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Sept. 2002Edition 37

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Official Secrets

GREG GUMA

Open government can be a risky proposition for those in charge. When a society provides full access to knowledge, controversial issues are often raised -- public and private corruption, basic incompetence, threats to health and safety, sexual practices and moral questions, and information that in an "un-free" nation might remain forever secret. Most social systems do set some limits on openness, of course. In US constitutional law, for example, the right to freedom of speech enshrined in the First Amendment has often been balanced against the gravity of the evil that might result from free expression. Information is also withheld, frequently based either on grounds of national security or the need for confidentiality.

The trouble is that systems of authority are widely known to abuse their powers. As long ago as 1690 John Locke took note of the danger, as did Alexander Hamilton in his defense of John Peter Zenger. Abuse of official power has traditionally been viewed as an especially serious evil indeed. As a result, the US social system generally embraces the presumption of transparency, that in general the people have a "right to know," and that a basic function of the press is to check abuses of power. In fact, this "checking function" is built into the First Amendment; and, except in times of war, it has held sway for over a century. Nevertheless, much important information never reaches the general public. Compounding the problem, US leaders frequently work with a compliant legislative branch to tighten access and negate the appropriate role of journalists.

During the 1980s, it was surprising, at least occasionally, that the press did not make more of directives on secrecy, a persistent nipping away at public access to documents, or an executive branch rule that required all federal employees with access to "sensitive" material to sign secrecy agreements forcing them to submit any writing for pre-publication review, even long after they left the government. Taken together, such restrictions dramatically reduced oversight of defense and foreign policy in the Reagan-Bush era.

If the same secrecy rules had been in effect in the 1970s, the Pentagon Papers, the secret US war in Angola, and perhaps even some Watergate-era abuses might not have been exposed. Robert Bernstein, president of Random House, called Reagan era secrecy orders "clearly an attempt to keep still more information from the American people...It can tie up publication of any book by a government official indefinitely." Compounding the problem, in 1982 the US Supreme Court upheld the censors in the case of Frank Snepp's Decent Interval, an account of the fall of Saigon. In doing so, the high court essentially usurped the law-making powers of Congress and went a long way toward enacting a US version of the British Official Secrets Act. Snepp's book was eventually published, but the Court also ruled that the government should seize all the income that would have gone to Snepp, and gave the authorities the right to stop him from writing almost anything else.       

The Snepp case went further than penalizing one CIA employee for breaking his contract. It sent the message that any government worker in a relationship of trust with his agency, whether or not a written agreement existed, could have his right to speech challenged or rescinded. The Supreme Court, with four Nixon appointees in the majority, also buttressed lower court decisions involving the CIA's censorship of ex-agent Victor Marchetti. Dealing with classified material, that ruling set a powerful precedent for prior restraint that clearly violated the public's right to know what was going on.

Information classification policy during this period also established a new presumption in favor of secrecy, eliminating the old requirement that the need should be carefully balanced against the public's right to know. A similar policy, designed to insulate the National Security Council, required that "all contacts with any element of the news media" would have to be approved by senior officials; afterward, a detailed report had to be filed. Neither did Congress resist the trend. With such laws and administrative rule in effect, it was a wonder that any information leaked unless the administration wanted it that way.

In 2001, especially after 9/11, the federal government was at it again, quickly moving to restrict the right to know what the government was doing. One month after the attacks, Attorney General Ashcroft quietly but forcefully urged federal agencies to resist requests to scrutinize public records. In effect, he told government workers to ignore the 1974 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). By May 2002, he found a legal rationale, at least for the new Office of Homeland Security. Because it technically wasn't an "agency" and didn't exercise substantial authority apart from presidential directives, it was exempt from the FOIA, he argued. His model was the National Security Council, which had been ruled off limits years before.

Passed after the Nixon administration's excesses, the FOIA allows anyone to request government records by sending a letter to the appropriate executive branches, department, or agency. According to the National Security Archive, the world's largest non-governmental library of declassified documents, the law has "promoted transparency and accountability in government, preventing the creation of secret law behind bureaucratic walls, and witnessing to Justice Brandeis' phrase, that 'sunlight is the best disinfectant'."   Be that as it may, Ashcroft directed federal agencies to consider "institutional, commercial and personal privacy issues" when dealing with future requests. Martin E. Halstuk, a media law professor at Pennsylvania State University, pointed out in the Los Angeles Times that, "This added emphasis on privacy to justify withholding records creates a standard that fosters official secrecy on matters unrelated to national security and law enforcement. In the past decade, executive branch agencies have used privacy concerns to justify rejecting freedom of information requests on a number of issues of public interest."

Post 9/11, federal agencies also began removing information from their web sites. For instance, the government claimed that maps of the US transportation infrastructure and information on nuclear power plants had become too sensitive for public scrutiny. Was it just a precaution, or was the war on terrorism being used to throw a cloak of secrecy over both public and private activities?

An early answer came in October. In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fred Webber, President of the American Chemical Council, an industry lobbying group, suggested that "in light of recent events, we believe it would be prudent if the agency reviewed the system by which this information is made available to ensure that all can be done to protect it from being misused is, in fact, being done." In other words, the chemical industry wanted to reduce access to sensitive information about possible impacts of a catastrophic plant accident. Before even discussing formal action, the EPA purged its Website, removing its risk management plan database on hazards at 15,000 chemical plants nationwide, along with each company's prevention and emergency response plan.

On November 1, President Bush took an even larger step toward protecting official secrets when he issued an executive order limiting public access to presidential records. The Presidential Records Act was passed to shift power over White House documents from former presidents to government archivists and the public. Bush's order essentially overturned that law, allowing presidents, past and present, to delay public access indefinitely. Several watchdog groups quickly filed lawsuits, but, in the meantime, a national emergency was being used to slam the door on open government.

Seven Days in May

When a government likes its secrets too much, the greatest risk is that embarrassing details will leak out, undermining public confidence and leading to the inevitable charges of a cover up. For George Bush II, that scenario threatened to play out during the early days of May 2002. The first sign that something was amiss came on May 12, as Former President Carter arrived in Cuba. That unofficial peace mission was greeted with a provocative, yet unsubstantiated claim from the State Department. According to an official, Cuba had a limited capacity to make biological weapons. The spin: a meddling former president was consorting with the enemy.  The twist: several days later, the administration was forced to admit it was just speculating.

One small blow to official credibility might have been handled easily. But the Cuba charge, and the quick "clarification," were followed shortly by a much more damaging revelation: that high officials, and perhaps even Bush II, knew much more about the possibility of suicide hijackings in the US before 9/11 than previously admitted. For months, Bush and company had claimed vociferously that no one in government could have predicted such an event. The official mantra was "no specific threat." By May 15, however, those assertions began to look less than candid. A month before the attacks, reported CBS News, Bush had been briefed about bin Laden's intention to hijack planes. Clinging to the cover story, top officials protested that the warnings were too vague, not enough to alarm the public or take effective counter-measures without causing a commercially damaging panic.

As Democrats and even some Republicans pressed for access to secret CIA analysis and FBI reports, more details trickled out, and the question of what Bush and others knew in advance became a wall-to-wall media extravaganza. By the weekend, it was clear that, at the very least, ample and repeated warnings had been provided. As early as 1994, a foiled hijacking in France had revealed that the target was the Eiffel Tower. Training hijackers to crash planes into prominent symbols was obviously not so hard to imagine. The following year, Ramzi Yousef, a mastermind of the 1993 WTC bombing with links to bin Laden, was captured. Under questioning, he boasted about a plan to fly a jet into CIA headquarters, adding that other potential hijackers were already training at US flight schools. After a cursory investigation, the threat was discounted.

