AMY GOODMAN: Newsweek magazine is reporting this week that two men interviewed by the magazine gave plausible accounts of having seen Osama bin Laden alive last winter, one as late as mid-February. One, who is described as a former Taliban official, said bin Laden escaped Afghanistan on horseback last December under U.S. fire. This is just the latest in dozens of reports on the man George W. Bush once vowed he would bring to justice, dead or alive. Since Bush’s frequent and public vows to kill or capture bin Laden, U.S. officials have backed off and now say they don’t know whether he’s dead or alive.

As the first anniversary of September 11th approaches, serious questions have been raised about what some call the Bush administration’s failure to prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. This comes as an explosive new book, published originally in France, has hit bookstores here in the United States. The book is called Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden, and it’s revealing some extraordinary details of the extent to which U.S. oil corporations influenced the Bush administration’s policies toward the Taliban regime prior to September 11th.

It paints a detailed picture of the Bush administration’s secret negotiations with the Taliban government in the months and weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Center. It charges that under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the Bush administration blocked U.S. Secret Service investigations on terrorism. It tells the story of how the administration conducted secret negotiations with the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. The book says that Washington’s main aim in Afghanistan prior to September 11th was consolidating the Taliban regime in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia.

The authors claim that before September 11th, Christina Rocca, the head of Asian affairs in the U.S. State Department, met the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, in Islamabad on August 2nd. Rocca is a veteran of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, previously in charge of contacts with Islamist guerrilla groups at the CIA, where she oversaw the delivery of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s.

The book also reveals that the Taliban actually hired a U.S. public relations expert for an image-making campaign in the United States. What’s amazing is that the PR officer was a woman named Laili Helms, who is the niece of former CIA Director Richard Helms. Helms is described as the Mata Hari of U.S.-Taliban negotiations. The authors claim that she brought Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, an adviser to Mullah Omar, to Washington for five days in March 2001, after the Taliban had destroyed the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan. Hashemi met the Directorate of Central Intelligence at the CIA and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department.

And the book talks about an extended interview with the deputy director of the FBI, John O’Neill, who, it says, resigned in protest in July of the Bush administration’s obstruction of an investigation into alleged Taliban terrorist activities. After he quit the FBI, O’Neill became head of security at the World Trade Center. He perished on September 11th.

We’re joined right now in our firehouse studio here in New York, just blocks from ground zero, by Jean-Charles Brisard.

Welcome to Democracy Now!

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: You wrote this book, Forbidden Truth, with Guillaume Dasquié, an investigative reporter. You, formerly with French intelligence, have years ago, in 1997, investigated Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda financial networks. It’s good to have you with us. Why don’t we start out with this interview with John O’Neill, who he was, and what he had to say.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Well, I met John O’Neill first in Paris in June 2001 for the purpose of the work I was doing at that time for the French intelligence. And basically, I met him again in July 2001 in New York. And what he has to say is, yes, we knew for years who was backing Osama bin Laden, who was giving his network the money, the logistic to carry out those terrorist actions. But, yes, during all those years, we were slowed or blocked in our investigations, because that funding, that money, that logistic came essentially from countries we were allied with for economic reasons, mainly Saudi Arabia.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that further.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Basically, you have two strategies. On one hand, you have the economic interests, the oil interests, people that want to make money with those countries, including the Taliban regime. And it’s clear that if you want to make business with a country, you have to be accommodating with that country. And that’s what happens with the Taliban. We’re meeting — I mean, the U.S. are meeting with the Taliban. They were negotiating with the Taliban. They were offering some kind of assistance to the Taliban during those years. And, well, on the other hand, you have the obligation, the implications of the law enforcement agencies, that wanted to go fast and to establish responsibilities. And the responsibilities were driven to — were driving them to Saudi Arabia and to the Taliban regime. There were two conflicting strategies, and the choice was made several years before to choose the economic side of the problem and to be accommodating, again, again, for those regimes and to block in some way or to slow the investigations on Osama bin Laden.

