Missing the oil story

by Nina Burleigh


Nina Burleigh has written for The Washington Post, The
Chicago Tribune, and New York magazine. As a reporter for
TIME, she was among the first American journalists to enter
Iraq after the Gulf War.

Recently I attended one of those legendary Washington dinner
parties, attended by British cosmopolites and Americans in
the know. A few courses in, people were gossiping about the
Bush family's close and enduring friendship with the Saudi
ambassador, Prince Bandar, dean of the diplomatic corps in
Washington. By the end of the evening, everyone was talking
about how the unfolding events were going to affect the flow
of oil out of Central Asia.

I left wondering whether 6,000 Americans might prove to have
died in New York for the royal family of Saud, or oil, or
both. But I didn't have much more than insider dinner gossip
to go on. I get my analysis from the standard all-American
news outlets. And they've been too focused on a) anthrax and
smallpox, or b) the intricacies of Muslim fanaticism, to
throw any reporters at the murky ways in which international
oil politics and its big players have a stake in what's
unfolding.

A quick Nexis search brought up a raft of interesting leads
that would keep me busy for 10 years if the economics of
this war was my beat. But only two articles in the American
media since September 11 have tried to describe how Big Oil
might benefit from a cleanup of terrorists and other
anti-American elements in the Central Asia region. One was
by James Ridgeway of the Village Voice. The other was by a
Hearst writer based in Paris and it was picked up only in
the San Francisco Chronicle.

In other words, only the Left is connecting the dots of what
the Russians have called "The Great Game" -- how oil
underneath the 'stans' fits into the new world order.
Here's just a small slice of what ought to provoke deeper
research by American reporters with resources and talent.

Start with father Bush. The former president and ex-CIA
director is not unemployed these days. He's been
globetrotting as a member of Washington's Carlyle Group, a
$12 billion private equity firm which employs a motorcade of
former ranking Republicans, including Frank Carlucci, Jim
Baker and Richard Darman. George Bush senior and colleagues
open doors overseas for The Carlyle Group's "access
capitalists."

Bush specializes in Asia and has been in and out of Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait (countries that revere him thanks to the
Gulf War) often on business since his presidency.  Baker,
the pin-striped midwife of 'Election 2000' was working his
network in the 'stans' before the ink was dry on Clinton's
first inaugural address. The Bin Laden family (presumably
the friendly wing) is also invested in Carlyle. Carlyle's
portfolio is heavy in defense and telecommunications firms,
although it has other holdings including food and bottling
companies.

The Carlyle connection means that George Bush Senior is on
the payroll from private interests that have defense
business before the government, while his son is
president. Hmmm. As Charles Lewis of the Washington-based
Center for Public Integrity, has put it, "in a really
peculiar way, George W. Bush could, some day, benefit
financially from his own administration's decisions, through
his father's investments. And that to me is a jaw-dropper."

Why can we assume that global businessmen like Bush Senior
and Jim Baker care about who runs Afghanistan and NOT just
because it's home base for lethal anti- Americans? Because
it also happens to be situated in the middle of that
perennial vital national interest -- a region with abundant
oil. By 2050, Central Asia will account for more than 80
percent of our oil. On September 10, an industry
publication, Oil and Gas Journal, reported that Central Asia
represents one of the world's last great frontiers for
geological survey and analysis, "offering opportunities for
investment in the discovery, production, transportation, and
refining of enormous quantities of oil and gas resources."

It's assumed we need unimpeded access in the 'stans' for our
geologists, construction workers and pipelines if we are
going to realize the conservation-free, fossil-fueled future
outlined recently by Vice President Cheney. A number of
pipeline projects to carry Central Asia's resources west are
already under way or have been proposed. They would go
through Russia, through the Caucasus or via Turkey and
Iran. Each route will be within easy reach of the Taliban's
thugs and could be made much safer by an American
vanquishment of Muslim terrorism.

There's also lots of oil beneath the turf of our politically
precarious newest best friend, Pakistan.  "Massive untapped
gas reserves are believed to be lying beneath Pakistan's
remotest deserts, but they are being held hostage by armed
tribal groups demanding a better deal from the central
government," reported Agence France Presse just days before
September 11.

So many business deals, so much oil, all those big players
with powerful connections to the Bush administration. It
doesn't add up to a conspiracy theory.  But it does mean
there is a significant MONEY subtext that the American
public ought to know about as "Operation Enduring Freedom"
blasts new holes where pipelines might someday be buried.

* * *