As Bush went to the Rose Garden on May 17 to express outrage that anyone would even suggest he had not done everything possible, a 1999 report prepared for the National Intelligence Council undercut his claim. "Suicide bombers belonging to Al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, or the White House," the widely circulated report had warned. Along with this bombshell came the news that, from its first days, the Bush White House knew that bin Laden had personally contemplated hijacking a Pakistani airliner. More troubling still was a July 2001 warning from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Prior to the G-8 summit in Genoa, he informed the US that a hijacked airplane filled with explosives might be crashed into the conference site. Italian authorities deployed anti-aircraft guns and banned local flights. Clearly aware of the threat, Bush spent his nights during the gathering on a US navy warship anchored in the harbor.

As the drum beat for a full-scale investigation intensified, the questions multiplied. Why didn't FBI reports from the Phoenix and Minneapolis set off more serious alarms? Both focused on suspicions that Al Qaeda operatives were using US flight schools to learn how to hijack planes. Quick action was recommended, but nothing was done. When FBI Director Freeh testified before Congress in May 2001, he choose to misdirect attention toward "anarchists and extremist socialist" groups protesting corporate globalization, classifying them as terrorist threats. Why? The really convincing evidence pointed somewhere else entirely. What was in an August 6, 2001 briefing on Al Qaeda and bin Laden that Bush received? And why weren't congressional oversight committees given the same information? It was all leading to that old Watergate phrase: What did the president know, and when did he know it?

Of course, some questions were still too troubling for most media or political players to ask. For example, why, given all those warnings, was nothing done to mobilize air defense jets?  No US-based fighter jets were on alert September 11, according to the Air Force, and those responding to the hijackings did not reach New York City and Washington until after the hijacked planes had hit their targets.

Backed into a corner, the administration brought out its heavy guns for the Sunday talk shows on May 19. More effectively than her boss, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice defended the arguments about "vague" threats and dangers of disrupting the airline industry. Vice President Cheney meanwhile changed the subject, warning that another attack was inevitable, and suggesting darkly that too much public and congressional curiosity about the past could endanger national security. Democrats were accused of playing politics and sowing division in a time of crisis. Despite the pressure, the administration was intent on keeping as many secrets as possible, and ready to play the patriotism card to do it.

By May 21, the emphasis had shifted again -- from concern about a massive failure to "connect the dots" to fear, reinforced by multiple terror alerts, that revealing what was known would make another attack more likely. Suddenly, the public was inundated with warnings, "nightmare scenarios" based on "unsubstantiated reports" about weapons of mass destruction, walk-in suicide bombers, and attacks on the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn bridge, and other landmarks.  Due to pragmatic political considerations, the response was muted. As Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris warned, if Democrats appeared to be trashing Bush during a "war," Republicans might benefit from a public backlash in the 2002 elections. Weekend polling also revealed that most people weren't comfortable with Watergate comparisons. It was less politically costly to write off evidence that the administration had "dropped the ball" or even concealed information as another "failure of intelligence."  

Most of the nation's major media needed little convincing.  After breaking the story, they were quick to second guess their own evidence and accept the basic premise that Bush did not know, in fact could not be expected to know, the specifics of what was coming. Calls to patriotism and paranoia were effectively trumping the need to find out the whole truth.

It was a familiar story. Even without such official and political gamesmanship, media outlets often tend to censor themselves, sidestepping issues that threaten their images or contacts. For some journalists, the pressure stems from becoming too close to sources, especially influential officials and business leaders. A symbiotic relationship slowly develops; the reporter begins to focus on story lines that satisfy well-placed sources, sometimes holding back more vital, or damaging, material to protect access to future scoops.

Self-censorship can take the form of a conscious response to anticipated pressure, unspoken concerns about "credibility," or an unconscious surrender. When journalists talk about a "chilling effect," they are usually referring to demands from outside. But their own values, experiences, and ambitions can lead them to avoid criticism by leaving some questions unasked and stories untold. Despite an objective facade, reporters do have values and needs that affect what they select to write and how they view the world. Though many are socially liberal, they are also, in general, impressed by individualism, vulnerable to doubts about their patriotism, and nostalgic for a small town pastoralism that is increasingly hard to find. In addition, they are drawn toward "leaders," the authoritative sources who dominate their days. Thus, they often tend to discount sources that lack "authority" and avoid subjects that could generate censure from people with the power to undermine their standing

Beyond all that, many journalists are also captives of the eternal present, unable or unwilling to consistently relate one event to another or to let the past seriously intrude for long. As a result, their questions tend to be chronically narrow. But how can they shed light significant social issues or official failures when they so often fail to ask useful questions?

In the end, any medium is only as free as the people who work for it. Even without official denials, resistance and distractions, that presents a formidable obstacle to a truly open society.

The above article is an excerpt from Liar's Guns, and Money, a new book on the myths that have helped shape US history and continue to distort mass consciousness to this day.

Oil and Empire

As troops and planes headed toward Afghanistan, few people questioned the reasons for military engagement. An enemy that didn't hesitate to sacrifice thousands of civilian lives had ruthlessly attacked the nation's capital and brought down New York's tallest buildings. The identity of the chief "evildoer" also seemed self-evident: Osama bin Laden, whose al Qaeda network had struck the US before and was being sheltered in Afghanistan by the Taliban. In the wake of such an outrage, could anyone doubt that a "war on terrorism" should begin there?

Yet the roots of war are rarely so simple, and, as time passed, other powerful motives for military action in that part of the world slowly came into focus. As it turns out, strikes against Afghanistan had been in the works months before the attacks. Like the Gulf War ten years earlier, the rationale was also, if not mainly, rooted in a struggle over access to oil and gas, in this case huge finds in the Caspian Sea Basin. The only thing missing was a plausible reason. What looked like justified retaliation was, in essence, the first resource war of the 21st century.

For the major energy companies, the Caspian is a new "el Dorado." North of the Persian Gulf, and including Russia, Iran, and several former republics of the Soviet Union, it is estimated to contain the world's second or third largest reserves of petroleum, along with a vast supply of natural gas. The region is landlocked, however, so any energy found there must move to market by rail or pipeline through adjacent, often unstable states.

Despite various intra-state conflicts, complex geopolitics and considerable risks, the majors -- particularly Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell, along with Norway's Statoil, France's Elf Aquitaine, Italy's Agip, Russia's Lukoil, and the China National National Petroleum Corporation -- have been busy acquiring development rights and preparing for production since the early 1990s. Offshore drilling operations are underway in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and set to commence elsewhere. Major firms have also invested significantly in the future construction of oil and gas pipelines to distant ports and refineries. By 2010, the world's leading energy concerns expect to invest at least $50 billion in production and transportation.

The first big move was a $20 billion joint venture between Chevron and  Kazakhstan, signed in 1993 to develop the huge Tenzig oil field on the Caspian coast. Three years later, ExxonMobil purchased a 25 percent share from the government. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium, including the Tenzig partners and Russia, will soon carry 750,000 barrels a day to the Black Sea coast.

Another consortium focused on Azerbaijan's offshore fields. In 1994, BP Amoco, Lukoil, Unocal, Penzoil, Statoil, and others joined with SOCAR, Azerbaijan's state oil company, to form the Azerbaijan International Operating Company in 2001. Bush family adviser James A. Baker III, who spearheaded George W. Bush's victory in the Florida election dispute, headed the US law firm representing this consortium, and sat on the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce advisory council, as did Vice President Cheney before him.

