| by John J. Loftus By Atty. John J. Loftus3560 Coquina Key Drive SE
 St. Petersburg, FL 33705
 Ph: 727-821-5227
 Fx: 727-894-1801
 
 About 
      the author: As a former federal 
      prosecutor, John Loftus had an insider’s knowledge of high level 
      intelligence operations, including obstruction of Congressional 
      investigations. Loftus resigned from the Justice Department in 1981 to 
      expose how the intelligence community had recruited Nazi war criminals and 
      then concealed the files from Congressional subpoena. After appearing on 
      an Emmy Award winning segment of 60 Minutes, Loftus has spent the next two 
      decades writing histories of intelligence cover-ups, and serving as an 
      unpaid lawyer helping other whistleblowers inside US intelligence.
       
 A highly reliable confidential 
      client source who wishes to remain anonymous has promised to send me an 
      FBI copy of a high-level Al Qaida report dating back to the embassy 
      bombings in Africa several years ago. The email report was captured in 
      Africa from the computer file of a senior aid to Osama Bin Laden.  My 
      client has obtained this document through lawful means,
 The email report, written by Al Qaida's head of military operations, 
      Mohammd Atef, describes Al Qaida's view of ongoing secret pipeline 
      negotiations between the US oil companies and the Taliban to build a 
      pipeline through Afghanistan.
 
 This Atef report was almost certainly reviewed by the late John O'Neill at 
      the time of the Embassy bombing, shortly after the Al Qaida report was 
      written.  At the time, O'Neill was the FBI agent in charge of the Embassy 
      bombing investigation.  The shocking pipeline information may explain why 
      O'Neill became fixated about the Saudi-Taliban-Al Qaida relationship for 
      the few remaining years of his life.
 
 After O'Neill's investigations were repeatedly shut down by his superiors, 
      O'Neill allegedly began making discreet inquiries to French intelligence 
      using two reporters as cut-outs.  Both reporters were known consultants 
      for French intelligence and are specialists on both the oil industry and 
      terrorism.
 
 It is plausible that the French Government was upset at being shut out of 
      the Caspian Basin deal, and may have been helping O'Neill behind the backs 
      of his superior's in Washington.  It does seem that the more that O'Neill 
      learned, the less he was alowed to do with it.
 
 The last straw was Cheney's refusal to follow up on O'Neill's request to 
      pursue the leads in the Phoenix memo in April 2001.  After resigning from 
      the FBI in disgust, John O'Neil spoke candidly to several people, 
      including the two French authors, whom he met again in July.
 
 They have now written about the pipeline deal in "The Forbidden Truth." 
       The book, not yet translated into English, quotes O'Neill as saying that 
      his Al Qaida investigations were blocked to protect the Saudis.  The 
      Caspian Basin pipeline issue is discussed at length as the motive for the 
      coverup.
 
 I do not think that the French authors have the Atef document or they 
      would have released it in their book.  The Atef memo may indeed be a 
      smoking gun, but I need to see the exact text to be sure before I release 
      it to Congress.
 
 This Al Qaida document may be the first hard evidence to break the Enron 
      pipeline cover-up apart.  I need your advice and confidential assistance 
      in making a discreet collection of all Afghan pipeline research for a memo 
      to present to Congress.
 
 Here is my investigative hypothesis which needs to be greatly fleshed out 
      and footnoted before I go to Congress.  I have presented my thoughts by 
      topic, rather than in chronological order.
 
 Back in the 1970's and 80's, Saudi intelligence (not the CIA as has been 
      reported) funded the early Taliban faction and later Al Qaida as part of 
      the insurgency to throw the Russians out of Afghanistan.  A few years 
      afterwards, US energy companies (Enron, as the Afghan pipeline consultant 
      for UNOCAL) used the Saudi intelligence connection to the Taliban to begin 
      negotiations for a pipeline across Afghanistan.
 
 Prince Turki, chief of Saudi inteligence, has publicly admitted making 
      several trips into Afghanistan to negotiate a peace mission with the 
      Taliban.  My sources say he was the pipeline mediator for Enron. Prince 
      Turki  was fired as head of Saudi intelligence immediately after the 
      pipeline discussions collapsed in August 2001.
 
 Prince Turki is allegedly close to the Bin Laden family which was 
      allegedly promised the construction contract in return for a percentage to 
      the Saudi Royal family. This is a common business practice initiated by 
      the Carlyle Group's contracts in Saudi Arabia.
 
