As for Clinton, this looks like "anticipatory damage control" to me -- Send someone after Inderfurth for an interview to "set the record straight" just in case Rohrabacher's words make the news cycle. I notice they didn't send anyone to interview Rohrabacker. :-)
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
The Boston Globe
September 20, 2001, Thursday ,THIRD EDITION NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A32
AMERICA PREPARES SHAPING STRATEGY / A COURTSHIP; US TRIED TO WOO TALIBAN IN '90S
By Anthony Shadid, and John Donnelly, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - During the Clinton administration, US diplomats held more than a dozen meetings with Taliban officials in a courtship aimed at getting the Afghan leadership to moderate its views and create the basis for a stable, broad-based government.
The meetings, at the level of ambassador and assistant secretary of state, took place off and on throughout the 1990s and were held in Washington and New York, in Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan, and in Peshawar and Islamabad in Pakistan.
That courtship persisted even after Osama bin Laden was blamed for the deadly attacks on two US embassies in Africa in 1998 and after US forces bombed his Afghanistan base.
At the same time, a similar private-sector effort was underway. A US-led consortium sought to win the Taliban's backing for a Central Asian pipeline that would carry oil and gas through Afghanistan. As part of that diplomacy, Taliban members were entertained in Houston and hosted at the University of Nebraska in a bid for their support. Though ultimately unfruitful, those contacts signified what US officials and others had hoped would be flexibility in the Taliban, a cast of fervent clerics and hardened war veterans who first emerged in Afghanistan in 1994.
"In the beginning, it was a question of who they were and whether they could establish some sort of law and order," said Karl F. Inderfurth, who oversaw relations with Afghanistan at the State Department from 1997 to 2000. "The feeling was, 'Gosh, wouldn't it be great to have some commercial undertakings.' "
Inderfurth and other US diplomats insist that Washington never supported the Taliban, even though two of its main allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were instrumental in the Taliban's rise and conquest of Kabul in 1996.
"The idea that we 'supported' the Taliban was never true," said Robin Raphel, Inderfurth's predecessor as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 1993 to 1997.
"What we did do was treat them like the other factions," Raphel said. "As time goes by, they became what they've become, which is extremely conservative, and indulged all their worst instincts."
Despite their harsh restrictions - forcing men to wear beards, enforcing head-to-toe covering for women, and banning girls from school - the Taliban were welcomed early on by many Afghans. They were seen as bringing law and order to regions menaced for years by militias and bandits. Some of that sentiment was echoed at the time by a State Department spokesman who expressed hope the Taliban could "restore law and order."
"It wasn't immediately clear how dreadfully conservative they were going to be," Raphel said in an interview. She was among the first US officials to meet the Taliban in Afghanistan, where she traveled in April 1996 with other US officials.
The diplomats landed at Kandahar airport, a sprawling facility built in the 1970s with US aid and now bearing the scars of years of war. They were welcomed by Taliban representatives in turbans and flowing beards who escorted them for talks that lasted three hours at the old Governor's House.
Their specific mission: They sought the release of a seven-man Russian air crew detained for eight months. As in most of the meetings, the agenda broadened to the question of a political solution for the country.
"They were very polite," recalled Raphel, who wore loose garments and a head scarf out of respect for the Taliban's fierce insistence that women be covered. "They were quite respectful of me and of my position, and we pushed them hard on all issues. It was kind of a standoff, and we left."
Raphel met Taliban officials a half-dozen times.
Inderfurth kept up the policy, even as bin Laden - residing in areas under Taliban control - was blamed for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He met with Taliban officials in New York, Washington, Islamabad, and Kandahar.
"The Taliban will not go away," he said at a Senate hearing in October 1998. "This is a reality."
But by late 1997, Inderfurth said more recently, it was becoming very clear to US officials that the Taliban were not going to budge on human rights questions or on turning over bin Laden.
In November 1997, after Inderfurth and others held several unfruitful meetings with the Taliban on bin Laden and rights for women, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright visited the Pakistan border with Afghanistan and called the Taliban's treatment of women "despicable."
"By then, we knew that a lot of things would have to be addressed before we could move forward in any way with them," Inderfurth said.
But others thought the lack of clear opposition from the start gave a different message. Even after Albright's declaration, Bill Richardson, then US ambassador to the United Nations, met Taliban officials in Kabul in early 1998.
In part, the ambiguity revolved around the prospect of building a pipeline that would run roughly 1,000 miles from the Caspian Sea region through Afghanistan to the Indian subcontinent, a proposal that Raphel described as a "fabulous opportunity." Two groups vied for the project: Bridas, an Argentine oil company, and a US-Saudi consortium led by Unocal.