But before their investments could produce profitable results, critical roadblocks would have to be removed. And the biggest was how to get the energy from production sites to markets. Since the US didn't want to avoid relying on existing Soviet-era pipelines (that could change due to recent gestures of US-Russian friendship), new ones would have to be constructed.

Prior to 9/11, the US government's preferred future route for oil and gas, known as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) project, went from Azerbaijan through Georgia and then south to the Turkish coast. The policy goal was to reduce both Georgia's and Azerbaijan's reliance on Russia and bring the southern Caucasus into the US fold. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is a former director of Chevron, a lynchpin of the BTC consortium with extensive operations in Azerbaijan. Until 2000, Vice President Cheney was chief executive at Halliburton Co., named a finalist in 2001 to bid on engineering work in the Turkish sector of the route.

Some companies showed more interest in a less expensive route to the Persian Gulf through Iran. But this clashed with official US policy, including a 1995 executive order prohibiting US business with Iran, as well as the 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which specifically limited oil investments. A third option was a pipeline from the Dauletebad gas fields in eastern Turkmenistan south through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, a route across western Afghanistan. After 1995, however, that meant dealing with the Taliban, a repressive regime locked in civil war.

Opening Shots

The negotiations began in the early 1990s, when energy giants, including ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell and Enron, paid top officials in Kazakhstan to secure equity rights in its huge oil reserves (up to 92 billion barrels). Unwilling to meet Russia's price for use of its pipelines, the companies promised production and pipeline investments of $35 billion.

Turkmenistan, which has possible reserves of up to 80 billion barrels of oil and 155 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, didn't want to be left out of this new Great Game.   Thus, during a US visit in March 1993, President Niyazov hired former US National Security Advisor Alexander Haig to encourage investments and soften the US stand on a pipeline via Iran.  Within two years, Unocal, one of the world's largest independent oil and gas producers, was ready to step up. In June 1995, a Unocal delegation visited Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to discuss a pipeline through the latter. While visiting New York that October, Turkmeni President Niyazov signed an Afghan pipeline deal with Unocal and Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil.

But another company was also making moves. Prior to Unocal's bid, Bridas, the third largest oil and gas company in Latin America, had struck a deal with Niyazov to develop gas fields discovered by the Soviets, and had even begun to export some oil from the Caspian. In March 1995, to fend off Bridas' competing proposal, US Ambassador Tom Simmons urged Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to grant exclusive pipeline rights through her country to Unocal. Bhutto was offended, cried extortion, and demanded a written apology.

That August, while touring Afghanistan and Central Asia, US Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel reiterated US interest in the project. By this time, however, Gazprom, a Russian company, had signed a deal with Unocal, Delta and Turkmenistan's state energy company. An exclusive consortium arrangement for the proposed Afghan pipeline followed in October. By year's end, Iran, Turkey and Turkmenistan also had struck a deal, this one for Turkey to buy Turkmen gas through Iran.

While visiting Kandahar in December, Pakistan's foreign secretary conferred with the Taliban, which had recently seized control of most of the country, about the Afghan route. In a statement that was later disavowed, Unocal expressed support for the Taliban's takeover, suggesting that it would improve prospects for their project. From his base in Afghanistan, bin Laden had already declared jihad against the US, and the Clinton administration considered him "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activity in the world." But that failed to disrupt US-backed negotiations with his hosts.

Prospecting with the Enemy

Dealing was the Taliban was not easy. Although a delegation from Afghanistan visited Washington in February 1997 to secure official recognition and meet with Unocal, only two months later, on April 8, the new regime unexpectedly announced that it would award a pipeline contract to the company that started work first. Unocal president John Imle was baffled by the change, but refused to give up.

During the summer, a new association, chaired by Unocal, was formed to promote Turkmenistan-US cooperation. The company's deadline to begin construction of a pipeline was extended one year; the new "drop dead" date would be December 1998. Hoping to keep its options open, the Clinton administration meanwhile reevaluated its resistance to a pipeline through Iran. In order to support US companies and "friends" in the region, it was now willing to drop objections to a Persian Gulf route. Encouraged by the shift, Shell entered the negotiations. The majors finally appeared ready to make their move.

At this point, the Taliban threw another curve ball, announcing that it was leaning toward Bridas to build the pipeline. To press its advantage, the Argentina-based company joined forces with another major, Amoco. Still in the game, however, Unocal made some headway with Pakistan, signing a 30-year pricing agreement. Despite Bhutto's complaints, US pressure was paying off. By October the pieces appeared to be in place. Led by Unocal, Delta, Turkmenistan, Japan's Itochi Oil, Indonesia Petroleum, Crescent Group, and Hyundai became partners in the new Central Asia Gas Pipeline Ltd. (CentGas). Gasprom signed soon after.

Still hoping to win over the Taliban, Unocal invited a delegation to visit corporate headquarters in Sugarland, Texas on December 4. The Afghan visitors also met with State Department officials.  But efforts to negotiate a deal failed, allegedly because the Taliban asked for too much money. Sensing trouble, Gazprom pulled out of the consortium the following February, leaving Unocal at risk with a 54 percent interest. Shortly thereafter, Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca, later to become a Special Ambassador to Afghanistan, testified before the US House. Until a single, unified, and friendly government was in place in Afghanistan, he told lawmakers on February 12, 1998, a trans-Afghani pipeline would not be built.  The need for a regime change had been put on the table.

A month later, Unocal announced that its pipeline project was on indefinite hold, citing financing difficulties and ongoing civil war in Afghanistan. Having spent $10-15 million already, however, it did not want to give up completely. Some shareholders had a different idea. At Unocal's annual meeting in June 1998, several of them objected to the Afghan pipeline because of the Taliban's obvious violations of human rights.

By this time, it was quite clear that Afghanistan was one of bin Laden's major operational bases. There was also the related warning from CIA Case Officer Robert Baer that Saudi Arabia was harboring an al-Qaeda cell led by two known terrorists. Yet the CIA apparently ignored the warnings until August 7, when the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed. The trail quickly led to bin Laden.

Thirteen days later the US retaliated, sending cruise missiles into Al Qaeda camps near Khost and Jalalabad. Finally getting the message, Unocal officially suspended its Afghan pipeline plan and pulled out staff throughout the region. Before the end of 1998, it also withdrew from the $2.9 billion Turkmenistan-to-Turkey natural gas project, as well as the Afghan pipeline consortium. The reasons cited were low oil prices, pressure on human rights, and the activities of bin Laden. Whatever the truth, Unocal's quest for "el Dorado" had been indefinitely postponed.  

Taking advantage of an opening, Bridas resumed negotiations with Russia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan in February 1999. Shortly, Turkmenistan's foreign minister met with the Taliban's Mullah Omar to discuss the proposed pipeline. Enron also expressed an interest. With 3 billion already invested in a plan to build an electrical generating plant at Dabhol, India, it had recently lost access to plentiful liquid Natural Gas supplies from Qatar to fuel the plant. A trans-Afghani gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, terminating at the Pakistani city of Multan near the Indian border, looked like a promising alternative.  Before the end of April, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and the Taliban had sealed an agreement to revive the project.

During this period another pipeline opened, linking Baku in Azerbaijan to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast. Azerbaijan has estimated reserves of 32 billion barrels of oil and 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it the third largest potential regional source after Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Despite recent setbacks, US hopes for an eventual link from Georgia to Turkey, a long-term ally, were still alive.

Dropping the Ball

The Bush family was well acquainted with the bin Ladens, if not their alleged black sheep Osama, long before the Saudi renegade declared war on the US and its allies in Saudi Arabia's royal family. Even after the 1998 embassy attacks, the relationship remained cordial, largely due to the intercession of the Carlyle Group, a large US defense contractor. In 1998, and again in 2000, the first President Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia on behalf of Carlyle, meeting privately with both the Saudi royals and several of bin Laden's relatives.

