(It's) Official White House Press Release on the Caspian Sea Pipeline.

www.whitehouse.gov ^ | November 28, 2001 | White House Press Release

[It'salmosttolate]

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 28, 2001

President's Statement on Caspian Pipeline Consortium

Statement by the President

I congratulate Russia, Kazakhstan, and Oman, and their consortium partners, for the commissioning of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). U.S. firms, notably ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, have played leading roles in this project. These facilities represent the culmination of years of effort. They are examples to the world that the United States, Russia, and Kazakhstan are cooperating to build prosperity and stability in this part of the world.

The CPC highlights the important progress by countries in the Caspian region in building a transparent and stable environment for international trade and investment. The CPC project also advances my Administrations National Energy Policy by developing a network of multiple Caspian pipelines that also includes the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa, and Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipelines and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline. These projects will help diversify U.S. energy supply and enhance our energy security, while supporting global economic growth.

[SamAdams76]

Well at least them goat-humping Central Asians never hijacked our planes, bombed our buildings or killed any of our citizens.

[sanchmo]

The 2 that go through Ash-can-istan are both Pakistani proposed.

Yawn.

[johniegrad]

Thanks.

[jae471]

theres a ” character at the start of your URLs. It is the escape sequence, & #148; not a ". Try using "
instead. (look at the source of this post, cause I'm not making much sense trying to explain it in words.)

[SW6906]

I didn't read all of your links, but I did read this one:

"nine months since Jane's Defense got word of the planned invasion of Afghanistan,"

and I see nothing in there talking about a planned invasion, just talk about the ongoing war.

What are you talking about? Looks like you're reading something into it to fit your agenda....

[Askel5]

I see Hamiltonian's already been bumped.

[It'salmosttolate]

Here is the one from the India paper

http://www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10∓ctg=policy

India in anti-Taliban military plan

India and Iran will "facilitate" the planned US-Russia hostilities against the Taliban.

By Our Correspondent

26 June 2001: India and Iran will "facilitate" US and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime.

The Taliban controls 90 per cent of Afghanistan and is advancing northward along the Salang highway and preparing for a rear attack on the opposition Northern Alliance from Tajikistan-Afghanistan border positions.

Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer attended a crucial session of the second Indo-Russian joint working group on Afghanistan in Moscow amidst increase of Taliban's military activity near the Tajikistan border. And, Russia's Federal Security Bureau (the former KGB) chief Nicolai Patroshev is visiting Teheran this week in connection with Taliban's military build-up.

Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the role of "facilitator" while the US and Russia will combat the Taliban from the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from Mazar-e-Sharief city in northern Afghanistan.

Military action will be the last option though it now seems scarcely avoidable with the UN banned from Taliban-controlled areas. The UN which adopted various means in the last four years to resolve the Afghan problem is now being suspected by the Taliban and refused entry into Taliban areas of the war-ravaged nation through a decree issued by Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar last month.

Diplomats say that the anti-Taliban move followed a meeting between US Secretary of State Collin Powel and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and later between Powell and Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh in Washington. Russia, Iran and India have also held a series of discussions and more diplomatic activity is expected.

The Northern Alliance led by ousted Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani and his military commander Ahmed Shah Masood have mustered Western support during a May 2001 visit to Dusseldorf, Germany.

The Taliban is using high-intensity rockets and Soviet-made tanks to attack Northern Alliance fighters in the Hindukush range with alleged Pakistani aid. But Northern Alliance fighters have acquired anti-tank missiles from a third country that was used in the fight near Bagram Air Base in early June. The Taliban lost 20 fighters and fled under intense attack.

Officials say that the Northern Alliance requires a "clean up" operation to reduce Taliban's war-fighting machinery to launch an attack against the Taliban advance to the Tajik-Afghan border. This "clean up" action is being planned by the US and Russia since the Taliban shows no "sign of reconciliation".

Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will lead the ground attack with a strong military back up of the US and Russia. Vital Taliban installations and military assets will be targeted. India and Iran will provide logistic support. Russian President Vladimir Putin has already hinted of military action against the Taliban to CIS nation heads during a meeting in Moscow in early June.

India and Iran have been assisting the Northern Alliance and the Afghan people under their humanitarian programme since Taliban's ouster of the Rabbani government in 1996. The US needs Russian assistance because of Soviet knowledge of the Afghan terrain. The former Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in 1979 and withdrew in 1989.