AMY GOODMAN: The UPI has a report that attacks your book.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And it quotes a man named Mike Rolince, formerly chief of the FBI’s International Terrorism Section at bureau headquarters. He says he knew O’Neill well, worked with him for years, and says that it doesn’t sound like something John O’Neill would say. That’s not a very big proof that he didn’t say it, but he says that doesn’t sound like something John would say, to your claim that O’Neill said that the U.S. oil companies in Saudi Arabia were influencing the administration and blocking efforts to come to grips with bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Rolince told UPI, “I can’t think of any interference, real or imagined, that was a direct result of administration oil policy.” He also says O’Neill didn’t resign in protest, adding he traveled to Saudi Arabia and Jordan with O’Neill during the last years at the FBI with O’Neill, and he said he would have gone then if the proper job had been offered. He made no bones about the fact that he would have liked to have been chosen as assistant director, but he was waiting for the right moment and that he wanted a better-paying job, security job, and that’s why he left the FBI. What’s your response?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: First, it’s not astonishing to read that on UPI. As you should know, UPI is controlled by Saudi interests. Second, I don’t know that man who’s speaking here. The report I made about John O’Neill in my book has been confirmed by a lot of John O’Neill’s colleagues at the FBI. And, well, I have no trouble reading that, again, in UPI.

AMY GOODMAN: It was interesting to note, given some of the explosive accusations that you make, that when you were brought on CNN with Paula Zahn months ago, when the book first came out in France, you were brought on with your co-author, and you said, “Hello,” but before you got a chance to say anything, Paula Zahn had said goodbye to you.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: There was some technical problem. That’s what I understood. Let’s say that.

AMY GOODMAN: A problem with the sound, a problem with the sound of your voice?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: With satellite. The satellite was — yes, was out.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Well, we have to talk about, globally, the oil corporate world, here in the United States and Western countries, and their audience, again, with Saudi Arabia. Yes, the interests at stake are very important. Those relations are back 50 years ago, something like that. And what is interesting is that those relations always prevail over, again, the interest of the investigations, the interest of the families of those lost people. And yes, it drives — it’s always drive the administration to promote the economic interests at stake, whatever the administration, I may say. It was right under Bill Clinton. It was obvious under George W. Bush. But always, the administration is trying to pursue the same path, meaning to promote economic interests of Big Oil companies, being, again, accommodating with those regimes, as it happened in Afghanistan with the Taliban. For years, those corporations — I may say, for instance, Unocal was negotiating with the Taliban. They were offering gifts, money.

AMY GOODMAN: Unocal being the oil giant that’s based in California, Los Angeles.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: That’s right, and that was the main promoter of a pipeline crossing Afghanistan from Turkmenistan to Pakistan to join the Gulf, the Gulf, the Gulf sea. Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Jean-Charles Brisard. He’s co-author of Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden. We’ll be back with him in just a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Jackson Browne, “The Word Justice,” here on Democracy Now!, The Exception to the Rulers. I’m Amy Goodman. Jean-Charles Brisard is our guest. He is the co-author of Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden. You talk about the U.S. PR person for the Taliban regime last year. Tell us who she is.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Laili Helms.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Laili Helms.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes, Laili Helms is an astonishing personality. She’s, as you told your audience, she is the niece of former director of the CIA. And yes, she’s part of the effort to make the the Taliban sounds good to the public opinion, the U.S. opinion, at least. But again, that effort was — went back on ’96. For instance, the U.S. representative in Afghanistan today, Mr. Khalilzad, wrote an article just a few days after the taking of Kabul by the Taliban in ’96.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain who Khalilzad is.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Khalilzad is a former consultant for Unocal Corporation, again, and he’s now been designated by President George W. Bush as the U.S. representative in Kabul to the Afghan government. And that guy was a — in '96, he was at the State Department. And he wrote an article in The Washington Post at the end of ’96, just days after the Taliban took Kabul, and saying, “Well, we shouldn't be afraid of the Taliban. They’re practicing the kind of democracy the Saudis are practicing.” That’s pretty fair, to make comparison with a country that practices the most radical form of Islam in the world, Wahhabism.

AMY GOODMAN: Wasn’t Hamid Karzai, now the president of Afghanistan, also a consultant for Unocal?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes, he was also a consultant for Unocal. That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: The UPI piece that attacks you also says — 

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Again.