This may help explain why, shortly after it moved into the White House in January 2001, the Bush II administration reportedly told the FBI and intelligence agencies to back off investigations involving the family. The Bureau was apparently interested in two bin Laden relatives, Abdullah and Omar, who were living near CIA headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia. Bush's blind spot for Saudi Arabia and contact with the bin Ladens may also explain why no action was taken when, on January 26, the FBI told the new administration there was clear evidence tying Al Qaeda to the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.

While covering a trial of Al Qaeda members in February, UPI Terrorism Correspondent Richard Sale noted that the NSA had broken bin Laden's encrypted communications. Since officials insist that plans for 9/11 must have been in the work for years, one has to wonder whether no hint of what was ahead had been revealed. National Security Advisor Rice certainly knew something was up. Her predecessor Sandy Berger had briefed her in detail, advising that she would "be spending more time on this issue than on any other." Yet, according to a Newsweek cover story on "What Bush Knew" released in May 2002, a strategic review "was marginalized and scarcely mentioned in the ensuing months as the administration committed itself to other priorities, like national missile defense (NMD) and Iraq."

The administration did not ignore the Taliban, however. On the contrary, it offered the regime some aid. In May, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million package for the regime, purportedly to assist hungry farmers who were starving since the destruction of their opium crop on orders from the Taliban's leaders.

The US was also keen to resolve a decade-long conflict over a mountainous Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan. Further fighting there might jeopardize other pipeline investments. Powell personally opened up talks in April between leaders of both countries. After a sit-down in Key West, the two leaders dashed off to Washington for separate sessions with Bush. Leaving little to chance, the administration promised large financial packages to the adversaries if they buried the hatchet. Armenia was in especially tough shape. Three of its four rail links were unused due to closed frontiers with Azerbaijan and Turkey, and the economy was in a long-term nose dive.

Another priority was Pakistan, particularly its ongoing conflict with India over Kashmir. To address that, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a former covert operative who had also worked at State for Bush I, was sent to India on a publicized tour. Meanwhile, CIA Director George Tenet quietly visited Pakistan to meet with General Pervez Musharraf, who had taken power in a 1998 coup. While in Islamabad, Tenet and Musharraf held what was described later as "an unusually long meeting." Tenet's Pakistani counterpart, Lt. General Mahmud Ahmad, was also on hand.  A few months later, Ahmad told an aide to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, who the FBI later described as the lead terrorist in the suicide hijackings. Ahmad resigned in October after the transfer was disclosed in India and confirmed by the FBI.  Armitage's peace mission did not go any better. A year later, India and Pakistan had one million troops at their borders, and a regional nuclear war looked possible.

By June 2001, the warning signs were obvious for anyone willing to listen. German intelligence had informed both the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture."  On June 28, CIA Director Tenet informed Condi Rice that it was "highly likely" that a "significant Qaeda attack" would take place "in the near future." Before he reached Genoa in July for the G-8 summit, Bush obviously understood the danger. Among others, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had issued a blunt warning: someone wanted to crash a plane filled with explosives into the conference site.

But word of imminent US military action was also leaking out. One scenario appeared on indiareacts.com, an online magazine, which reported on June 26 that "India and Iran will 'facilitate' US and Russian plans for 'limited military action' against the Taliban." The story indicated that US and Russian troops would do most of the fighting, with the help of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Other reports said that Tajik and Uzbek forces were already training in Alaska and Montana, and that US rangers were preparing special troops in Kyrgyzstan.  The BCC and Times of India published similar predictions.

During a meeting with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in Berlin, three former US officials -- Tom Simmons (US Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian affairs) and Lee Coldren (State Department expert on South Asia) -- said much the same thing: The US was planning military strikes against Afghanistan. They even speculated on the launch date -- October 2001. Unfortunately, Taliban members may also have been in the room, or at least privy to what was said, according to Bin Laden - La Verite Interdite, a French book released after 9/11. In any event, the British press later reported that Pakistan's secret service had relayed the news to the Taliban's leadership. So much for the element of surprise.

The Plots Thicken

When revelations eventually surfaced that the US had received credible warnings of an impending attack by Middle Eastern radicals, officials protested that the information was too vague and that, in any case, President Bush did not know about the possibility that airplanes might be hijacked until an August 6, 2001 briefing. A key element of this defense was that intelligence available to the CIA, including a report forwarded from Russian intelligence that 25 terrorist pilots had been training specifically for suicide missions, simply never reached the president's desk. Neither, apparently, did a July 10 report from the FBI's Phoenix office. In that document, a well-respected field agent had warned that the unusual number of Middle Eastern men enrolling in US flight schools might be part of a bin Laden plot. Although his analysis did make it to headquarters, follow up action was delayed, supposedly due to the expense and staff time involved.

Was this simply a matter of poor coordination? True or not, that was quickly adopted as the most convenient explanation. Yet credible evidence points in other directions. To start, the government had been taking steps toward military action against Afghanistan for some time, and Bush obviously knew bin Laden was a serious threat. Surely, coordination wasn't the only issue. But even more troubling was a report that the CIA may have made contact with the "evildoer" two months before the attacks.

According to a controversial story in the French paper Le Figaro, published on October 31, 2001, bin Laden allegedly received treatments for his kidney ailment at a hospital in Dubai, a Gulf port city, sometime between July 4 and 14. While there, he reportedly met with someone from the CIA. "Several days later the CIA officer bragged to his friends about having visited the Saudi millionaire," the story claimed. "From authoritative sources, this CIA agent visited CIA headquarters on July 15th, the day after bin Laden's departure for Quetta." Although an intelligence finding issued by President Clinton before leaving office made him eligible for execution, for some reason bin Laden was allowed to leave without incident on a private jet, the French newspaper charged.

Among other things, the story indicated that Arab diplomatic sources and French intelligence itself believed "precise information was communicated to the CIA concerning terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world, including its own territory." In a subsequent meeting with French intelligence, it added, US agents asked for details about Algerian activists connected to bin Laden through Dubai banks. But when asked, What do you fear in the coming days? they "responded with incomprehensible silence."

Finally, the French expose charged that "the FBI discovered certain plans that had been put together between the CIA and its 'Islamic friends' over the years. The meeting in Dubai is, so it would seem, consistent with 'a certain American policy.'"

Was any of it true? Le Figaro claimed to have confirmed bin Laden's visit with hospital staff. The next day, however, several of those quoted issued denials, and the CIA insisted that no meeting between one of its agents and bin Laden had taken place. Someone was obviously lying. The question was who.

An equally perplexing lead involved a US Navy Lieutenant, Delmart "Mike" Vreeland, who was in a Toronto jail on US fraud charges at the time. Vreeland claimed to be an officer in US Naval intelligence. The Navy initially denied that, claiming that Vreeland never worked in intelligence and was discharged as a seaman in 1986 for unsatisfactory performance. In any case, Vreeland reportedly wrote down some details about a planned attack on the World Trade Center in early August, placed his notes in a sealed envelope, and handed it over to the Canadian authorities.  Three days after 9/11, they opened the envelope and discovered that Vreeland's description was correct. 

Four months later, on January 10, 2002, attorneys for Vreeland called the Pentagon's switchboard operator from a speakerphone in open court. The operator confirmed that Vreeland was a Naval Lieutenant on active duty. She even provided a phone number and the extension for his office in the Pentagon. Even so, how did a Navy officer get such information, and how many others also knew in advance?

