Wondering why the U.S. might have taken too long to reach the area where Bin Laden had been, Moore then asks, without making any particular allegation of course, “Or was the war in Afghanistan really about something else? Perhaps the answer was in Houston, Texas. In 1997, while George W. Bush was Governor of Texas, a delegation of Taliban leaders from Afghanistan flew to Houston to meet with Unocal executives to discuss the building of a pipeline through Afghanistan bringing natural gas from the Caspian Sea. And who got a Caspian Sea drilling contract the same day Unocal signed the pipeline deal? A company headed by a man named Dick Cheney: Halliburton.” And so we have come to Halliburton, the favorite target of all left-wing conspiracy theorists. Note the flimsy support for this change of subject: U.S. troops didn’t reach Bin Laden’s distant hideaway quickly enough, which means the war in Afghanistan was really about a pipeline that was discussed with a company in Texas while Bush was governor (no suggestion that Bush had anything to do with the talks, and indeed he did not) and at the same time Halliburton got a contract to dig in the Caspian Sea. What do these disparate claims have to do with one another?

In any case, these claims aren’t even true. The notion that the invasion of Afghanistan had anything to do with the Unocal pipeline idea is belied by the simple fact that efforts to create such a pipeline ended in 1998 (http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/98news/082198.htm) and have not been resumed (http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/98news/centgas.htm). In 2002, after the American overthrow of the Taliban, officials in the new Afghan government agreed with Turkmenistan and Pakistan to discuss a different pipeline (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2608713.stm) but this agreement had nothing to do with Unocal, Halliburton, or any other American company—or with anything that was at all related to the earlier pipeline possibility that Moore is talking about. Moreover, what does Bush’s having been governor of Texas in 1997 have to do with the pipeline discussions? The state government was not involved in the pipeline project or in the visit of the Taliban representatives, both of which were overseen by the Clinton Administration, and not in any way that favored the Taliban (see for instance the report of the 9/11 Commission, http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, p. 111). The pipeline theory had been debunked long before Moore’s film, and his reference to it here is absurd. As Seth Stevenson, writing in Slate in 2001, put it, after thoroughly disproving the pipeline claims:

What’s absurd about the pipeline theory is how thoroughly it discounts the obvious reason the United States set the bombers loose on Afghanistan: Terrorists headquartered in Afghanistan attacked America’s financial and military centers, killing 4,000 people, and then took credit for it. Nope—must be the pipeline. (http://slate.msn.com/id/2059487)

Moore also offers no explanation of what Halliburton’s digging contracts had to do with any of this. These contracts were in no way connected to the pipeline. And Moore’s claim that these purportedly sinister deals were signed “on the same day” is a weak attempt to find conspiracy in coincidence. On October 27, 1997, Halliburton, which had already been working in Turkmenistan for five years, received another relatively minor ($30 million) drilling contract in the Caspian (http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/1997/hesnws_102797.jsp). Coincidentally, on October 27, 1997, Unocal helped to form a consortium with five other companies that would explore the possibility of developing the pipeline that was ultimately never built (http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/97news/102797a.htm); that consortium was formed at the behest of the government of Turkmenistan, it did not involve the Taliban, and it actually was begun before the supposedly suspicious Taliban-Unocal meeting in Texas. Indeed, what any these things have to do with one another—or what any of this pipeline story, which ended in 1998, has to do with the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001—remains totally unexplained.

But Moore is not finished with the pipeline. “And who else stood to benefit from the pipeline?” he asks, “Bush’s number one campaign contributor, Kenneth Lay and the good people of Enron.” To repeat, all talk of a pipeline ended in 1998, and Moore has not yet offered any reason to believe that the Clinton Administration’s (possibly well-intentioned but ultimately unsuccessful) notion of a pipeline ever had anything to do with George W. Bush. Also, Enron and Kenneth Lay were not Bush’s top contributors, they ranked 12th in the 2000 campaign, (http://www.opensecrets.org/2000elect/contrib/P00003335.htm) and contributed to Democrats as well as Republicans (http://www.usatoday.com/money/covers/2002-01-28-enron-states.htm). And finally, it is not actually true that Enron stood to gain by this deal, since Enron was not one of the companies in the consortium trying to develop the pipeline (again, see the Unocal press release: http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/97news/102797a.htm). Enron was involved with power plants and pipelines in India which—if hundreds of miles of never-built additional pipelines were laid—could conceivably have been connected to the never-built pipeline that crossed Afghanistan. But none of this seems to have anything to do with America’s attack against Afghanistan. Moore is simply throwing everything at the wall to see if anything sticks. Upon examination, nothing does.

Almost as an aside, Moore then adds, “Only the British press covered this trip,” and shows a screen image of a BBC report about the Taliban visiting Texas (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/36735.stm). It isn’t clear what Moore is trying to imply with this statement, but once again, his basic fact is wrong: a LexisNexis search shows that other press outlets—including two major international news wire services, the AP and the AFP—covered the Taliban-in-Texas story.

Without bothering to make any logical connections with the pipeline deal abandoned three years earlier, Moore then continues, “Then in 2001, just five-and-a-half months before 9/11, the Bush Administration welcomed a special Taliban envoy to tour the United States to help improve the image of the Taliban government.” Moore wonders, “Why on Earth did the Bush Administration allow a Taliban leader to visit the United States, knowing that the Taliban were harboring the man who bombed the USS Cole and our African embassies?” But as the 9/11 Commission Report demonstrates, these contacts with the Taliban were part of an effort by the United States to aggressively push the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden, which went on at the same time as planning to remove the Taliban from power if they did not cooperate—planning, again, which occurred before and not just after the attacks (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, p. 205). And in any case, even by Moore’s most outlandish theory, what would this have had to do with a pipeline deal that fell through in 1998?