AMY GOODMAN: — there is no evidence to believe that the United States was involved in any kind of negotiation with the Taliban for an oil pipeline before September 11th.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: OK, yes. Again, when George W. Bush came in power, he decided in January to launch some kind of informal talks with all the partners interested in the region. That means the Pakistanis, the Russians, all the countries around Afghanistan. And the Taliban were invited to those negotiations. There were U.S. representatives during those negotiations, the former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. And those talks took place, actually, in Cyprus, in Berlin, and we have witnesses of those that were part of those talks. Even the U.S., some of the U.S. representatives during those talks have been — made interviews about those talks, recalling that they were there. And to some extent, what we say is the talks were, basically — the deal was offered to the Taliban, or you accept a broader-based government, including some representatives of the former king, plus the subsidies you can get from the oil pipeline for Afghanistan, or you have war. And that’s what is said during those negotiations at the end of July. We have testimonies, direct testimonies, of that, direct witnesses of that. So, UPI can, again, tell it didn’t took place. Those charges —

AMY GOODMAN: Either you accept our carpet of gold, or we will carpet you with bombs?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Basically, yes. Basically, that’s what is said to the counterparts by the U.S. representatives who went to those talks, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, which collapsed in scandal years ago.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yeah, the BCCI was created by various investors, Saudi investors, Gulf investors, Pakistani investors. The main goal of the BCCI was, at the beginning, to make easier for the Pakistani workers working in Saudi Arabia to transfer back their money home. But, in fact, we discovered that the BCCI was used to funnel money to terrorists, to rogue states and to sell arms sometimes for bad operations, black operations. What is interesting of the BCCI is that we have all the actors that will in the '90s give money and give support to Osama bin Laden. They're all there. It seems that, you know, after the collapse of the BCCI — the BCCI was closed in ’91 because of all those scandals. After the collapse of the BCCI, it seems that, as it revives in the ’90s, with all those people together, to help funnel money to Osama bin Laden, with the same shams used, the same procedures, we may say, all together, and then —

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know that it’s the same network that’s funding Osama bin Laden?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Oh, it’s — you can take the BCCI network and put it on the Osama bin Laden network. It’s quite the same. The people are the same again. The countries are the same. The banks are the same. See?

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back for a minute to John O’Neill — 

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — and go back in the history of Osama bin Laden, first going back to 1994 and to Libya, issuing a death — issuing a warrant for the arrest of bin Laden for an alleged murder. What was that all about?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Well, in '94, Osama bin Laden was, in some way, forced to quit Saudi Arabia. So, he was exiled, and he went first in Afghanistan, then to Sudan. And to some extent, the pressure of the United States on Sudan at that time was high. And basically, Osama bin Laden wanted to conquer a territory. He wanted to be the master of a territory. He will became the master of the Taliban, as we know. He was the founder of the Taliban regime. He was their ideological master, too. So he wanted to conquer, you may say, Libya at that time. As we know, Gaddafi was in bad shape in front of the international community at that time. A lot of Muslim, of radical groups were against him and ready to fight his statute. And so, yes, he started to fund several groups that were trying to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi at that time, and he went personally to Libya. That's what we learned from the arrest warrant issued by this country and, finally, by Interpol. What is interesting is that at that time, Osama bin Laden is not seeked by the United States. He’s not. The only country in the world to go after him is Libya. But as you know, the timing this warrant is issued, Osama bin Laden has already issued a, I may say, declaration of war against the United States and several other statements quite rude against the Western countries and the United States. So, it’s, again, a paradox to see that piece.

AMY GOODMAN: You have the bombing of the USS Cole in October of 2000. You have the bombings of the — that was in Yemen — the bombings of the embassies in Africa. You have the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. That was during Clinton’s time. What evidence is there that these were linked to Osama bin Laden? And then, what kind of investigation did the United States do? These were all direct attacks on the United States.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Well, for instance, for the USS Cole — and it was clear, when I spoke, at least with John O’Neill, that for him, always was pointing to Osama bin Laden. For him, it was clear that Osama bin Laden was behind, behind that attack. So, yes, again, I’m sure the investigators, the law enforcement agencies are doing their work. And they know those networks, because that’s their job, finally, to know those networks.

AMY GOODMAN: John O’Neill was convinced of this, then head of the Terrorism Unit within the FBI. Did he go to Yemen?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes. I mean, he went to Yemen several times and to finally see that he was barred to enter the territory by the U.S. diplomacy itself, by the State Department, that denied him access to the Yemeni territory.

AMY GOODMAN: The FBI man in charge of —

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — terrorism was barred by the U.S. from going into Yemen?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes, that’s exactly what happened.