One person clearly in the loop was Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic militant linked to bin Laden who was arrested by the FBI on August 17. A key member of the Al Qaeda network, he had been taking flying lessons but showed little interest in learning how to take off or land. At the time of his arrest, Moussaoui had technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. An FBI agent actually warned his superiors that Moussaoui might have been planning to "fly something into the World Trade Center." Even this failed to set off a serious alarm. The CIA did know enough to offer a detailed list of known terrorists to Saudi intelligence. But like those at the top in the Bush administration, the Saudis ignored it.

Finally, there was a warning from Russia. Based on reports he received, President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB chief, ordered Russian intelligence in August to tell the US government "in the strongest possible terms" that attacks on airports and government buildings were imminent. Still, no action.

Afterward, the Bush administration denied having any specific prior knowledge. But given all the available warnings, not to mention US plans to mount an attack of its own on Afghanistan, the failure to take effective preventive measures looked, at the very least, like a case of willful disregard.

The Eve of Disaster

As summer 2001 waned, the fledging administration in Washington faced a growing list of problems, both at home and abroad. Vermont Senator James Jeffords' decision to leave the Republican Party in April had altered the congressional balance of power, putting much of the Bush domestic agenda in jeopardy. Fast Track trading authority had been stalled. Enron was about to implode. Europe was breaking with the US on missile defense, trade, environmental policy, and Latin American intervention. Protests challenging "globalization were gaining momentum worldwide. China are Russia were learning to cooperate, and NATO looked like it might be obsolete. In late August and the early days of September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reacted by dropping nearly 900 points, which only increased speculation about a looming economic crash.

But the administration had some information that the rest of the public did not. For example, it had just sent two US carrier battle groups into the Gulf of Arabia, just off the Pakistani coast. Meanwhile, about 17,000 US troops joined more than 20,000 NATO soldiers in Egypt for Operation Bright Star, while 23,000 British troops steamed toward Oman for Operation Swift Sword. In short, the people in charge knew a military engagement was imminent. What better way was there to change the dynamic?

On September 7, in a move that was either prescient or premeditated, the president's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, signed emergency executive order number 01-261. It contained new provisions allowing the Florida National Guard to assist law enforcement and emergency management personnel in the event of large civil disturbances, disaster, or terrorism. Had he too heard something, or was he just being cautious?

By this time, President Bush certainly understood that an attack on US symbols, probably involving hijackers, was only a matter of time. And Attorney General Ashcroft knew enough to begin using a privately chartered jet for security reasons, even though he refused to increase the number of FBI counter-terrorism agents. But who else knew, and how detailed was the information? Apparently, some interested parties had specific enough information to purchase 4,744 put options (speculation that a stock will go down) on United Air Lines (UAL) stock on September 6-7. Only 396 calls were bought those two days. It was a dramatic, abnormal increase in sales. Many of the puts were purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard.

Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Munich re, and AXA Re, an insurance firm that owned 25 percent of American Airlines, also purchased an unusually high number of puts in the four working days before the attacks. On September 10, American Airlines saw similar activity: 4,516 puts and 748 calls. No other airlines showed similar trading. Three weeks later, at least $2.5 million worth of puts on American and UAL stock remained unredeemed. A suspension in trading on the New York Stock Exchange after the attacks had given the Securities and Exchange Commission time to prepare if the owners showed up. Inexplicably, the puts were 600 percent above normal at a time when Reuters was reporting that "airline stocks may be poised to take off." Someone certainly felt certain enough to place heavy bets that the two airlines would soon take a hit.

Sadly, it was the right wager. Early on that sunny Tuesday, September 11, after taking off from airports in Newark, Boston and Washington DC for routine cross-country trips, three American and United Airlines flights with fully-loaded fuel tanks destroyed the world-famous Twin Towers of downtown Manhattan's World Trade Center and a portion of the Pentagon. A fourth flight was forced to crash by a group of brave passengers before reaching its destination, possibly the White House.

Although FAA and the military recognized within minutes that the planes had been simultaneously hijacked and diverted off course shortly after 8:15, no one notified Bush until 9:05, almost an hour later. TV cameras captured his lack of surprise. By the time Air Force planes were scrambled to intercept at 9:30, it was far too late. Despite the unprecedented nature of the attacks, the National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before responding. Soon afterward, US airports were shut down for the rest of the day. Yet, within hours, the FBI helped Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar fly members of the bin Laden family out of the country.

A week later, FBI Director Robert Mueller updated the press. "There were no warning signs that I'm aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country," he claimed. It sounded fairly reasonable at the time.

Back to Business

In the weeks after 9/11, national mourning, frustration and anger, adroitly stoked by the major media, provided a more than adequate justification for the military battle plan hatched months before. A worldwide campaign against terrorism and an alleged "axis of evil" that included Iraq, Iran and North Korea would have sounded needlessly militant or overly ambitious before the attacks. Afterward, it was hard, even risky, to speak out against the call to war. The order of the day was unity, and whatever the administration needed, Congress (and the public) seemed willing to supply. As people often said at the time, the world had changed.

After suffered a precipitous drop, the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered most of its pre-attack losses by mid-October. Although still weak, and vulnerable to negative earnings reports and bombshells about Enron's troubles, a crash had been narrowly averted. But the magic bullet was a massive infusion of government spending on defense programs, subsidies for "affected" industries, and planned tax cuts for corporations. Wartime spending was again in fashion.

Plans to turn the Caspian basin into an alternative source of energy, especially if oil deliveries from the Persian Gulf were blocked or suspended, were also revived. For example, once Pakistan was engaged as a US ally (despite its connections to Al Qaeda and other extremists), US Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain paid a call on the Pakistani oil minister. The war had barely begun, but the outcome looked certain. "In view of recent geopolitical developments," she told the minister on October 10, Unocal's pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Pakistani coast is back on the table.

After the Taliban was routed, the appointment of Hamid Karzai as interim (and likely long-term) leader of a western-friendly Afghanistan provided the project with another boost. As Le Monde revealed in late December, Karzai was a former Unocal consultant and a long-term CIA asset, just the kind of leader the oil companies had hoped to see. Bridas was out, Unocal was back in. Bush further increased the odds of success early in the new year by appointing Zalamy Khalilzad, a former Unocal employee, as his special envoy to the recently invaded nation. It apparently did not matter that, four years earlier, Khalilzad had been a Taliban booster, even writing op-eds for the Washington Post.

It took only a month to work out the details. On February 9, 2002, Pakistani leader Musharraf and Afghan leader Karzai proudly announced an agreement to "cooperate in all spheres of activity," especially the proposed Central Asian pipeline. Pakistan was even prepared to subsidize some of the costs, offering $10 million to help pay Afghani government workers.

During the war, the Pentagon had used Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as rear bases and aid corridors. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan hosted no troops, but agreed to open airspace and airfields. By early 2002, experts were busy evaluating the Tajik airfields as operational bases for future missions. Thousands of US soldiers were now deployed in former Soviet Central Asia, many of them on an Uzbekistan airfield near the Afghan border. Uzbek President Islam Karimov, a key ally, saw no need to set a deadline for their departure. It was easy to see why; Uzbekistan had been promised up to $150 million in loans and grants. Meanwhile, outside Kyrgyzstan's capital, military facilities were under construction at Manas international airport, eventually to house up to 3000 troops. Slowly but surely, under careful western guidance, the region was being militarily transformed.

