 1997: Unocal Establishes Pipeline Training Facility Near bin Laden’s Compound Unocal pays University of Nebraska $900,000 to set up a training facility near bin Laden’s Kandahar compound, to train 400 Afghan teachers, electricians, carpenters and pipe fitters in anticipation of using them for their pipeline in Afghanistan. One hundred and fifty students are already attending classes.
People and organizations involved: Unocal, Osama bin Laden, University of Nebraska
December 4, 1997: Taliban Representatives Visit Unocal in Texas Taliban representatives in Texas, 1997.

-Representatives of the Taliban are invited guests to the Texas headquarters of Unocal to negotiate their support for the pipeline. Future President George W. Bush 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. According to the Daily Telegraph, “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 that “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.”
People and organizations involved: George W. Bush, Taliban, Unocal, Clinton administration

-Early 1998: US Official Meets with Taliban; Promote Afghan Pipeline Bill Richardson, the US Ambassador to the UN, meets Taliban officials in Kabul. (All such meetings are 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 oil and gas pipeline project a “fabulous opportunity” and are especially motivated by the “prospect of circumventing Iran, which offers another route for the pipeline.”
People and organizations involved: Bill Richardson, Taliban

-February 12, 1998: Unocal VP Advocates Afghan Pipeline Before Congress 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-Afghan 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.
People and organizations involved: John J. Maresca, Unocal,