To hint slyly at an answer, Moore tells us that after overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan, “we installed its new president, Hamid Karzai. Who was Hamid Karzai? He was a former advisor to Unocal. Bush also appointed as his envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad who was also a former Unocal advisor.” Here we have both deception and distortion. Hamid Karzai was never a consultant to Unocal, and Zalmay Khalilzad could be considered one only indirectly (http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/lane.htm). Moreover, it is absurd to describe either of these men by their connection (even if it was true) to some energy company. Karzai was a leading figure in the Afghan resistance against the Soviets and was the foreign minister of the Afghan government-in-exile and later deputy foreign minister of the government of Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover. After the takeover, he worked in Afghanistan and from Pakistan to loosen the grip of the Taliban and free the Afghan people. He was named to lead the country because he was a very prominent figure in the fight to free it (http://www.embassyofafghanistan.org/main/bios/karzai_bio.cfm). Meanwhile Zalmay Khalizad, who was named U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, had been in charge of the Afghan desk at the National Security Council, Special Assistant to the President, and Senior Director for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives at the National Security Council—and before that, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs at the National Security Council. He had also headed the Defense Department task force of the Bush-Cheney transition in 2000. He had also founded RAND’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and was a professor of political science at Columbia University (http://usembassy.state.gov/afghanistan/wwwhbiozal.html). These impressive qualifications put the lie to the notion that either man was chosen for some connection to an energy company.

But having told us all he thinks we need to know about these two men, Moore concludes: “I guess you can probably see where this is leading. Faster than you can say ‘Black Gold, Texas Tea,’ Afghanistan signed an agreement with her neighboring countries to build a pipeline through Afghanistan carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea.” But again, this agreement has nothing to do with the pipeline project Moore had mentioned earlier, has nothing to do with Unocal, has nothing to do with Halliburton, has nothing to do with Enron, and has nothing to do with George W. Bush (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2608713.stm). Moore offers no backing whatsoever to the notion that the war in Afghanistan was somehow about an oil pipe.

Having finished talking about pipelines, Moore then says, “Oh, and the Taliban? Uh, they mostly got away. As did Osama bin Laden and most of al Qaeda.” This is nonsense. The Taliban were overthrown and then their leadership and foot soldiers were killed, captured, or dispersed into the countryside. It would obviously have been better to kill or capture those that were dispersed (including the top leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar) but the notion that these people simply “got away” ignores the fact that they have been deposed from power, their regime dismantled, and a free government burgeoning toward democratic elections put in its place. (Some of the accomplishments of the coalition in Afghanistan are listed here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/afghanistan/). As for “most of Al Qaeda” getting away, over two thirds of the organization’s leadership has been captured or killed since the 9/11 attacks (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/07/24/cia_official_says_agents_have_infiltrated_al_qaeda/).

Moore then implicitly criticizes the Bush Administration for not yet capturing Osama bin Laden, showing a video clip of Bush saying “Terror is bigger than one person. And he’s just—he’s—he’s a—he’s a person who’s now been marginalized, so, I—I don’t know where he is, nor—and I just don’t spend that much time on it, Kelly, to be honest with ya.” This is a clever bit of editing, designed to chop Bush’s statement to pieces to make it seem senseless. The clip is from a presidential news conference on March 13, 2002, and the exchange which Moore cut up was this (with the sentences Moore included marked in italics):

Kelly Wallace, CNN: Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part—deep in your heart, don’t you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won’t really eliminate the threat of—.

President George W. Bush: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he’s alive at all. Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not; we haven’t heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is—really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. And he’s just—he’s a person who’s now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He’s the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is—as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide—if, in fact, he’s hiding at all. So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. I’m more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did. And there will be other battles in Afghanistan. There’s going to be other struggles like Shahikot, and I’m just as confident about the outcome of those future battles as I was about Shahikot, where our soldiers are performing brilliantly. We’re tough, we’re strong, they’re well-equipped. We have a good strategy. We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.

Kelly Wallace: But don’t you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won’t truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

President Bush: Well, as I say, we haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I—I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became—we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore. And if we—excuse me for a minute—and if we find a training camp, we’ll take care of it. Either we will or our friends will. That’s one of the things—part of the new phase that’s becoming apparent to the American people is that we’re working closely with other governments to deny sanctuary, or training, or a place to hide, or a place to raise money. And we’ve got more work to do. See, that’s the thing the American people have got to understand, that we’ve only been at this six months. This is going to be a long struggle. I keep saying that; I don’t know whether you all believe me or not. But time will show you that it’s going to take a long time to achieve this objective. And I can assure you, I am not going to blink. And I’m not going to get tired. Because I know what is at stake. And history has called us to action, and I am going to seize this moment for the good of the world, for peace in the world and for freedom. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html)

It is certainly not too much to say that Moore, by his editing, has stretched the truth beyond all recognition.

But Moore is trying to imply that Bush did not care about Osama bin Laden. “What kind of president was he?” Moore asks sarcastically, and then shows Bush saying “I’m a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office, in foreign policy matters with war on my mind.” The clip is from a Meet the Press interview with Bush in February of 2004, and the segment quoted was one in which Bush said: “I’m a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind. Again, I wish it wasn’t true, but it is true. And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is. And I see dangers that exist, and it’s important for us to deal with them.” The point for Moore, though, is that Bush just wants to make war. And he tells us, “With the war in Afghanistan over and Bin Laden forgotten, the war president had a new target—the American people.” Never mind that the operation in Afghanistan is not over, and that Bin Laden, to be sure, has not been forgotten. War on the American people? This is what passes for Moore’s segue to a discussion of terror alerts at home and the USA PATRIOT Act.

  Continue to Section IV. Terrorism and the Patriot Act 

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