As usual, the policy aims were veiled. Speaking to Congress early in the year, Elizabeth Jones, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, offered the official line. The administration envisioned a permanent US presence that would boost economic development and sustain democratic reforms, she said. Translation: more US investments and a bit less outright brutality. At least Deputy Defense Secretary James Wolfowitz was more direct. By upgrading its military presence, he explained, the US wanted to send a message. It would not forget its new friends. At the same time, however, the administration was pushing to scrap a Cold War-era law placing conditions on former Soviet republics' trade relations, based on their human rights records. This also sent a message; in return for loyalty, it said, the US might be prepared to cut the local tyrants some slack.

With Afghanistan finally a safe place for investments, the focus soon shifted to Georgia and the BTC pipeline project, still the key to moving Azerjaijan's oil and gas to the Turkish coast. Chevron and Halliburton were eagerly waiting in the wings. As US Caspian envoy Stephen Mann explained, the US was willing to promote almost any pipeline that bypassed Iran. (Energy companies were also exploring a section of the Caspian claimed by both Iran and Azerbaijan). To keep the BTC pipeline on track, Georgian Defense official Mirian Kiknadze told Radio Free Europe on February 27, "The US military will train our rapid reaction force, which is guarding strategic sites in Georgia -- particularly oil pipelines."

Deputy Secretary of State Armitage, a former co-chairman of the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, also chimed in, emphatically re-affirming US support for the BTC pipeline during a March 8 visit with Turkish premier Bulent Ecevit. Within weeks, words were matched by funding: a $4.4 million aid package for Azerjaijan, prominently featuring military support and hardware.

A month after that, more US military advisors began to arrive in Georgia, along with 10 combat helicopters. Officially, the objective was to help combat Islamic radicals in the Pankisi Gorge, allegedly a safe haven for al Qaeda and their Chechen allies. But as most Georgians, though not many US citizens, understood, their main task was to protect US interests in Caspian oil and gas. With Turkish air force operations due in Azerbaijan later in 2002, the US was actively promoting a NATO-friendly axis to guard the BTC route and counter a potential alliance between Armenia, Iran and, if relations ever turned sour, Russia. 

Waging war in Afghanistan had not destroyed Al Qaeda or eliminated the threat of further attacks, but it had driven the Taliban from power and cleared the way for a much-needed pipeline. Across the region, US aid and military operations designed to prevent obstructions elsewhere were rapidly being put in place. At home, Bush was riding a wave of patriotism that even the Enron scandal and charges of an "intelligence failure" prior to 9/11 could not stop.

Access to Power

Understanding the interests of energy companies, and how US influence can make a difference, comes naturally for George W. Bush. Though his start as an oilman in the 1970s was unimpressive, his father's presidential victory eventually made him a valuable asset for Harken Energy, a modest Texas oil company with large ambitions. By January 1990, he was on the board, receiving generous consulting fees and holding substantial stock. The timing was perfect: Harken had just defied the odds by making an oil production sharing deal with Bahrain. It gave the company the exclusive right to explore for gas and oil off the shores of the Gulf island nation. If anything was found near two of the world's largest gas and oil fields, Harken would have the exclusive marketing and transportation rights. 

For a company that had never drilled an offshore well, the agreement was a remarkable leap. But since Harken lacked sufficient financing to do the job alone, a partnership was established with Bass Enterprises Production Company of Fort Worth, Texas. The Bass family contributed more than $200,000 to the Republican Party during the Bush I years. Nevertheless, only five months after Harken's Bahrain deal, Bush suddenly sold most of his stock for $848,560, a remarkable 200 percent profit. Another timely move. A week later, the company announced a $23 million loss in earnings, and less than two months after that, on August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops moved into Kuwait.

Over half a million US troops were deployed to the Gulf over the next six months, while Harken stock lost 60 percent of its value. According to US News and World Report, solid evidence suggests that Bush cashed out because knew the company was facing trouble weeks in advance. Harken evidently didn’t hold a grudge, however, and continued to provide generous payments for the younger Bush’s consulting services throughout the 1990s. After all, once the Gulf War was over, the Bahrain deal still held the promise of profits for those who stayed the course.

Bush II’s executive brain trust was even more knowledgeable. Both his vice president and national security advisor worked previously with oil companies that had Caspian ambitions. Commerce Secretary Don Evans was the former CEO of Tom Brown, Inc., a mid-sized oil and gas outfit. Gale Norton, appointed Secretary of the Interior, began her career with the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative think tank funded by oil companies and founded by her mentor and predecessor, the infamous James Watt. She also chaired the Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates, a front group backed by BP Amoco and the Ford Motor Company. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham also have auto company connections, and Attorney General Ashcroft received major contributions from ExxonMobil, BP Amoco and Enron during his failed 2000 bid for Senate reelection. After Enron's crooked books were exposed, Ashcroft recused himself from that investigation. But he didn't back away from federal grand juries investigating bribery and corruption charges against ExxonMobil and BP Amoco.

Of course, this is not the first US administration to work closely with big energy. In the days before laws regulating campaign finance, oil interests contributed half of the $100 million used in Dwight Eisenhower’s 1952 presidential campaign. His victory assured the removal of federal control over domestic offshore oil, at the time valued at about $40 billion. Republican control of the Federal Power Commission was equally helpful to the gas end of the industry. A Rockefeller brother-in-law, Winthrop Aldrich, then Chair of Chase Manhattan Bank, became Ambassador to Britain, a strategic posting that helped to safeguard Standard Oil’s interests and keep an eye on overseas rivals. Robert B. Anderson, manager of a Texas oil company and member of the National Petroleum Council, was named to head the Navy Department, the country’s biggest oil customer. 

It didn’t take long before access to oil led to covert action. Responding to Iran’s nationalizing of the Anglo-Iran Oil Company, the only energy concern operating there at the time, Eisenhower quickly approved a plan to overthrow its defiant Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and install the young Shah of Iran. The argument was that the 1953 operation, reportedly costing the CIA $19 million, saved the country from a Communist takeover. But the main beneficiaries were the five leading US oil companies, which were subsequently able to cut a deal for 50 percent of Iran’s “liberated” operations through a new international consortium negotiated by the State Department. In short, Afghanistan was not the first place where the interests of the energy industry served as a powerful motivating factor for US intervention.  

Even the most clever schemes can have unintended consequences, however. Twenty-five years after the Iranian coup, an anti-Western fundamentalist regime drove out the Shah, setting off a major “oil shock” and fatally damaging the Carter administration. The new Iranian regime posed a much more serious long-term threat to oil supplies, and regional peace in general, than the one overthrown in 1953. And the Caspian Basin? There, a “war on terrorism” -– really a battle for control over resources -- emboldened local tyrants, who saw their tactical alliance with the US as protective cover to pursue brutal agendas. By late May 2002, this was taking the world to the brink of a nuclear exchange, as Pakistan’s leadership (a key US ally in the Afghanistan operation and important player in pipeline politics) threatened to use nukes in its protracted dispute with India in Kashmir. 

Did Bush and his aides know in advance about plans to take down the World Trade Center? Despite all the denials, the jury will probably be out indefinitely. Yet, there is little doubt that many people, in and out of government, expected a major attack before it happened. Some may even have been counting on it. Without a pretext, after all, it might have been difficult to convince the US public that it was necessary to overturn a faraway regime, even one that systematically abused women and publicly executed people in a football stadium. This, of course, was not the point of the campaign. But then again, neither was “routing out the terrorists.” The true objective, established well before any planes went down, was to protect and move future supplies of oil and gas. Whatever the risks, and whoever might suffer, the road to el Dorado simply had to remain open.

GREG GUMA is the editor of Toward Freedom, author of The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution, and director/writer of the new compact disc set, Nonviolent Warriors: Dave Dellinger and the Power of the People (available via www.TowardFreedom.com). “Oil and Empire” is a chapter from his upcoming book, Liars, Guns, and Money: Perception Management and Other New World Disorders. 

