KARZAI A UNOCAL CONSULTANT

France's Le Monde newspaper wrote in a Dec. 5 profile of Hamid Karzai that the Afghan interim president "has a wide knowledge of the western world. After studying law in Kabul and India, he completed his training in the United States where he was for a time a consultant for the American oil company Unocal, when it was studying the construction of a pipeline in Afghanistan."

This claim was reiterated in the Jan. edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, where Pierre Abramovici wrote that "during the negotiations over the Afghan oil pipeline, Karzai had been a consultant for Unocal."

The claim also surfaced in the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, which reported Dec. 15: "Karzai found no contradiction between his ties with the Americans and his support for the Taliban movement as of 1994, when the Americans had--secretly and through the Pakistanis--supported the Taliban's assumption of power... At the time, Karzai worked as a consultant for the huge US oil group Unocal, which had supported the Taliban movement and sought to construct a pipeline to transport oil and gas from the Islamic republics of Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan." (BBC Monitoring Service, Dec. 15)

The Le Monde article was jumped upon by numerous media outlets--particularly lefty e-newsletters--who cited it as truth, without raising questions about the article's un-named source, or bothering to get a quote from Unocal (e.g., Tom Turnipseed in Counterpunch, Jan. 10; Ted Rall, www.rall.com, Jan 15). But when WW3 REPORT reached Unocal Manager for International Communication Teresa Covington at the company's Houston headquarters on Jan. 25, and asked if Hamid Karzai had ever worked for the firm, she replied: "No he did not. Neither as an employee or a consultant. We sent Le Monde a note asking them to correct that."

This raises numerous questions. Why has Le Monde not run a correction? Was Karzai's work laundered through sub-contractors? And, if so, why is Unocal trying to hide it? Why hasn't it been more widely reported?

The most probing account appeared by Wayne Madsen on the web page of Canada's Centre for Research on Globalisation (globalresearch.ca) Jan. 23. Wrote Madsen: "According to Afghan, Iranian, and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the...UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan." Madsen also claims Karzai "maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) interlocutors" during the Mujahedeen war. "Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency's interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal, according to Middle East and South Asian sources."

Madsen maintains that "Karzai's ties with UNOCAL and the Bush administration are the main reason why the CIA pushed him for Afghan leader over rival Abdul Haq, the assassinated former mujaheddin leader from Jalalabad, and the leadership of the Northern Alliance, seen by Langley as being too close to the Russians and Iranians." He also sees a possible CIA conspiracy to eliminate Haq to clear the way for Karzai: "Former Reagan National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who worked with Haq, vainly attempted to get the CIA to help rescue Haq. The agency claimed it sent a remotely-piloted armed drone to attack the Taliban but its actions were too little and too late. Some observers in Pakistan claim the CIA tipped off the ISI about Haq's journey and the Pakistanis, in turn, informed the Taliban. McFarlane, who runs a K Street oil consulting firm, did not comment on further questions about the circumstances leading to the death of Haq."