Afghanistan Oil: the Secret Negotiations

[Music] when we started the thing I I didn't even know who the T Bond were you know I didn't know how radical they were or just what they were about one of the things with the tond is is they didn't have a clue about the oil and gas business the idea was was to bring him over and to establish some credibility with the with the uh Taliban that that we were a real company Mary Miller secretly invited a group of Taliban leaders to unocal's headquarters in Sugarland Texas no press covered the event [Music] I have

some statues that uh I got in Indonesians and they're figures of of people carved out of Ironwood and the people are naked and I had one of these uh professors Islamic professors checked my house out and when he saw these things he said I don't think that's going to work with the Taliban he said what we'll do said you got some black trash bags I said yeah he said we'll put Burk on so that's what we did we put burkers on the statues Marty Miller was vice president of oil company Unocal they wanted to build

a huge oil and gas pipeline through Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan but how did these negotiations influence US foreign policy towards the Taliban [Music] get [Music] up all right we do do guys [Music] the Afghan capital of Kabul is preparing for a new era foreign forces have mostly withdrawn and Afghan soldiers and police will now be responsible for security in the country but in 2014 5,000 of them were killed in battles against the Taliban but the Taliban hasn't always been an enemy of the West today their former foreign secretary lives in a heavily guarded house

in one of kabul's better suburbs during the '90s he was involved in discussions with the American Oil Company unical foreign [Music] fore [Music] foreign for since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 the country has been in a state of constant Warfare during the Afghan Insurgency the mujahadin received extensive weapon support from the United States and Britain in their struggle against the Russians the Soviet occupation ended in 1989 2 years later the Soviet Union also collapsed unocal's CEO John IML saw an opportunity in the fall of the Iron Curtain at the time the uh Soviet

Union broke up and China opened up which happened more or less at the same time we had a very senior guy uh kind of cruising the former Soviet Union to look for opportunities uh we realized that Turkmenistan had huge worldclass gas reserves which were produced by the Soviet Union but after breakup they were not produced any longer because Russia had its own gas supplies to bring to Market from Siberia so Turkmenistan was stuck with reserves and no Market Unocal wanted to build two pipelines one for oil and one for gas the pipelines would go from

Turkmenistan through Afghanistan Pakistan and India a distance of well over 1,700 kilm construction costs would be close to1 billion dollar Afghanistan could earn $400 million per year in transportation costs which would more than double the Afghan government's income at that time it's a wonderful idea there's all the reasons in the world why it should happen first of all the economic benefits that would that would spawn each individual country and of course the whole area is just in in turmoil you know the pakistanis don't like the Afghans the Afghans don't like the pakistanis the turkmen are

skeptical of both of them and then you got India and Pakistan all of that it's just a mess in there and one of the things we were thinking about was that you know if we could get this big project that involves say even up to Kazakhstan where Kazakhstan Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India that all of the have have a vested a common interest in something that might help bring them together to calm things down and and where they start working together instead of being at odds with each other all the [Music] time there was a power

vacuum after the withdrawal of Soviet forces and local Warlords fought over territory in a protracted Civil War [Music] in the north people gathered around the Northern Alliance and its leader Ahmed sha massud the so-called Lion of [Music] Pomer in the south and east another movement began to assert itself in ethnic pashtun areas they called themselves the Taliban and were supported militarily by Pakistan then in conflict with India the pakistanis were trying to impose their will on the future of Afghanistan and they wanted to ensure that Afghanistan was not going to be a strong viable nation

state that could in any way reconnect as they had in the past with India Taliban leader mulah Muhammad Omar was a war hero from the years of Insurgency against the Soviet Union Pakistan decided it was going to to assist mulah Muhammad Omar and this group which had no name and what they provided was money and weaponry TR training ammunition trucks tactical advice and then eventually they provided the TBS the students religious students Afghans and pakistanis in the what became to be 13,000 uh madrasas within the Northwestern Frontier Province to and join and go in in