AMY GOODMAN: How?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: How? We just didn’t, you know, deliver him the authority to go, to go inside Yemen, clearly, because of — because the U.S. diplomacy didn’t want to hurt the Yemeni regime. That’s easy as that. They don’t want to hurt, again, because you are in a strategy where you say, “We have Osama bin Laden quite under control, whether in Sudan, whether in Afghanistan. We have him under control. He’s not a threat for the U.S. territory.” And that’s the state of mind of those people, the State Department, the presidency, whatever. And again, the FBI and the CIA are in this totally different state of mind. There are conflicting views, but the choice, again, is made to make prevail diplomacy, economic interests over investigative interests.

AMY GOODMAN: When did you work for the French secret service?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Between ’96 and 2001.

AMY GOODMAN: And why did you get involved with investigating al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Because I was asked for.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you find in that investigation? What specifically were you looking at?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: I was looking specifically at the financial networks of Osama bin Laden. And what I found is that most of that network is controlled or is supported by Saudi big figures, whether individuals or entities, but by big figures of Saudi Arabia.

AMY GOODMAN: Like who? How high up does it go?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Oh, it goes to — you know, 'til the personal, for instance, banker of King Fahd, big corporation, the number three corporation in Saudi Arabia. It's not a, I may say, a state support, but it’s a quasi-institutional support from them.

AMY GOODMAN: You have John O’Neill, you say, saying that the investigations were thwarted. What about Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia? What level of investigation was done there, that killed more than a dozen U.S. military men?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Well, yes, Khobar Towers was pretty the same. The same thing happened as in Yemen, but that time, it was the Saudi Arabian regime that didn’t want the U.S. to go through that investigation. A couple of days after the bombings, the suspects were killed, actually, by the Saudis. And so, the FBI came there and couldn’t interrogate the suspects. They were dead. They had just, you know, to examine the raw evidence from the site to make the case. The Saudis were hiding the big evidence to the FBI.

AMY GOODMAN: You say that it was George Bush as vice president, George Bush Sr., who introduced the bin Laden family to William Casey, the former director of central intelligence, to help the United States win its proxy war in Afghanistan. What happened there?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes, it’s true, again, that the United States — I’m not saying and I’m not in favor of the theory that says that bin Laden was a creature of the United States. I think, most probably, that the United States, basically, the CIA and other organs of the government, of course, wanted to have — to push people in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. And probably indirectly, the United States and these organs helped — helped indirectly, again, Osama bin Laden to settle there and to grow within the ranks of the Arabs that were fighting in Afghanistan. But I don’t see a direct responsibility. Again, the direct responsibility, in my mind, is clearly identified as coming from Saudi Arabia. It’s Saudi Arabia, once in ’79, the then-head of the intelligence of Saudi Arabia that asked Osama bin Laden to go to the Afghan front and to settle there a base for the Arabs who were coming to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. And that base, created by Turkey, by the Turkey will, in 1979, 10 years later will become al-Qaeda, the base.

AMY GOODMAN: And who is Khalid bin Mahfouz?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Khalid bin Mahfouz is the — he was; he’s not anymore — he was the first banker of the Saudi kingdom. His bank is the first bank, first commercial bank in Saudi Arabia. He is the personal banker of King Fahd. And again, he is one of those big, big people, wealthy Saudi, involved in the financing of Osama bin Laden. Basically, Khalid bin Mahfouz was chairman of a big bank funneling money to Osama bin Laden. And on the other hand, he was a chairman of various charities around the world, in Sudan, in London or in Pakistan.

AMY GOODMAN: He came from southern Yemen, like Osama bin Laden’s father.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: From the region of Hadramout, yeah, the same region where the bin Laden originated, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, then, connect him to the Saudi government. And —

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Oh, yes, probably, yeah, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, how do you connect him to it? And how do you connect him to the BCCI?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: It was, in fact — the same guy was, in fact, during the '80s, the chief operating officer of the BCCI, Khaled bin Mahfouz. He was one of founders of BCCI, main shareholder. He holds, I think, 40% of the BCCI at that time. And he was investing for the royal family, for big, wealthy Saudi families. So, yes, he's, you know, at the heart of the system of financing.

