By Brian Carnell

Thursday, September 19, 2002

Glenn Reynolds posted a link today to a massively stupid article by Ted Rall rehashing the lame conspiracy theory that the war in Afghanistan is really about oil. There are so many things wrong with Rall's version of this conspiracy theory, that it's difficult to know where to begin. So let me just stick to one of the early targets in Rall's essay, former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlain. Here's what Rall says about Chamberlain,

U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain met with PakistanÂ’s oil minister to discuss reviving the old Unocal deal on the third day of the bombing campaign, October 10, 2001. This was when the U.S.-aligned Northern Alliance still controlled just five percent of the country and defeat of the Taliban was still anything but guaranteed.[xxiii]

[xxiii] Frontier Post, Peshawar, Pakistan, October 11, 2001.

If you do a Google search on Wendy Chamberlain and Unocal you will find hundreds of left wing web sites repeating this claim. Rall makes an apparent error in his citation, though. Every other left wing conspiracy site puts this story as appearing in the Frontier Post on October 10, 2001, not on the 11th.

Unfortunately, the Frontier Post does not apparently maintain archives of its web site, so tracking down what the Frontier Post actually wrote about Chamberlain's meeting is not easy. However, doing Google searches I ran across a web discussion group where someone had the entire text of the Frontier Post's October 10, 2001 story on Chamberlain's meeting. Here it is:

From The Pakistan Frontier Post

ISLAMABAD: The US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain paid a courtesy call on the Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Usman Aminuddin here Tuesday and discussed with him matters pertaining to Pak-US cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

During the meeting the Petroleum Minister briefed the US Envoy on the ongoing and future development activities in the oil, gas and mineral sectors, privatization process, salient features of the new onshore and offshore exploration policies and opportunities for the prospective investors.

Usman Aminuddin said that the government was attaching high priority to the promotion of these vital fields of the economy aimed at accelerating socio-economic progress in the country.

He said that Pakistan is endowed with the fifth largest coal reserves in the world and the government is focusing specific attention to exploit them as soon as possible with a view to reduce the heavy dependence on oil and gas.

The Petroleum Minister said that a number of US oil and gas companies were successfully operating in Pakistan and were playing a tremendous role in the oil and gas exploration activities.

He invited the US investors to increase their participation in the petroleum and coal sector activities for the mutual benefit.

Usman Aminduddin also briefed the Ambassador on the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project and said that this project opens up new avenues of multi dimensional regional cooperation particularly in view of the recent geo-political developments in the region.

Ms Wendy Chamberlain said that the United States attaches great importance to its relations with Pakistan.

She informed that the US Government had lifted a number sanctions ton Pakistan which would help revive it s national economy.

The Ambassador expressed the hope that the US investors would avail the opportunities in the oil, gas and mineral sectors of Pakistan.

Rall casts the article as claiming that Chamberlain met with the Petroleum Minister to talk about reviving the Unocal pipeline project, whereas the Frontier Post article is quite clear that this was a general meeting about petroleum and coal-related issues where the Pakistani Petroleum Minister raised the issue of the pipeline and apparently had to brief Chamberlain on the details of that proposal. Reading between the lines, Chamberlain appears to have been noncommittal (and for good reason -- the pipeline is a nonstart for business reasons even with the Taliban out of the way).

Now, Rall could conceivably be referring to some other article the Frontier Post published about Chamberlain's meeting. He should either produce that article or withdraw his claim about Wendy Chamberlain plotting to restart the Unocal pipeline project.

Source:

Peshawar Frontier Post article.

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