the fight before becoming an attorney Julie s worked as an intelligence Analyst at the Pentagon her sources in Afghanistan warned against unocal's close relationship with the Taliban worldwide there was a very broad perception that unical was working with the US government to promote the Taliban as the most likely source for a a stable single group controlling Afghanistan and there was I think an effort or hopefulness on the part of some that if this pipeline could be put through it could be a source of stability or development for AF Afghanistan I personally didn't like the idea

that that stability would mean that the Taliban would be in charge with the Civil War raging Marty Miller went on his first journey into Afghanistan at the time there were uh six or seven Warlords that were feuding with each other and it was a you know Afghanistan was not a real safe place to be the first thing I noticed was a Devastation it kind of reminded me of of pictures I'd seen of uh Germany post World War II the Taliban headquarters it was was a house that was still all intact but there wasn't a stick

of furniture in the house of all we we slept on the floor and I and I had a it was kind of a little traveling Road Show sort of thing of course you don't have slide projectors anything because there wasn't even electricity in the building but I had some diagrams and charts and showing them uh some things and and some uh just basically to describe the project and and and to tell them what the benefits would be and they they were very interested the the message was always if you guys will quit fighting with each

other and for a government that get un recognition that allows us to attract World Bank and ADB financing then we may have a deal but the Taliban were on the offensive and drove the Northern Alliance out of the cities of Mazar a Sharif and Kabul they then controlled most of the country Muhammad Naj buah president during the Soviet occupation had been spared by the Northern Alliance but the Taliban showed no mercy Naj buah was first tortured castrated and then hanged alongside his brother the execution was a clear sign of what kind of regime had seized

power in Kabul Julie s traveled in secrecy to Kabul in 1997 in order to learn more about the new regime so I had gone into kabell when it was held by the Taliban secretly uh basically dressed as as an Afghan woman in a burka they seemed very foreign to me certainly many Afghans are conservative Muslims but even among them they generally do not support the sort of extremism that the Taliban stand for I I see the Taliban really is an alien force their attitude toward women or or a number of Human Rights issues I found

disturbing but I think it was that larger sort of geopolitical issue of them being backed by the pakistanis that was most disturbing to [Music] me when the Taliban came in power they declared their own government but they didn't have good experience with government the T means the religious students working studying learning in seminaries in the madrasas the curriculum there it was not capable to to to Able them to work with the International Community that was the problem I think America's concern about Afghanistan had been minimal before the Unocal pipeline project but oil and gas negot

negociations sparked the Clinton administration's interest in the country I'd probably go to Washington DC oh once every six to eight weeks and I would typically meet with uh State Department the NSA CIA CIA was was very very helpful you know they have this shadowy uh image I guess you call it but uh I found him very straightforward and very professional and I think the Clinton Administration was uh really committed to helping uh you know American Business be successful and we enjoyed U really strong support from the US government yucal wasn't the only oil company that

wanted to build a pipeline in Afghanistan Argentine company breas was also trying to do a deal with the Taliban [Music] for the Taliban delegation arrived at unocal's headquarters in December 19 1997 Marty came home one day and said what would you think about having uh a group of Taliban a delegation come to our home for dinner didn't know what to say at the time I had to thank it through and um I was pretty naive maybe they come and and see Americans home and realize that we're uh average regular people maybe it would you know

be good for them to to do this so I agreed to do it Caroline and Marty Miller did their utmost to avoid offending their Taliban visitors and removed all their religious pictures and figures but they did not remove the Christmas trees the year that the Taliban came to our house uh there was a charity fundraiser thing and we had seven Christmas trees in our house and the Taliban just that blew their mind they couldn't figure out what that was all about and I think they were trying to make a connection between a Christmas tree and

and and the birth of Jesus Christ and and uh you know they're trying to make a religious connection with what's this Christmas tree all about they never did understand I don't [Music] think in the days that followed the Taliban leaders got a guided tour of Marty's [Music] Hometown it all started with a visit to Houston Zoo then they explored the NASA Space Center the tour ended in a giant M where they shopped for stockings Combs and cold weather jackets they stayed at a uh a motel that was across the southwest freeway from our office and