AMY GOODMAN: You talk about BCCI intending to establish itself in the very heart of Western finance, the United States, in 1976 tried to purchase the National Bank of Georgia, with the cooperation of its president, Thomas Bertram Lance, one of Jimmy Carter’s associates, who would become the president’s budget director. The BCCI’s agreement with the Bank of America did not, however, allow it to have stake on U.S. soil. Two American lawyers stepped in to handle the negotiations. They were Clark Clifford — all of these people ended up being enmired in a swirl of scandal. Clark Clifford and Robert Altman, associates of Bert Lance. In 1977, the BCCI and Ghaith Pharaon bought the Bank of America’s holding in the Bank of Commerce and Credit International. The same year, the BCCI tried to purchase another American bank, Chelsea National Bank. And you talk about the power of this bank at the center of — 

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — Saudi power, and also oil politics.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes, basically, you know, the power of the — of Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network is to have found — yes, he had to find ways to enter the legal economy, legitimate economy, through various banks, big companies, Saudi companies, that are present in every part of the world. So, those guys are, you know, active operatives of the networks in the same time they’re doing business. Osama bin Laden, for instance, had a bank in Sudan. He had various companies involved in agriculture and construction, whatever. He was doing business for his terrorist purpose.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the most important thing for people to understand? What is the “forbidden truth”?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: For me, the most important today is to say that if we want, as George W. Bush stated a couple of days after September 11 — if you want, really want to eradicate terrorism, if we really want to get Osama bin Laden, the most important for me is to get to the source of Osama bin Laden, at the roots of Osama bin Laden, that are in Saudi Arabia. If we still continue to protect Saudi Arabia, we will never get Osama bin Laden. Maybe we’ll get him, but another Osama bin Laden will come in the future years and will look the same against us.

AMY GOODMAN: You say that the day after September 11th, the vice president, Dick Cheney, called Tom Daschle and told him there should be no investigation. What evidence do you have of this?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Well, I think that was reported extensively by some investigators. The fact is, we are still in, again, that state of mind. A simple example, George W. Bush froze the assets in December of a bank based in Palestine called Al-Aqsa Islamic Bank. The Treasury called that bank the financial arm of Hamas. Hamas is putting bombs. It’s a terrorist organization designated as such. The only shareholder of that bank is still living quietly and without any trouble in Saudi Arabia. He’s a wealthy Saudi banker. And nobody is after him. Nobody. That bank has only one shareholder, that guy, and he’s still at large.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia? That does not implicate a government. But what does that mean to you?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: No, that’s probably a message, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s the message?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: I believe that as a message sent by the — by those who committed those — I mean, probably by Osama bin Laden himself, a message sent to the U.S.

AMY GOODMAN: Saying what?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Basically, you were — it’s a religious confrontation. You were attacked by Saudi Arabia, by the kingdom. See? No?

AMY GOODMAN: So, is it the kingdom’s message or just Osama bin Laden’s message? You’re saying he chose these people.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes, he chose. Yes, probably. I mean, I’m sure that Osama bin Laden himself chose those people. But I’m sure it’s also a message sent, sent to the Western countries. Again, the Osama bin Laden message is a religious message. He wants to impose Islam all around the world. And to put Saudi Arabians in a plane, in planes, to blow them in New York, for me, it’s a message, yes, clearly.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, on the issue of Saudi Arabia and the Defense Policy Board, that just received a report from the RAND Corporation, and allegedly, this report was written by the — by a French investigator. Do you know who this was? And it’s the report that basically says to this — to this supposedly independent board, headed by Richard Perle, that strongly influences the Pentagon, that Saudi Arabia should be considered the enemy.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Yes, I know that person, and I know his work for years now. Basically, Murawiec, the RAND analyst that have written the report, is going to the same, at least, analysis as ours in our book about Saudi Arabia, about the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the terrorist networks and the financing, etc. I’m not quite sure, to go to his conclusion, that, finally, we should destabilize the actual Saudi regime. I’m sure we can find out ways of dealing, of continuing to deal with Saudi Arabia without having those wealthy, again, members of the Saudi economy sponsoring Osama bin Laden. That’s truly a difficult problem for any government in the planet — on the planet, because, of course, we’re involved. We have strategic interests with that country. And that is why, also, probably, what a government cannot do justice — is just the duty of justice to do it. And that’s why a lawsuit will be filed in the next days with that aim, that objective, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: That objective being?

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: To bring to justice those who, during those years, financed, sponsored, helped in any form, in any way, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us, Jean-Charles Brisard. He is co-author of Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden, also former French secret service investigator. Thank you for joining us.

JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now! Stay with us.