Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden

Some people would try to say this book shouldn't be trusted because it is written by the French, but I look at it this way, if, John O'Neill, the former head of the FBI's antiterrorism division, trusted Brisard enough to confide with him about his fears of Al Queda and the answers to them being found in Saudi Arabia and of our government, especially the current administration, of trying to block him from further investigation in that direction, then I feel I can also trust the author (besides which, much of the information in the book is being validated elsewhere). The administration tried to make France sound terrible because they voted against going to war against Iraq without more reliable information, that was a right that they had as we have in the United States. Remember, if it hadn't been for the help of the French, we wouldn't be the United States now. Anyway, back to the book. I am going to quote a part of the forward that gives a little summary of the book, "Forbidden Truth" is the first comprehensive revelation of how the foreign policy of the President's father and the cozy relationship with the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia exploited and created an extremist army that eventually turned on its creators.""our government knew Saudi government was financing bin Laden's Al Queda through Islamic charities years before the attacks."Oil, and the power and money that it can give to certain individuals can be addictive and lead to abuses. Because of how much our country depends on oil, a lot things have been overlooked by our government and certain people who profit from it in a huge way (the lives of our citizens take the back seat for many of these people). There was a pipeline for oil dream that developed that concerned Afghanistan, but in order for our companies to be able to go through it, the country had to be stable, which different people tried to show the U.S. (some our own people) that it was, when in fact it was just the opposite. They were succeeding until the Taliban treatment of their women and their vile actions were found out. Unicol a division of Chevron, of which Condoleeza Rice was a director of for years, was the company wanting to build the pipeline. A representative from our country, who had been trying to negotiate with the Taliban to give us Osama Bin Laden and let us run a pipeline through Afghanistan reportedly told them that they could be blanketed with a carpet of money or with bombs if they didn't comply. The book details Osama bin Laden's path and describes Saudis and the events that led up to 9/11. It also shows how the same people who were involved in the previous Bush administration are still involved in this one and it shows many connections of these people to the Oil and the defense building, like the Carlyle Group. These are the people making a lot of money because of the war and stand to make a lot more, using our tax dollars and our young men and women to pay for it. I think everyone should re

The war on terrorism has been overshadowed, perhaps purposely, by the push for a second Gulf War, but the issues this book looks at make it highly likely that though forgotten, al Qaeda is not gone. But will the US, especially the Bush administration, have the courage, wisdom or nerve to betray their long-time business partners, employers and sponsors in Saudi Arabia to get at the roots of the US's *real* public enemy number 1? The American edition of this book is rather shoddily proof read--names are spelled inconsistently from paragraph to paragraph, for instance--and that makes you wonder how much trust to put in certain hard facts, like dates, that you find there. But the research the book is based upon is clearly impeccable, and more than any American source I've seen, focuses intently on where al Qaeda came from and whose money is supporting it. The book includeds charts among the appendices to present a visual picture of the tangled financial network that links terror and business in Saudi Arabia. ...The journalism is high quality. The publication standards don't match it.

This is obviously a work of dedicated investigative journalists. The information is presented more or less as a dry list of facts with very little analysis, but anyone who wishes to read this probably has already begun to question Bush's war program in the Middle East. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a clearer picture of the all-too-hidden relations between the US government, governments of the Middle East, and the organizations they now call "terrorist".

Finally translated, this best-selling French book will provide Americans with an in-depth analysis of how our "friends" in Saudi Arabia have been the primary financiers of Islamic terrorism, reveals the last testimony of the FBI's top counter terrorism agent, and exposes the secret negotiations between the U.S. government and the Taliban and the Pakastanis in the months that led up to attacks on 9/11. Forbidden Truth represents three years of research by respected French intelligence experts, and it will fundamentally alter the public's perception of 9/11. I'll be blunt: this book is a political hand grenade that will make you inexplicably angry at the hypocrisy of our government and how the current administration entered into bellicose and dangerous negotiations with a rogue regime despite their continued harboring of an international terrorist.Forbidden Truth methodically documents the names, dates and places of all the U.S. diplomats and those involved in pursuing high-risk Caspian Sea Pipeline negotiations with representatives of the Taliban regime and Pakistani government. These secret negotiations began on February 5, 2001 and collapsed on August 2, 2001 with the U.S. threatening the Taliban with a "military option." Meanwhile, despite FBI field agents like Rowley, Williams and others who were diligently "connecting the dots" on the 9/11 plot, both of the FBI's special units, the Radical Fundamentalist Unit and the UBL Unit in the FBI's Washington D.C. Head Quarters had become virtual "black holes" for investigations regarding Islamic terrorism. Unlike the preceding years, all FBI FISA warrant requests regarding investigations of terrorist suspects like the case of Moussaoui, the infamous "20th hijacker", were categorically denied by the DOJ during this crucial period. This was neither by accident nor the result of the so-called "intelligence bureaucracy"; it was the result of a tragic intelligence policy at the behest of the Bush administration. This book opens with an interview of John P. O'Neill, the former FBI deputy Director of counter terrorism who complained bitterly that the FBI had become "even more politically engaged" after George W. Bush's inauguration, and the frustrations that he expressed in late July 2001 helps explain these seemingly disparate events. Based on the collaborating evidence and testimony provided by FBI agents and other intelligence sources it appears that the Bush administration implemented a high-level intelligence blocks with respect to investigations of Islamic terrorism in early 2001. Why did this administration block FBI Agents such as O'Neill and others from pursuing bin Laden? Answer: Saudi Arabia, their Taliban friends, and U.S. corporate oil interests. According to the authors, John O'Neill had become so frustrated under the Bush administration and the State Department's unprecedented blocks of his investigations regarding Osama bin Laden that he resigned from the FBI in August 2001. He be

First of all, this is the GOOD French book on 9/11. (The OTHER French book on 9/11 you hear people talking about is the same old conspiracy theory stuff. Dasquie and Brisard are well-respected professionals and completely mainstream. When 9/11 took place the American response was dominated by rage and disbelief: how could anyone ever do something like that to us? Suggestions that we figure out why it happened were automatically slapped down, as if even asking the question would give legitimacy to the attackers. It's quite normal to have inquiries whenever a disaster takes place, so someone must have had something to hide. This book tells you who they were and what it was.The United States was negotiating with the Taliban right into September of 2001. What was at issue was an oil pipeline across Afghanistan, and the options we offered them were two: cooperate with us on the pipeline, or war. When negotiations broke down, Osama Bin Laden (a U.S. ally only a decade earlier in the anti-Soviet war, and a major force in Afghanistan)struck first. Once we were at war with the Taliban, they became unspeakably evil; but as long as it seemed that they might be willing to play ball, we had no problem with them. The role of Saudi Arabia in this story is a second major theme. Most of the hijackers were Saudis and the funding came from Saudi Arabia and the neighboring Gulf States. Furthermore, some of Bin Laden's support, contrary to what we have been told, came from very high levels in Saudi society. Saudi Arabia has long been a major source of funds for Muslim extremists globally, and the see-no-evil complicity in this of the U.S. government and the oil industry cannot be denied. While this book in no way claims that the CIA (much less the Mossad) had a hand in the 9/11 attacks, it makes it clear that excessively indulgent attitudes to the Saudis at very high levels of the US government led to extreme negligence and made the terrorists' job much easier. Saudi Arabia is not on the list of ten or more terrorist nations which we plan to attack. After reading this book, you will ask why not. John Emerson[URL]