 As the Republican IPO magazine, Red Herring, confirms, President Bush' 
      father was business partners in the Carlyle Group with the Bin Laden 
      family during this period . This company is a Who's Who of former 
      Democratic and Republican intelligence and political officials, whose 
      specialty is acting as super-lobbysists at the highest levels of 
      government.  They are also suspected of arranging construction kickbacks 
      to the Saudi royal family in return for discount oil sales.
 
 Red Herring alleges that during a visit to Kennebunkport,  Bush senior 
       lectured his son on placating the Saudis, especially with regard to 
      Israel, and even called the Saudis in his son's presence to reassure them 
      that he had told his son their point of view.
 
 Apparently, the deeply angered President Bush mentioned the private 
      meeting with his father to a close friend, who leaked it to Red Herring. 
       Shortly afterward, another Republican newspaper, the Boston Herald, ran a 
      scathing expose on the number of White House officials with investments in 
      Saudi oil, calling it an "obscene conflict of interest."
 
 It should be noted that President Bush at first semed to reject his 
      father's advice about Israel quite strongly, and secrtely ordered all 
      American troops to begin a total withdrawl from Saudi Arabia. White House 
      sources began a steady drumbeat of leaks about Saudi involvement with 
      terrorism, and even authorized long-delayed raids on the Saudi charities 
      in Virginia that served as a money laundry for terrorist operations 
      against Israel.
 
 Suddenly, President Bush made a sudden and startling switch to adopt a 
      more pro-Saudi view.  The documents seized in the Virginia raids are 
      barely being translated, let alone investigated.
 
 Nevertheless, the Israelis have been privately informed that criminal 
      cases against the Saudi-financed terrorists in the US like Sami Al Arian, 
      are being dropped for "lack of evidence" before the evidence has even been 
      collated.
 
 The State Department's recent report on Global Terrorism is being 
      denounced as a blatant white-wash by Republicans and Democrats alike.
 
 A plausible explanation for the dramatic policy reversal is that someone 
      (allegedly Cheney) told President Bush to call off the dogs at CIA and 
      FBI, because if the Saudis went down, they would take his father down with 
      them. I think our President has a good heart, but is completely boxed in 
      and does not know how to get out from under his father's legacy.
 
 The Israeli government is angered and bewildered over the sudden switch, 
      and has begun to release documents showing prior US knowledge of Al Qaida 
      operations as well as  Saudi support for terrorism.  As Crown Prince 
      Abdullah's visit to both Bushes in Texas showed, a modus vivendi has been 
      reached.
 
 The simplest explanantion is that both Crown Prince Abdullah and President 
      Bush  can blackmail each other over the Taliban pipeline.  Both sides have 
      agreed to pretend that they have always been allies in the war against 
      terrorism, and that Iraq is the real enemy.
 
 Mutual blackmail makes a bit of sense. The Saudi intelligence connection 
      was the key to get the Taliban pipeline negotiations going without the CIA 
      or FBI finding out.  The Enron political connection to the Bush and 
      Clinton administrations was key to keeping the CIA and FBI off of the 
      Saudis' backs while the negotiations were underway.  Messy little details 
      about terrorism were swept under the rug for the sake of the big picture.
 
 The truth is already starting to leak out. It has just been discovered 
      that Enron had purchased huge tracts of land in the Caspian basin, 
      especialy in Turkmenistan, which property is allegedly still on their 
      books.  The acerage is enormous, and worthless.
 
 But, if the Taliban pipeline had been built, Enron might have owned some 
      of the most valuable oil exploration sites in the world, and rescued 
      itself from insolvency.  Any White House insider who helped Enron would 
      have gotten rich, filthy rich.
 
 When Bush's son came into office, Enron allegedly approached Cheney in 
      late January and told him veguely about the secret Saudi-Taliban pipeline 
      negotiations, and how important it was to America's energy policy for 
      generations to come.
 
 Like an idiot, Cheney agreed to keep the lid on any Saudi-Taliban 
      investigations for a while.  For the sake of the Caspian Basin pipeline, 
      Cheney passed the word inside the beltway not to allow anyone in the 
      Government to connect the dots.
 
 All across America, ongoing Saudi-Taliban investigations were hindered, 
      obstructed, or closed down, just as the Clinton administration had done 
      before them.
 
