he name of Ralph Reed, former Director of the Christian Coalition, is now part of the widening gyre of people and events linked to the collapse of Enron Corporation.

   Reed, once the boy wonder of the religious right, left the influential organization in 1997 to establish Century Strategies, a political consulting firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. One of his first clients was Enron, which at the time was seeking dominance of the lucrative "energy resale" business. According to Sunday's Washington Post, Reed was hired by the corporate giant for $380,000 to organize a "broad lobbying strategy" that included everything from media influence to a campaign of "blast fax" activity aimed at Capitol Hill.

   In one memo, Reed told his corporate bosses, "We are a loyal member of your team and are prepared to do whatever fits your strategic plan... In public policy, it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard -- and by whom."

   Revelations about Reed's working relationship with Enron have been circulating prior to yesterday's "official" revelations in the Post. Even less public is the Byzantine maze linking Enron and its recent bankruptcy with Bush operatives, key figures of the American religious right and the Taliban government which until just a few weeks ago, straddled a theocratic regime in Afghanistan that had intimate ties to terrorist figures, including Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, and Pakistan's shadowy military intelligence service, the ISI. Unraveling the links is like entering the world of an Umberto Eco novel, a realm of strange alliances and proxy identities.

   ¶    Reed served as Executive Director of the Christian Coalition, and built the group from a kitchen table mailing list to a religious right powerhouse. In 1996, the CC operated a $750,000 state-of-the-art war room at the Republican National Convention, and controlled or heavily influenced nearly three-dozen state GOP organizations throughout the country. Televangelist Pat Robertson had offered Reed the job promising that he "could pick the next President of the United States." Reed left the group in 1997, and just recently Robertson severed his leadership ties with the organization as well. The work of the Coalition continues, and it has served as a "boot camp" for other religious right political committees.

   Reed went on to form Century Strategies, and become a hired gun for religious right candidates and corporate interests. He was reportedly recommended to Enron by Karl Rove, the mastermind behind George W. Bush's successful president campaign, and maintained a relationship with the firm until October 2001 when, according to the Post, it ended by "mutual agreement."

   ¶    A slew of other administration operatives, Washington wordsmiths and officials also are found in the Enron lair. They include Bush economic consultant Lawrence B. Lindley, economist Paul Krugman, CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, Republican National Committee Chair Marc Racicot, and neoconservative writer and Weekly Standard editor William Krisol.

   ¶    Enron has been one of the players in a modern day version of "The Great Game" taking place throughout the Middle East and especially the Kiplingesque world of the Indian Subcontinent, Kashmir and Afghanistan-Central Asia region. At issue, the ever present quest for reliable and cheap oil, along with profits from the drug trade. It has resulted in a curious intersection of U.S. foreign policy chiefs, intelligence operatives, corporations, religious fanatics and drug lords.

   -- Long before there was any significant attention to the issue of "human rights" and the status of women under the Taliban regime, European governments and the United States were still viewing the clerics ensconced in Kabul as a stabilizing force in a land that for the previous decade was marked by political division and armed conflict. Indeed, the "religious students" that fought in the Afghan civil war were supplied and trained by the intelligence service of a neighboring U.S. ally, Pakistan.

   In 1997, "pipeline politics" was the focus for everyone, from oil executives at firms like Enron and Unocal to planners at the Department of State. That year the Taliban regime began talks with American officials, as well as an Argentine-led consortia, all hoping for lucrative contracts to build and operate an enormous oil and gas pipeline system from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. Taliban officials huddled for several days in Unocal's Sugarland, Texas headquarters to discuss the $2 billion deal. Meanwhile, at the University of Nebraska, Afghan men were undergoing the first phase of training for pipeline construction.

   All of this transpired even as Osama bin Laden was, increasingly, on the radar of U.S., Israeli and British Intelligence services. Pipeline politics was the order of the day, though, even if it meant supporting a fundamentalist regime like the Taliban. It took Osama bin Laden -- scion of the wealthy Saudi construction family -- to upset the arrangement. But even with smoke from the 9/11 attacks still lingering over lower Manhattan, new revelations surfaced. A book published in France revealed that the U.S. was still in negotiations for the pipeline.

   Former UN Weapons inspector Richard Butler remarked on this during January 8, 2002 appearance on CNN in an interview with Paula Zahn.

   "The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan."

   Zahn added: "And this book points out that the FBI's deputy director, John O'Neil, actually resigned because he felt the U.S. administration was obstructing..."

   -- CIA officer Christina Rocca, now at Department of State, traveled to Afghanistan weeks prior to September 11 for consultation with Taliban clerics about the pipeline. Even more unusual, hired by the Taliban government as a public relations asset in the United States was Laila Helms, niece of the former CIA Director Richard Helms.

   -- Back in D.C. Enron was thriving and expanding, thanks in part to its close relationship with key insiders. Contacts included the White House, environmental and regulatory agencies, even the Central Intelligence Agency. For instance, CEO Kenneth Lay, who had been a Pentagon official during the Vietnam War, could tap another Enron board member -- Frank Wisner, Jr. -- son of former CIA Deputy Director Frank Wisner, Sr. Over at the Justice Department was the new Attorney General, John Ashcroft, who had to disqualify himself from a departmental criminal probe of Enron when it was learned that he received nearly $58,000 from Enron for his failed re-election campaign for Missouri Senator in 2000. Other beneficiaries of Enron stock or campaign largesse included Sen. Phil Gramm, Nicholas Calio (White House director of legislative affairs), Margaret Tutweiler (Ambassador to Morocco), Charlotte Bears (Undersecretary of State), Spencer Abraham (Energy Secretary), Donald Rumsfeld (Defense) and Marc Racicot (attorney, now RNC Chairman).