Masood's strategic stronghold of Panjsher valley has been threatened by the advancing Taliban militia for the last three months. The Northern Alliance has stepped up its attack on Taliban troops who have brought the valley within artillery fire range.

Military planners say that if Taliban were not given a blow now it would slowly make inroads into the Panjsher valley. The fall of Panjsher will enable Taliban to control the remaining 10 per cent of Afghanistan in possession of the Northern Alliance.

Russia says it has evidence that the Taliban aims to create "liberated zones" all across Central Asia and Russia and links its Chechnya problem to the rise of Taliban fundamentalism. The US is directly hit by the anti-US thrust of Islamic groups who use Afghanistan as their base for terrorism and is demanding extradition of Osama Bin Laden to face trial in the embassy bombing case.

Such Central Asian countries as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are threatened by the Taliban that is aiming to control their vast oil, gas and other resources by bringing Islamic fundamentalists into power. Now all the CIS nations are seeking assistance of Russia's Federal Border Guard Service to overcome the Taliban threat.

General Konstantin Trotsky, director of the border force, said in a newspaper interview, "We are watching the opposition of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban in Afghanistan very closely."

For its part, Shia Iran is reluctant to tolerate a Sunni militia regime on its border that gives Pakistan, a Sunni country and a sponsor of the Taliban, a "strategic sway" on considerable parts of the Iranian border. Iran is also affected by a Taliban-sponsored movement in Ispahan province where Sunnis have a sizable population.

Iran is also worried over the unending war effort of the Taliban to get supremacy in Afghanistan that is harming Iran's economic interests. India, Iran and Russia, for example, are working on a broad plan to supply oil and gas to south Asia and southeast Asian nations through India but instability in Afghanistan is posing a great threat to this effort.

Similarly, India is apprehensive about the increasing infiltration of Afghan-trained foreign mercenaries into Kashmir. Security agencies have reported that as many as 15,000 hardcore militants have received training in such places in Afghanistan as Khost, Jalalabad, Kabul and Kandahar since 1995. There are 55 terrorist training camps located in Afghanistan that are funded and aided by Islamic fundamentalists to carry out attacks against non-Islamic nations.

The UN had sent a 12-member delegation to India in the first week of May to assess the feasibility of tough economic sanctions against Taliban. The same delegation met General Pervez Musharraf to convince him about the importance of Pakistani cooperation. The UN believes that the sanctions can be only as tough as Pakistan desires.

India's official position is for a "peaceful and lasting solution" to the Afghan problem. But it strongly advocates strict economic sanctions against Taliban and is also not averse to a "limited military action" to weaken it.

India plans to raise the Afghanistan issue in the forthcoming G-8 summit in Geneva in mid-July.

[RightWhale]

building a transparent and stable environment for international trade and investment

What is a transparent trade and investment environment?

[big gray tabby]

I hate to break it to you, but this has nothing to do with Afghanistan. These pipelines would have opened no matter what happened. I hate to explode your Lefty worldskew, but this just doesn't say what you think it does.

But thanks for playing!

[It'salmosttolate]

"Lefty worldskew"?????????????

I look neither Left or Right, I just look for the TRUTH. Do you?

[Victor]

Hmmmm....

wasn't that guy Tamaraz (Clowntoon briber par excellence) up to his eyeballs in this thing?

[It'salmosttolate]

From Janes.com

15 March 2001

http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir010315_1_n.shtml

India joins anti-Taliban coalition

By Rahul Bedi

India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

Military sources in Delhi, claim that the opposition Northern Alliance's capture of the strategic town of Bamiyan, was precipitated by the four countries' collaborative effort.

The 13 February fall of Bamiyan, after several days of heavy fighting, threatened to cut off the only land route from Kabul to Taliban troops in northern Afghanistan. However, media reports indicate that Taliban forces recaptured the town on 17 February.

India is believed to have supplied the Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, with high-altitude warfare equipment. Indian defence advisors, including air force helicopter technicians, are reportedly providing tactical advice in operations against the Taliban.

Twenty-five Indian army doctors and male nurses are also believed to be treating Northern Alliance troops at a 20-bed hospital at Farkhor, close to the Afghan-Tajik border. The Statesman newspaper quoting Indian officials said the medical contingent is being financed from Delhi.