The Empire's Trade Clothes

Saying no to corporate tyranny

On the eve of 2000, shortly after compelling protests in Seattle derailed the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), that leading branch of our unofficial world government launched a brief charm offensive. The goal: to convince a confused, yet instinctively skeptical public that the world's financial overseers had learned something about openness.

Critics had charged, among other things, that the WTO operates in secret, making decisions with global impacts without significant public input or accountability. In the future, a WTO press release replied, there would be "increased dialogue with non-governmental organizations and civil society."

Cut to early 2001, little more than a year later. After more popular resistance during World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) confabs in Washington, DC, a WTO session in Prague, and the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) annual gathering in Switzerland, the would-be masters of post-industrial capitalism have made it absolutely clear that what they've actually learned is not to be caught off guard again. Rather than opting for "increased dialogue," they now pick locales designed for maximum insulation. And so, what more appropriate place could be found for the November 2001 WTO meeting than Qatar, a wealthy desert monarchy in the Arabian Peninsula with no constitution, no political parties, and little tolerance for even peaceful opposition.

Under British military control until 1971, Qatar is smaller than Connecticut, with fewer people than Baltimore, yet has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. The key is its enormous oil and gas revenues. In 1995, Crown Prince Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani seized power by ousting his own father. Political demonstrations are prohibited, and private groups, which must register with the government, are closely monitored by security agencies. Workers have no collective bargaining rights; in fact, Qatar has been suspended from US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) insurance programs because of its failure to observe basic labor rights. In corporate terms, it's the perfect spot.

Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder puts it this way: "The WTO's choice of Qatar demonstrates the fallacy that the WTO is committed to transparency. We have to ask what the WTO's real agenda is when it needs to meet in a nation that prohibits peaceful demonstrations, and hinders the freedom of the press." In other words, what are they trying to hide? Why must every meeting of the world's financial managers be accompanied by police state tactics to stifle free speech and disrupt the opposition?

The next face-off will come in Quebec City when 34 heads of state gather in April to work on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) during a hemispheric summit. This time, the meeting site is inside the fortress walls of Old Quebec City, built to repel the invaders of centuries past. But apparently that isn't protection enough. A concrete and metal fence topped with razor wire is being installed around several square miles of the hilltop location. Beyond that, riot police will stand guard, just to be certain that naysayers don't penetrate what's been dubbed a "security zone."

The US border is hours away, yet the show of force is expected to include a selective blockade designed to prevent critics of corporate globalization from even entering Canada. A preview was provided last June, when about 500 activists who wanted to protest at a meeting of the Organization of American States in Windsor, Ontario, were turned back at the border. On the US side, nearby Detroit declared a civil emergency. Some claim dossiers were provided by the FBI. Hard to prove, but the bureau did help the Czech government deal with IMF protests in Prague last September by generously sending a list of US activists who were later prevented from entering the country.  

Over the past year, a full menu of strong-arm tactics has been used to disrupt protests. Free speech and the right to assemble have been greeted with unwarranted searches and surveillance, preemptive mass arrests, brutal detention treatment and unconstitutional bail amounts, raids on activist convergence centers, political profiling, and the establishment of local "intelligence units" reminiscent of Vietnam-era Red Squads. Apparently, globalization can't proceed without a draconian trade-off - the corporate right to "free" trade and investment worldwide in exchange for the abandonment of all democratic pretenses.

NAFTA on Steroids

The stakes will be especially high in Quebec City. Heads of state from every country in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba hope to reach basic agreement on the FTAA, considered the most far-reaching trade agreement in history.

In recent years, other trade and investment plans have hit roadblocks. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was defeated at both the first WTO ministerial meeting in 1996 and, two years later, at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In December 1999, the "Millennium Round" meeting of the WTO in Seattle was shut down, not only by the protests but also by internal squabbling between member states. Also in turmoil, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) is unlikely to become a free trade and investment zone. Another failure could put big-time trade deals on the back burner for years.

When government leaders meet in April, they'll look at a preliminary draft of the FTAA, in hopes of approving a text. Originally slated for implementation by 2005, some countries, notably Chile and the US, now want the final ratification date moved up to 2003. But this will depend on how the negotiations go.

Why the rush? Although based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), this hemispheric pact would go much further, imposing all the corporate-friendly disciplines of the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), along with key parts of the failed MAI. At the urging of big business, FTAA negotiators have merged the most ambitious elements of every existing or proposed global trade and investment scheme into one document. The resulting agreement would have vast authority over virtually every aspect of life in the Americas.

In WTO-speak, the GATS, which is still being hammered out in Geneva, would "liberalize" the global trade in services, including all public programs, and eventually phase out any government "barriers" to international competition. The FTAA's Trade Negotiations Committee proposes something very similar, plus expansion of NAFTA's "investor-state" provisions. The latter would grant corporations unprecedented rights to push their interests through legally binding trade tribunals.

Combining these powers in one binding trade agreement gives businesses the right to compete for and even challenge every publicly funded service, including health care, education, social security, culture, and environmental protection.

The proposed FTAA also contains new provisions on competition, government purchasing, market access, and dispute settlement. Together with rules governing services and investments, all this would reduce the ability of governments to pass or maintain laws, standards, and regulations protecting health, safety, and the environment. Making matters worse, FTTA negotiators chose to emulate the WTO rather than NAFTA in key areas, even though WTO rules are more strict.

Like NAFTA and the WTO, the pact will contain no safeguards to protect workers, human rights, social security, health, or environmental standards. Civil society groups and most citizens have been excluded from the negotiations; thus, it is no shock that opponents will be kept as far as possible from the Quebec City deliberations.

The Urge to Merge

With a population of 800 million and a combined GDP of $11 trillion, the FTAA would be the largest free trade zone in the world. If reports about various "negotiating groups" are right, it will also be the most far-reaching free trade agreement yet.

The work began at the December 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, Florida. At that meeting, then President Bill Clinton pledged to fulfill former President George Bush's promise of a free trade agreement stretching from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego, based on the NAFTA free market model. Still, little progress was made until 1998, when the next summit, held in Santiago, Chile, set up a Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) with delegates from each country.

Nine working groups were established to deal with the major negotiation areas, along with three special committees to deal with smaller economies, civil society, and electronic commerce. The committees and working groups have met frequently since then, bringing almost 1000 trade negotiators back to Miami, where most meetings have been held. Predictably, big corporations and their lobby groups are in the driver's seat. Over 500 business representatives have security clearance and access to FTAA documents.

A key task has been to compare and consolidate components of other trade and investment agreements, including NAFTA, MERCOSUR (a common market including Southern Cone countries - Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay), the Andean Pact, and Caricom, a Caribbean community pact. Negotiators also reviewed several Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITS) between individual nations that allow corporations to sue governments for alleged property rights violations.

Of course, there are some differences between the various agreements. But the similarities far outweigh them. Both NAFTA and MERCOSUR, for example, deregulate foreign investment and grant "national rights" to foreign investors. Both also rule out "performance requirements," which would force foreign investors to enhance the local economy and support workers.

In addition, both NAFTA and MERCOSUR are based on a model of trade and investment "liberalization" that locks in the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) imposed by the World Bank and IMF. Under SAPs, most developing countries have been forced to abandon domestic industry in favor of corporate interests; convert their best agricultural lands for export crop production to pay off national debts; cut public spending and abandon social programs; deregulate electricity, transportation, energy, and natural resources sectors; and remove regulatory impediments to foreign investment.