US officials say the project could have contributed millions of dollars to Afghanistan, whose war-wrecked economy relies largely on the thriving opium trade and international aid. More compelling for policy makers was the prospect of circumventing Iran, which offered another route for the pipeline.
For that project to work, stability was needed in Afghanistan, and the Taliban seemed to offer the best chance of reaching that goal.
At that time, US officials sent strong signals to Pakistan and the Arab world that Washington would not object to commercial ties, or perhaps diplomatic links, with the Taliban, said Abdul Raheem Yaseer, assistant director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.
"The blessing of America for the development and success of the Taliban at the beginning affected everybody," Yaseer said. "It affected Unocal. They believed the Taliban might succeed, might have control of the country, and so everybody wanted to have them on their side. That's why Unocal wanted to cut a deal, because the Taliban already had the blessing of the Americans, Arab world, and Pakistanis.
"The US never admitted supporting the Taliban, but everyone knew the US was giving approval to whatever they were doing early on," he said.
Charles Santos, a vice president of a consortium partner, the Saudi-owned Delta oil company, said the consortium was never intent on undertaking the pipeline under a Taliban government and that the Taliban's lack of flexibility eventually doomed the project in 1998.
Along the way, Unocal, the consortium's main partner, engaged in its own private diplomacy. In early December 1997, a group of eight Taliban officials arrived in Houston as guests of the company.
Over four days, they held meetings with Unocal officals and also asked to do a little sightseeing. Unocal spokesman Mike Thatcher recalled that they wanted to see NASA headquarters south of Houston and a local shopping mall, where they reportedly bought stockings, toothpaste, combs, and soap.
They were also feted at the home of Marty F. Miller, then a Unocal vice president, where they reportedly marveled at his swimming pool and his Christmas tree, wanting to know why there was a star on top.
The group then traveled to the University of Nebraska. There, they toured the Center for Afghanistan Studies for two days. Yaseer, the assistant director, remembered one man in particular, who Yaseer said was an agent for Pakistani intelligence, which played a decisive role in the Taliban's rise.
"The group knew it," Yaseer said. "I resented his presence here. I never smiled at him, never said hello. I even approached some of the members of the group and asked, 'Why is he spying on you guys?' "
Five members of the group, including the suspected spy, left. Three stayed behind, because Mullah Ghows, at one time the Taliban's acting foreign minister, had become ill and stayed for a week in the hospital, said Thomas E. Gouttierre, head of the university's Afghanistan program.
Two other members, meanwhile, went on a tour of western Nebraska and South Dakota. "We showed them everything," Gouttierre said. "We went to the Black Hills, saw the museums. We even took them to Mount Rushmore, which they liked very much."
TH54
Updated Sept. 14, 2001:
Unocal reiterates prior statements The company is not supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan in any way whatsoever. Nor do we have any project or involvement in Afghanistan.
Beginning in late 1997, Unocal was a member of a multinational consortium that was evaluating construction of a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline between Turkmenistan and Pakistan. Part of this pipeline would have crossed western Afghanistan. However, Unocal suspended its participation in the CentGas consortium in August 1998 and formally withdrew from that consortium in December 1998.
Our company has had no further role in developing or funding that project or any other project that might involve the Taliban. The pipeline was never constructed.
During this time, Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war. We met with many factions, including the Taliban, to educate them about the benefits such a pipeline could bring to this desperately poor and war-torn country, as well as to the Central Asian region. At no time did we make any deal with the Taliban, and, in fact, consistently emphasized that the project could not and would not proceed until there was an internationally recognized government in place in Afghanistan that fairly represented all its people. Our hope was that the project could help bring peace, stability and economic development to the Afghans, as well as develop important energy resources for the region.
Unocal suspended its participation in the CentGas consortium (see statement). The company officially withdrew from the project in December 1998 (see statement below). After several incorrect reports appeared, including one published in Pakistan in February 1999, Unocal reconfirmed its position regarding this matter in another statement dated Feb. 16, 1999.
From 17... Inderfurth kept up the policy [of having lovely tea parties with the Taliban], even as bin Laden - residing in areas under Taliban control - was blamed for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He met with Taliban officials in New York, Washington, Islamabad, and Kandahar.
"The Taliban will not go away," he said at a Senate hearing in October 1998. "This is a reality."
What a difference a good leader makes.
Look whose house got raided [2014]