Several recent meetings between the newly instituted Indo-US and Indo-Russian joint working groups on terrorism led to this effort to tactically and logistically counter the Taliban.

Intelligence sources in Delhi said that while India, Russia and Iran were leading the anti-Taliban campaign on the ground, Washington was giving the Northern Alliance information and logistic support. Oleg Chervov, deputy head of Russia's security council, recently described Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a base of international terrorism attempting to expand into Central Asia. Radical Islamic groups are also trying to increase their influence across Pakistan, he said at a meeting of Indian and Russian security officials in Moscow. "All this dictates a pressing need for close co-operation between Russia and India in opposing terrorism," he said.

Military sources indicated that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are being used as bases to launch anti-Taliban operations by India and Russia. They also hinted at the presence of a small Russian force actively assisting Massoud in the Panjsher Valley. "The situation in Afghanistan cannot be ignored as it impinges directly on the 12-year old Kashmir insurgency," an Indian military official said, adding that the Northern Alliance's elimination by the Taliban would be "disastrous" for India.

[LN2Campy]

Neither did any arabs until AFTER their countries were flooded with petrodollars.

Long term we have to try to become self sufficient in energy. Replacing the arab oil source with one from another group of medievals doesn't help us much.

[Shermy]

You're right, there were such plans--a variety of ones, maybe not "this one" exactly. The 6+2 Group saw Afghansitan as the Disneyland of Islamic Terrorism it was. Destabilizing the whole area--from Kashmir to Chechnya. There were even plans to install Zahir Shah as king. These plans, or pressures with the same agenda, may or may have been carried out to some degree. Osama made sure it was--and fast.

In response to the threat, Osama arguably developed a two-pronged first strike which would benefit his Taliban. First, assainate Massood on 9/8. Then, the 9/11 strikes to destabilize the world. IMO the 9/11 strikes would have occured anyway, whether or not Afstan or any other state was allegedly threatened--it was always part of Osama's plans.

Anyways, things didn't turn out to good for the caliphate.

[Patria One]

OIL

In many ways, Oman is atypical of Persian Gulf oil producers. Oil was not discovered in commercial quantities until 1962 - decades after most of Oman's neighbors.

Oman's oil fields also are generally smaller, more widely scattered, less productive, and more costly per barrel than in other Persian Gulf countries. The average well in Oman produces about one-tenth the volume per well compared to neighboring countries. Oman continues to use a variety of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques in order to minimize the costs of exploration and further development at new and existing oil fields. Using these technologies, Oman has succeeded in bringing down the cost of oil production to $3 per barrel in some fields and $4 per barrel in others - but these figures, while still low by world standards, are substantially above most other Persian Gulf oil fields.

Oman is not a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) or the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC).

Most of Oman's 5.28 billion barrels in proven oil reserves are located in the country's northern and central regions. In the North, the Yibal, Natih, Fahud, al-Huwaisah and Lekhwair fields combined account for almost half of total Omani oil production. Yibal, which produces around 180,000 bbl/d, is the largest oil field in the country. Crude oil found in this region is mainly medium or light, with gravities in the 32o-39o API range. Northern oil is mostly found along with natural gas. Heavier oil is found in southern Oman, particularly in the Nimr and Amal fields, with gravities averaging 20o API, and normally not associated with natural gas. Oman's main oil export blend is a medium sour crude.

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the country's second-largest employer after the government, holds over 90% of the country's oil reserves and accounts for about 94% of production. PDO is a consortium comprised of the Omani government (60%), Shell (34%), Total (4%), and Partex (2%). However, Shell operates most of Oman's key fields, including Yibal and Lekhwair. As part of a strategy to increase its oil reserves, PDO has set out to develop additional exploration and recovery techniques. PDO aims to increase the amount of oil it recovers to 34% (from 27% in early 1998). Recent exploration has been successful in southern Oman, where PDO reportedly discovered 2 major oil fields, at Al-Noor and Al-Shomou, with an estimated combined 340 million barrels of reserves. PDO hopes to increase reserves from Al-Noor and Al-Shomou to 1.8 billion barrels by 2003 and 2.7 billion barrels by 2011.