The increased presence of European Union (EU) business interests in Latin America, especially banking, telecommunications, automobiles, and consumer products, has led the US to reassert its leadership. The EU has negotiated free trade and investment agreements with countries such as Chile, Mexico, and Brazil. In response, the US is counting on the FTAA to protect the dominance of its own corporate sector.

 Spin Control

In a triumph of doublespeak, the governments and corporations pushing the FTAA claim their new trade and investment rules have been developed with substantial citizen involvement. Yet, the proposal reflects none of the concerns voiced by civil society, and contains countless provisions opposed by human rights and social justice groups, farmers, indigenous peoples, artists, and workers. Cosmetic compromises won't make it more palatable.

A related claim - that opponents are merely isolationists and anti-progress extremists who would refuse to accept any rules or economic links between nations - is just as deceptive. What the opposition really wants is a different set of assumptions, true respect for the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and strong environmental and labor standards. With such reforms, closer economic and cultural ties with other countries throughout the Americas could promote a form of globalization that respects sovereignty, extends social justice, and promotes sane and equitable resource use.

If the FTAA is blocked, and other international trade deals can be redrawn or overturned, the world might begin to move toward an international trading system based on democracy, sustainability, diversity, and balanced development. In the short term, needed reforms include such things as removing the trade provisions that allow corporations to sue governments, recasting energy policies with an emphasis on conservation, and exempting basic resources like water from any future agreements. But to do that, international trade and investment must be kept on the front burner of public debate. This requires consistent and convincing arguments that expose the real goals of the bureaucrats and corporate dons currently calling the shots.  

It won't be easy. Even when the opposition to corporate globalization is massive, it's often misunderstood. And when the protests occur outside the US or industrialized West, they're easy for the world press to ignore. A case in point is Ecuador. Most of that country was recently shut down by a campesino and indigenous uprising in response to price hikes and unpopular policies imposed under IMF pressure. The main highways were blocked, and radio stations were seized. When protesters occupied the Salesian Polytechnic University, the government cut off water, electricity, and phone services. Promising a dialogue, officials instead imposed a state of emergency, suspended constitutional guarantees, and mobilized the armed forces to quell dissent. At least three people were killed.

Still, the resistance continued, ultimately forcing the government to concede. In early February, an agreement was signed, reducing the price of cooking gas, cutting bus fares, providing more capital for small farmers and businesses, and promising increased government funding for health and education. The government also pledged to drop the charges against anyone arrested, compensate those who were injured and the families of the deceased, and return all confiscated property.

Predictably, the corporate press took little notice during all of this. To news anchors, it's just one more peasant revolt. The fact that such protests and uprisings have become increasingly common in response to privatization and other aspects of globalization apparently isn't news.

Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor, a leading military intelligence report, prefers to see the opposition as an anarchist revival, failing to mention the strong presence of labor unions. It also argues that "too many disparate themes do not make for coherent protest." Taking this cue, most US media coverage highlights the unusual attire and extreme tactics of a few, meanwhile betraying a snide disinterest in what those out on the street actually want.

Enforcing Exploitation

The US national security apparatus knows well that the situation is volatile, threatening visions of a free trade juggernaut. Specifically, the Bush administration realizes that quick action - along with military muscle - will be essential. Thus, fast track authority is a high priority. This would give the president the power to negotiate trade deals, only bringing them to Congress for final approval. Clinton failed to get it; now, Bush II promises to submit a legislative proposal before the April summit.

But greater executive power alone doesn't guarantee Latin American acquiescence. For that, only increased military engagement will do. It starts at the border. Militarization of the US-Mexico border has intensified since NAFTA's introduction, and the number of Border Patrol agents has doubled. According to a recent report from the Center for International Policy, the US is also pouring unprecedented amounts of aid and other support into the region's armed forces.

The most obvious example: $1.3 billion for "Plan Colombia," the US-backed effort to train and equip the Colombian army. Officially, the objective is to fight a "drug war," but another target is the leftist insurgency there. Millions are also being given to the military in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, where a key air base will be refurbished for use by US spy planes.

"The United States trains more military personnel from Latin America than from East and South Asia, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union combined," notes Joy Olson, the report's co-author.

The US runs a huge Latin America training program - and not just for the "drug war." In 1999 alone, more than 55,000 US military personnel visited the region to provide expert advice and direct support. The skills being taught include air assault, sharp shooting, and riot control. The official line is that the training teaches soldiers to respect civilian authority, but it's really a seal of approval for whatever the local military, under a watchful US eye, decides to do.

The renaming of the School of the Americas (SOA), where thousands of Latin American military officers - including many notorious human rights abusers - have studied counter-insurgency techniques, provides a useful clue. The new name is the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation. Whether the curriculum will change remains unclear, but it's already plain to see that permanent military engagement in Latin America is high on the Bush agenda.

And what's at stake? In Colombia, it's access to oil, especially the drilling operations of Occidental on land claimed by the indigenous U'wa, as well as that country's strategic location as the gateway to South America. In Uruguay and Argentina, there's already widespread resistance to privatization and budget cuts. In Brazil, genetically engineered soybeans have been kept out of the country by consumer resistance and court action.

In Bolivia, an uprising has reversed the Bechtel Corp.'s drive to privatize water; under the FTAA, of course, Bechtel could sue the government for lost profits.

And beyond such specific fights is the overriding imperative: enforcing acceptance of a "free trade" regime that would turn the southern part of the hemisphere into an enormous sweatshop where ecological balance and human rights take a back seat to corporate freedom.

Joining Forces

Not long ago in the US, most people had no idea what the initials IMF meant or that the World Bank demanded anything in exchange for its help. Today, the same can be said for the FTAA, and that's exactly how its backers want to keep it. They're relying on the fact that trade issues usually seem far removed from daily life. Plus, on the surface, the further economic integration of the hemisphere sounds like a good move - especially when linked to that magic word, free.

The challenge facing those who see through the double talk of corporate penetration and consolidation, disguised by promises of open economic competition, is to cut through all the crap: the complacency, media distractions, and ideological divisions that blur the issue. Corporate-controlled "free trade" affects everyone, and many people in the global South already understand that. Under structural adjustment, they've experienced the devastating impacts of deregulation, privatization, and wide-open capitalism firsthand - often at their peril.

The crusade to stop this dead-end process is still growing, linking unions, environmentalists, and human rights activists in the US with peasants, social workers, and labor organizations around the world. Many conservatives, although they remain highly nationalistic and would oppose any move toward democratic globalism, also abhor corporate control of the world, focusing on the threat to national sovereignty. The coalition that stopped the MAI and Fast Track during the Clinton era was a strange mix of Left and Right - politicians and activists who shared little more than their disgust with concentrated power beyond the reach of national law. At this point, it's still a movement that often crosses traditional boundaries. 

It's also plain that our international overlords - from the World Bank to the WTO - don't like the attention they've been getting. Convening in militarized security zones and authoritarian police states, they want to keep a low profile, hoping that the spectacle of protesters vs. police will end up looking like a series of disconnected news blips. They're depending on the press to be lazy, and the opposition's inability to get a clear message across.

But they may be under-estimating the risks. If every time some secretive, unaccountable elite meets it has to face massive protests, combined with effective outreach and fair analysis through like-minded independent media (who also know the costs of corporate concentration), more people will see the truth. When "free trade" zealots run the show, you get freedom for business, all right - but lousy treatment for everyone else. 

Eventually, even Qatar or some fortified castle won't be secure enough. And when that happens, leaving corporate pirates and globo-crats with nowhere left to hide, democratic globalization - with true freedom and a fair deal for all - can finally get its chance. 

Greg Guma is the editor of Toward Freedom, a sponsor of the Vermont Mobilization for Global Justice.

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