uh uh we found out later that uh like when the maids clean their room that they never had to make the bed or change the sheets they just slept on the floor and uh I guess that's you know what they're accustomed to as a whole the Western culture is totally different from uh Eastern culture but they found the United States a very a very progress Society in a progress government they were impressed on that dressed in their newly acquired jackets the Afghans visited one of unocal's Offshore platforms the impression I got is they were amazed

they were stunned to see these Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico they were sitting in like 300 ft of water I think just the magnitude and the complexity of things they were pretty well Blown Away by it [Music] the next leg of their Journey took the visitors to Omaha Nebraska where they met one of America's foremost experts on Afghanistan petroleum resources the United States were trying their best to talk to the Taliban who were obviously beginning to take over the whole of Afghanistan the state department asked me to talk to the talibans and they brought

them in here and so this room instead of having guys in suits and ties like they always had before these were Taliban in uh you know skull caps and turbans and and long beards and I okay they're Afghans no problem and so I told them I showed them all this neat whizbang satellite imagery and stuff and they you're looking at our country yeah we're looking at your country we and you can do this too we'll show you how to do this all you need to do is come over here and uh get educated in this

[Music] stuff the Taliban team's Journey ended in Washington DC where they met leading officials at the state department the state department was still hopeful that this was going to be a part of a international combined effort that would be profitable for unical profitable for the Afghans commercially and and financially profitable for the Afghans in terms of development and education uh profitable for the region the Taliban were interested in the project they were keen on making it happen they never did uh sign a cooperation agreement or anything like that because they were afraid to sign anything

without knowing specifically that M Omar was uh was behind it the are hardly any pictures of the mysterious Taliban leader in this rare footage of him mulah Omar tries to hide behind a blanket when I was in condar the first time he was there and they kept saying that they were going to go talk in fact I asked if I could go see him and they said no no no that's you're not senior enough to see the all Omar [Music] while unical was in dialogue with the Taliban about the pipelines another actor began to assert

himself in Afghanistan Osama Bin Laden this son of a Saudi construction millionaire was a local hero because he participated in the Insurgency against the Soviet [Music] Union he returned to Afghanistan in 1996 after having been forced to leave the Sudan now he was preparing for a new war Global Jihad when Taliban captured nrar then consequently captured kab in 1996 they found Usama badan and his colleagues in nrar so the Taliban moved him to kahar to be protected [Music] there his arrival back in Afghanistan coincide with with my own to work with the UN never met

theama bin ladam I saw him once in the Bazaar in his Convoy car passing by but I never you know we didn't waver anything we didn't know each other were looking at the other so that first year uh that he was in the area was the time when he solidified his relationship with mul mam Omar [Music] in Afghanistan Marty Miller and yoal had initiated the training of local workers who were to be employed on the so-called peace pipeline we'd like to hire locally so he had employment opportunities for the Afghans in fact one of the

things we did in kahar is we established a a training center we found an old abandoned warehouse that we outfitted and we brought some equipment in you know welding equipment uh tools that were needed for the training without being aware of it Marty Miller had established his training center in the same street as Osama Bin Laden's house and I'd never heard of the guy before I didn't know who he was looking back on it I'm uh kind of gives me the creeps think about I was that close to that [Music] guy AMA Bin Laden was

also busy building training facilities Bin Laden eventually became responsible for organizing the flow of foreign Fighters between chesa Bosnia and the Arab world for the Taliban these soldiers were useful reinforcements in the fight against the Northern Alliance this enabled Bin Laden to strengthen his alliance with the Taliban and to recruit soldiers for his holy war on the western world [Music] on the 7th of August 1998 a bomb exploded at the US Embassy in Nairobi simultaneously a bomb detonated in neighboring Tanzania 224 people died in these terrorist attacks and more than 4,000 were injured the alqaeda

trademark was established serial attacks triggered by suicide bombers I don't think I was terribly surprised when I heard about what had happened because Bin Laden was there and he was able to do it from Afghanistan and he was being protected by the Taliban the young spy wanted to learn more about Bin Laden and visited his enemies the Northern Alliance it was a perilous Journey on Horseback along bad roads [Music] my interest was what was going on in the anti-taliban areas because that was an area where we did not have a lot of information and my

sense from back in Washington is that a lot of officials and policy makers were just writing off the resistance to the [Music] Taliban she met Northern Alliance lead leader akmad sha masud who asked for support from the West in the fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda they certainly seemed a much more viable option inside Afghanistan than they had appeared from the outside their morale was generally good uh increasing numbers of Afghans coming to them from Taliban areas wanting their assistance in fighting the Taliban so to me they seemed like a very viable alternative to the

Taliban If Only They were able to have more support [Music] during her visit S got a unique insight into what was to come Northern Alliance prisons were full of jihadists from several countries their goal was to participate in the global Jihad she was especially shocked by what the prisoners told her about the close relationship between Pakistan the Taliban and Al-Qaeda massud urgently wanted to alert the West he wanted more people to know about the Taliban and how they were interacting with Bin Laden and um to emphasize that if we were opposing Bin Laden that we

should really realize that he and the Taliban were sharing the same aims and goals and resources and funding but Julie sir's report was not well received by her bosses at the Pentagon the state department was even even more annoyed people were saying they were very upset about my trip and I was told I simply wasn't going to be able to to stay in they weren't going to give me my security clearance back so essentially they fired [Music] me even at that time I think the state department would have been happier having the Taliban control the

whole country and having massud go away we didn't want to see the Taliban as our enemy at that time I think there was still an idea that the Taliban were very separate from Bin Laden that we could ultimately negotiate with the Taliban to kick out Bin Laden and then our problem would be solved the Clinton Administration continued in its efforts to influence the Taliban regime we were in the middle of you know trying to get them to modify their behavior behavior and I'm a Believer and you talk to your friends and your enemies talking is

not acceptance of those practices from day one the Clinton Administration was trying to push back and first you know control and then pressure the Taliban regime into changing and of course that escalated once Osama Bin Laden left Sudan and went to Afghanistan in 1996 uh the bombings of 98 were conducted from there so it was very much on the Forefront the problem of Osama bin Laden stood in the way of any agreement about future oil and gas pipelines he had declared war in America and the simultaneous bombings of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya really

put us on a war footing with Osama Bin Laden and from that point on we were actually trying to to kill him on the 20th of August 1997 President Clinton ordered the launch of cruise missiles against several Al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan four of the bases were destroyed in all 25 al-qaed operators were killed but Usama Bin Laden himself escaped I remember when President Clinton sent some cruise missiles into Afghanistan um I I just that's when I told uh my boss and the board of directors that it was time that this this wasn't going to go

anywhere anytime [Music] soon at that point unical withdrew from the pipeline project but the French intelligence analyst Jean sh Brad argues that the idea of an oil and gas pipeline lived on the United States was thinking they were pressuring the Taliban to release Bin Laden um by negotiating about the pipeline at the same time the Taliban were faking they were cooling the United States about bin ladin by discussing with them about the pipeline for momar the pipeline issue was a leverage in preserving his country from us Trikes and avoiding to take a decision on on

Bin Laden Osama Bin Laden was also interested in continued pipeline negotiations a strategy Memo from Bin Laden's close Aid Muhammad ARF was found during the investigation of the 1998 East Africa embassy attacks this memo written by Muhammad ATF it states clearly that as far as the Taliban were maintaining relationship in some way with with American businesses over this project or uh us diplomats their security Al-Qaeda security was guaranteed [Music] the terror attacks against the East African embassies tested the relationship between the Taliban and the al-Qaeda leader his presence in Afghanistan uh became a big harder

between the in the relationship between Afghanistan and the International Community sources say mulah Omar had a Furious showdown with Osama Bin Laden after the East Africa bombings the terrorist attacks obstructed Omar's plans for a caliphate in Afghanistan rulah klak was one of the Taliban commanders in Mula Omar's close Circle [Music] we know there was a debate inside the the Taliban between the art liners and and and others there were people that were clearly identifying um AMA bin Lin as a threed towards the end of the '90s the pipelines were no longer on the agenda in

talks between the US and the Taliban the US asked 30 times for Usama Bin Laden to be handed over but the Taliban gave no clear answer the talks went essentially nowhere the Taliban the more we would put push them the more they'd push back the more we'd push them on al- Qaeda uh expelling AMA Bin Laden the more they would push back they just got more defiant [Music] when George W bush came to power in 2001 he renewed attempts to get Bin Laden extradited and get started with the construction of the oil pipeline by then

unical was out of the picture but others tried to revive the plans George W bush he had this direct connection with the oil industry the idea was to try to be more persuasive with the [Music] Taliban alqaeda made a special documentary about the Prelude to September the 11th American Born Adam gadan is the film's narrator attack on Afghanistan had been planned for a long time the Americans were boiling mad about a number of things the Islamic Emirates domination of strategic energy reserves as well as the route of a uh proposed gas pipeline from the Caspian

Sea and most of all it's refusal to hand over Sheikh [Music] hammer in Berlin in July 2001 a final dramatic meeting about the Taliban was arranged between representatives of the United States government and other players in the region at the point during the these talks there's a US Representative that would make this ultimatum that you'll have either the carpet of gold or the carpet of [Music] bomb the Americans had informed their allies during a meeting in Germany of their plan to invade Afghanistan in the Autumn before the first snowfall which is what they eventually did

so we knew it was coming the question was do we sit back and wait or do we surprise them with a preemptive strike my f [Music] I was there in 911 in New York it has a very bad incident I found it very tragic and terrible for the people of United States innocent people was were being killed uh [Music] the Taliban offered to extradite Osama Bin Laden to a third country but now the Americans had decided to remove both him and the Taliban on the 7th of October America and Britain [Applause] attacked the Northern Alliance

exploited the resulting chaos and the Taliban regime unraveled on the 20th of November 2001 the capital city of Kabul fell with us backing hammed Kasai was inaugurated as president his brother had been working for unical and kazai was well acquainted with the pipeline plans soon after 911 couple of months suddenly we hear that governments from the region got together and basically decided to revive the project that means that even without knowing the fate of of Afghanistan in terms of stability all these countries had come to the same conclusion they had reached before 911 that this

pip planine was crucial for them for the interests after 13 years of war there is still no pipeline the Taliban is back in strength and reluctant to negotiate about peace they collapsed the Taliban government and brought a new government under the title of democracy in the human rights but they did not bring peace to Afghanistan the Insurgency against the government installed by the International Community is still going on the war against the Taliban has made the building of the pipeline impossible the Afghan North also has some oil after the pipeline was shelved John IML who

had left unal considered investing in an oil and gas project in Mazar e Sharif look at Afghanistan the political risk is amazingly High the geologic risk in the Mazar area is moderate but the reward part is also moderate so when you put all that together that's why it's not an interesting investment opportunity for large companies there are geologists who argue that the country's petroleum resources are larger than previously known Afghanistan has the best geology in that part of the world for both mineral resources and hydrocarbons that's pretty spectacular why are they so poor they've not

been able to develop those resources first they didn't know about them and then the past 30 years of war nobody's been able to do much one Afghan who tried to develop the country's oil resources at an early stage was King Muhammad Zahir Shan after 30 years in Exile he returned a lot of Afghanistan's oil history has been forgotten Muhammad zah sha became King when he was only 19 years old in 1937 he gave the US firm Inland exploration company exclusive rights to oil extraction in the Northern areas of the [Music] country they were also given

the right to build a 1600 pipeline but the second world war put a stop to these plans older Afghans recalled the king's reign as a time of Peace economic progress the introduction of democracy and education for [Music] women during that time tens of thousands of Afghans were being employed by Afghan uh Ministries as mechanics uh plumbers uh uh Carpenters drivers uh construction workers welders Etc nannies and life was [Music] blooming this convinces me now I was there through most of this time that Afghans when able to set as side their differences they're able to be

very effective they're hardworking people King sha made new attempts to restart Afghan oil and gas production in the 50s and 60s a series of test Wells were drilled and American and Soviet geologist mapped the country's [Music] resources when the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1979 access to Afghanistan man's oil and gas resources was one of the objectives of the occupation John schroer was in Afghanistan at the end of the 70s as part of the atlas Afghanistan project he got a unique insight into the maps of mineral resources there was one American geologist me and

250 Soviet Russian geologists so when I left Afghanistan in late 78 I was actually deported uh by the Communists who had taken over the government uh I left having set my maps out of the country in the Diplomatic pouch came back to the United States and I've worked on the mineral sources in Afghanistan ever since the Afghan resources to me look like a bonanza for the Afghans so I just thought Afghanistan can pull itself up by its own resource bootstraps and that's what I've been saying now for practically 40 years west of Mazar Al Sharif

are the remains of a gas Refinery from the Soviet era the plant is still in operation but no longer produces as much as when the Russians were there foree close by is a small Fort guarding the gas plant against attacks from the Taliban [Music] in 2007 an experienced oil geologist rediscovered this area he'd previous ly worked for unical but he now worked as head of the Norwegian Aid project oil for development he wanted to help Afghanistan with a new oil law [Music] [Music] G itand was dissuaded from traveling to the north but with an armed

escort he went anyway at one gas plant he discovered a bricked up room where documentation of Soviet oil and gas production had been [Music] hidden [Music] for behind the secret wall lay old maps and seismic surveys that showed Afghanistan's oil and gas resources were significantly greater than the outside world was aware of [Music] [Music] for the administration offices for oil and gas in Mazar Al Sharif are located in Old Soviet buildings [Music] chief engineer Muhammad Jan akari has made it his life's work to preserve the dusty archives several times he saved maps and documents from

destruction [Music] [Music] foree foreign speee for despite little money and poor health akari has systemized the files and preserved the valuable data for the future foree for this is handwriting wow how beautiful writing it is foreign spee foreign [Music] for over 40 years Afghans have prayed for peace and dreamed of a better [Music] life of a better life is also about memories of what once was about the time hope flourished and the country's hidden mineral wealth was estimated at 1,000 billion dollar here first the Soviets wanted the resources and then they got driven out by

the Afghans the United States didn't pay any attention to the resources itself uh our military only wised up to the fact that it was rich in resources only a couple years ago but now more and more Afghans know the resources are there and they can come out of the ground if you stop the fighting the United States once hoped the peace pipeline would unite the Waring parties in Afghanistan they still do amazingly enough they still want to build it America's Arch Enemy Iran also wants to build an oil and gas pipeline to India tan is

in a hurry the aim is that a new peace pipeline should be completed in 2017 but again it has to go through Taliban controlled areas peace with the Taliban is more important than ever well it's at risk of deja vu all over again it's not impossible that the Taliban would come back to Power they are an element they're not going away and in order to have uh I would say peace not necessarily at prosperity in Afghanistan they're going to have to be part of that fabric of society the more you can bring them into the

tent and encourage moderate elements to emerge the more stable Afghanistan will [Music] be my short explanation for what happened is unbeknownst to us uh Osama Bin Laden bought the Taliban movement and he did that before we could explain to Taliban and others the benefits of foreign investment which is the very complex benefit to try to describe to non-b business people when the competition is pouring money in for AK-47s and rocket launchers which they did understand that's all they understood you know we were horrified at at a lot of the things that the the to hon

we were doing and you know I'd say some of the of the criticism that was directed at us uh was fair looking back I have to say I was terribly naive uh Henry Kissinger said this project is a Triumph of Hope over experience and that hit me right between the eyes and I said oh boy there's a lot of content in that in that py little comment and I it found it proved to be true [Music]