Yibal, discovered in 1962, is Oman's largest producing oil field, supplying around one-quarter of PDO's total production. In 1986, the field's output was boosted from 120,000 bbl/d to more than 140,000 bbl/d with the installation of water injection facilities. Production was increased further following the completion of a $200-million development project, called Yibal Shusiba Phase II, in 1994. The project involved drilling 96 wells, mostly horizontal, and modifications to production stations B, C, and D, which included the installation of gas injection facilities. Yibal currently produces around 180,000 bbl/d. Oman's second largest oil field, Nimr, was discovered in 1980 and is located in the southern part of the country. Nimr currently produces about 178,000 bbl/d from more than 307 wells.

Oman's oil production rose significantly in 2000, as the country reversed modest production cuts which had been undertaken in cooperation with OPEC, and began production from newly developed fields. Production at the al-Noor field in southern Oman began in August 2000, at a rate of around 9,400 bbl/d. The Mukhaizina field, also in southern Oman, began production in mid-2000, and had reached production of nearly 25,000 bbl/d by the end of the year. Finally, the Burhaan field, in central Oman, commenced production in June 2000 at a rate of over 24,000 bbl/d.

Foreign companies recently awarded concessions for exploration include Novus Petroleum, which signed an agreement for Block 17 in September 1999. Oil India Limited (OIL) also has entered Oman's upstream sector, purchasing a 20% interest in October 1999 in an offshore block held by TotalFina Elf. Maersk Oil of Denmark received a concession for Blocks 45 and 48 in March 2001, and is to invest $18 million in exploration over a four-year period.

[It'salmosttolate]

To: big gray tabby

"worldskew", but it ain't mine.

If you think I'm "reading something into it" I gottta believe you got problems reading

Frome here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm

Tuesday, 18 September, 2001, 11:27 GMT 12:27 UK

US 'planned attack on Taleban'

The wider objective was to oust the Taleban

By the BBC's George Arney A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.

Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.

The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.

Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.

He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.

Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.

He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.

And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban.

[Otis Mukinfus]

Your links don't work because they contain garbage characters in the tags. There are many good books on the use of HTML. Using Google to search for HTML will find a long list of them.

I followed these links and read them. Although all of them have discussions of or reports about Afghanistan in them there is no mention of the invasion of Afghanistan by the U.S. in any of them. Nor do I read any oblique implication that invasion is being discussed into them.

If you are trying to have us believe that the Twin Towers Attack on 11 SEPT 2001 was a result of anything reported in these links, you have failed.

[Patria One]

The Chechen problem is 250 years old and Stalin tried to exterminate them unsuccessfully. Dishonest to lay that one on Saudi Arabia.

You might note that the Saudis saved Russia a great deal of embarrasment with that recent high-jacking.

[SW6906]

OK, that's someone saying after 9/11 and our action against Afghanistan that there was a plan dating back to July. Anyone can say that. Proof is another matter. I want to see concrete proof PRIOR to 9/11 that there was a plan.

Also, please highlight for me in the Janes article the part about there being a pre-9/11 plan for a US invasion.....

[Shermy]

AH! Veddy interesting. Oman not a part of OPEC. And, remember, when Saudi Arabia was not allowing us to use bases (in the beginning at least) Oman was! And troops trained there too, UK especially.

BTW, there's "plans" for all sorts of contingencies...doesn't mean they would occur. As for Massood, it could be understood that his assassination was a "response" to the 9-11 attacks, as opposed to the other way around. Osama might have thought that with Massood gone, a western response to 9-11 would be near impossible. On the other hand, Mullah Omar apparently appointed Osama as the Taliban Minister of Defense a few months before 9-11 (a fact little discussed). IMO, the threat to Afstan, and Osama's variety of causes, were all in play. Arguably, since Osama didn't mention any threat to Afstan in his post-911 rationalizations, such wasn't his concern. On the other hand, failing to mention Afstan was purposeful--from the start, had he referenced Afstan his culpability for the WTC would be much harder to deny due to his obvious involvement with Afstan. Further, his initial propaganda seemed directed to a mere Arab audience. Later, when he understood the threat to him, he added Kashmir, Chechnya, Timor, etc. in a vain attempt to create a world-wide conflagration. On the other hand, maybe only Dr. L. Van Pelt could give us the comprehensive analysis of the whole situation: