U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplo­macy And The Failed Hunt For Bin Laden

by Jean-Charles Bris­ard & Guil­laume Dasquie
2004 Revised Ed., Diane Pub­lish­ing Co.
ISBN-10: 0756776619
ISBN-13: 978–0756776619
249 pages

From Book List
There’s been a lot of pre­pub­li­ca­tion buzz about this book, espe­cially on the Web. A best-seller in Europe and banned in Switzer­land (because of a bin Laden law­suit), this first Amer­i­can edi­tion links the events of Sep­tem­ber 11 to pipeline pol­i­tics, espe­cially as prac­ticed by the Bush admin­is­tra­tion. Although these sorts of charges have been made in a gen­eral way, the authors have col­lected a great deal of infor­ma­tion, all foot­noted. Inves­ti­gat­ing for three years, Bris­ard and Dusquie were able to fol­low the dots along a “par­al­lel diplo­macy” in which the pri­vate nego­ti­a­tions of oil tycoons, reli­gious extrem­ists, inter­na­tional financiers, and Amer­i­can politi­cians had lit­tle to do with the U.S.’ best inter­ests. The book is not par­tic­u­larly easy on the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion; how­ever, espe­cially incrim­i­nat­ing is the authors’ claim that FBI coun­tert­er­ror chief John O’Neil quit his job to become secu­rity head at the Twin Tow­ers, where he died, because of his frus­tra­tions with the Bush administration’s will­ing­ness to accom­mo­date the Tal­iban (and bin Laden) for the sake of the pipeline. Con­sid­er­ing how com­pli­cated the mate­r­ial is, this book is sur­pris­ingly easy to fol­low. It could wind up as the first 9/11 book for con­spir­acy the­o­rists or as the story behind the story. Maybe both.
Ilene Cooper

THIS BOOK IS IN PRINT. Avail­able com­mer­cially. Learn more about Jean-Charles Bris­ard and Guil­laume Dasquie.