 What no one did was check Enron's accounting.  The pipeline deal made 
      little economic sense in view of Russian cooperation. To Enron's horror, 
       the pipeline deal collapsed in August. Then came 9/11. Then came the 
      Enron collapse.  Then came the Cheney coverup.
 
 Cheney's biggest problem is the two fairly senior intelligence officalls 
      who rebelled and became whistleblowers: Robert Baer of CIA and John 
      O'Neill of FBI. The rest of the FBI and CIA higher ups have kept their 
      mouths shut, although a lot of lower level people are now coming forward 
      to question their superior's strange behavior. The two rebels,  Baer of 
      CIA and O'Neill of FBI,  were of course, driven into retirement.
 
 Much of the Saudi information was blacked out of Baer's book by CIA 
      censors, but enough remains to thoroughly document  the brazen avarice of 
      senior Clinton NSC officials for a Caspian Basin pipeline.
 
 Baer names a few names, but he was driven into retirement before he could 
      learn too much.  Still, he learned that both Republican and Democratic 
      officials were involved with the pipeline coverup to the great detriment 
      of American intelligence.
 
 The worst condemnation ever written of the financial corruption in the 
      Clinton administration can be found in the last chapters of Robert Baer's 
      recent book, "See No Evil", where he blames the pipeline coverup for 
      substantially contributing to 9/11.
 
 Baer's book makes a strong case, as do O'Neills friends in France with 
      their book. The explanation is raw and blunt. No partisan politics, just 
      greed.  A crooked handful of high level officials in the Clinton and Bush 
      administration were clearly obsessed with the Caspian pipeline plan.
 
 Cheney was not the first to block the investigations, but he is probably 
      the last to be involved with the coverup. That could explain why he is 
      resisting Congress on both the Enron and pre-9/11 intelligence documents. 
       If Congress ever connects the two investigations, the whole house of 
      cards will collapse.
 
 Most of my sources say that Bush and Rice may have been deliberately kept 
      out of the loop by Cheney. For example, it was Cheney, not Rice, who saw 
      the Phoenix memo before 9/11.
 It is, however,  theoretically possible that the President may have known 
      about the pipeline deal from his own sources.
 
 President Bush's father was the leading lobbbyist for the Saudis and may 
      have been told everything by his Carlyle Group partners, the Bin Laden 
      family, who were supposedly in line to get the Taliban pipelne 
      construction contract.  But it is doubtful we will ever know what Bush 
      senior told his son while the pipeline negotiations were underway.
 
 In terms of the upcoming Congressional investigation, the Al Qaida 
      document is the first direct written evidence to confirm the existence of 
      secret pipeline negotations with the Taliban.  Moreover, it confirms that 
      Al Qaida was informed of these negotiations from the earliest stages.
 
 This raises an interesting question.  The Al Qaida author, Mohammed Atef, 
      must have known that his report had fallen into American hands when his 
      operative's computer was captured by the FBI.  Atef may have been 
      surprised that his pipeline report was never made public to embarrass the 
      Taliban.
 
 Atef may have suspected merely from the surprising silence that the CIA 
      and FBI were not being allowed to pursue or reveal their Afghanistan 
      investigations while the pipeline negotiations were under way. The Saudis 
      could certainly have tipped off the Taliban that the fix was in. It is 
      hard to believe that the Bin Laden construction company did not learn 
      anything from their Carlyle group partners about the pipeline.
 
 Whatever the source, the early date of the Atef report shows that the 
      highest levels of Al Qaida certainly knew about the pipeline secret from 
      the beginning.  The pipeline coverup could have convinced Atef that Al 
      Qaida could expoit the lack of coordinated intelligence against them.
 
 In addition to the usual inter-agency bungling, the Enron cover-up was the 
      real reason for the black hole in US intell about events in Afghanistan, 
      and plausibly explains why no US agency was allowed to connect the dots. 
       Moreover it explains why honest officials like Baer and O'Neill were 
      driven into retirement.
 
 Bottom line: Baer and O'Neill were right. There was a pipeline coverup and 
      it very likely contributed to 9/11. The Atef report raises the founded 
      suspiscion, based on specific articulable facts, that AL Qaida might have 
      piggy-backed on the Enron secrecy blackout to launch their surprise 
      attack, confident in their knowledge that US intelligence had been 
      deliberately blinded by Enron's cronies in Washington.
 
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