14-Sep-03

WSJ's Jackie Calmes writes, "Bush wants special Afghanistan envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to be U.S. ambassador, but the promotion is held up amid griping that Khalilzad seeks to keep his current job, too. He'd be Afghanistan czar, in effect, helping make policy in Washington and implementing it in Kabul, officials say. Some at State Department and CIA grouse he bears some blame for lack of progress there." From TruthOut: "Zalmay Khalilzad was an advisor for Unocal. In the mid 1990s, while working for the Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Khalilzad conducted risk analyses for Unocal at the time it had signed letters of approval from the Taliban. The analyses were for a proposed 890-mile, $2-billion, 1.9-billion-cubic-feet-per-day natural gas pipeline project which would have extended from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. In December 1997, Khalilzad joined Unocal officials at a reception for an invited Taliban delegation to Texas." [See: http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/01.14A.Zalmay.Oil.htm]