   -- Enron, its Bush administration assets and company-funded "think tanks" such as the American Council for Capital Formation (Ken Lay, board director) all worked hard to implement new regulations which lifted restrictions on offshore tax havens. According to Larry Chin, a contributing editor for Online Journal, "This blocked a multi-year 30-nation crackdown on the abuse of offshore tax havens led by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development."

   -- The frenzy to build the Afghanistan pipeline and other transportation routes has engaged the attention of Enron and numerous partners including Unocal, BP Amoco, Pennzoil, Mobil, Chevron and other firms. Along with the Afghanistan-Pakistan leg which needed Taliban support were oil development projects in three former Soviet republics, including Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. To varying degrees, all are centers of Islamic activism attracting money from the Saudi regime and Iran's Revolutionary Guards and intelligence service. Chin adds that "former Soviet, KGB and Politburo" members are profiting from all of this, along with "a formidable array of former top Western Cold Warriors, drawn principally from the cabinet of George (H.W.) Bush..."

   In 1996, Enron gained a major foothold when it signed contract rights to explore 11 gas fields in Uzbekistan at a cost of $1.3 billion. Another project was a feasibility study for the $2.5 billion Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, which would have required another pipeline system through Afghanistan. In the fallout from the Afghan civil war, though, plans for a Unocal pipeline running from Turkmenistan to Pakistan were stalled. In August, 2001, George E.W. Bush revived negotiations with the clerical government.

   Even today, with the Taliban -- a problematic partner in the pipeline politics of the region -- gone, Enron and other oil influences linger. Hamid Karzai, now head of the new government in Afghanistan, is a former Unocal lobbyist who helped draw up plans for the original pipeline project.

   ¶    Al Qaeda, the creation of Osama bin Laden, remains active throughout the region, including the three former Soviet provinces. Bin Laden is one of the sons, and a former heir, to the bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia which operates as the Saudi Binladin Group. Among Saudi Binladen's investments was another firm, the Carlyle Group, whose board of directors included George H.W. Bush and James Baker. The Binladin financial counselor was James Bath, a Texas investment banker who poured money into the Bush family's Arbusto Energy. Bath was also mentioned in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal, the savings and loan meltdown, and the BCCI financial scandal.

   ¶    Thousands of miles away is yet another theater of al Qaeda operations, and politics involving Enron friends and the American religious right. Start with Ralph Reed, Enron political hit man and associate of televangelist Pat Robertson. Robertson -- who recently spent $75 million in an unsuccessful bid to open a California oil refinery of his own -- is in business in Liberia thanks to close friend and associate Charles Taylor, the country's dictator.

   In December, 1998, Robertson incorporated Freedom Gold Limited out of the Caymans, the same offshore shelter used by Enron and numerous other financial operators. On May 18, 1999 Robertson, Charles Taylor and members of the Taylor puppet cabinet signed an operating agreement. Robertson would invest money in the Freedom Gold Limited exploration, and the Taylor government -- Charles R. Taylor -- would be given 10% equity investment and the right to "purchase" at least 15% of subsequent shares.

   Robertson has become an outspoken defender of Taylor, despite his shabby record on human rights. For those who have watched Pat Robertson and his global business dealings over the past quarter-century, this is a reminder of his earlier financial and personal relationship with former Zairian strongman Mobutu Sese-Seko. Robertson established the African Development Corporation and obtained lucrative mining and lumber contracts, all the while serving as Mobutu's advocate in the United States. The dictatorial Mobutu, though, drained his nation's treasury, absconding to Switzerland with an estimated $2 billion in stolen assets.

   Robertson has defended Taylor as a "Christian" statesman despite the scrutiny of human rights groups and now even links to the al Qaeda terrorist network. This story begins in September, 1998 when, following an attack by Taylor's police on the U.S. Embassy, al Qaeda operative Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah arrived in the capital of Monrovia and met with a top Taylor lieutenant, Ibrahim Bah. According to a story in the New Republic magazine by Ryan Lizza, the two then flew in a government helicopter to meet with a senior commander of the Revolutionary United Front. RUF "has controlled the diamond mines of Sierra Leon for the last four years," and was the source of "conflict diamonds" used to obtain funds for the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

   "Since then ... bin Laden has raised millions -- perhaps tens of millions -- of dollars buying cut-rate RUF diamonds and selling them in Europe," noted Lizza.

   "This is all very bad news for Taylor's apologists and business associates in the United States, " added Lizza, "a motley crew that includes Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, New Jersey Representative Donald Payne, and former Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Lester Hyman..."

   It has been bad news for Robertson as well, whose deal with Taylor calls for mining operations in a 900-square-kilometer section of southeastern Liberia. Taylor's regime has even issued a press release quoting Robertson as saying, "I pray that this investment may become a wonderful blessing to the people of Liberia."

   One functionary in the Taylor-Robertson deal is Jenkins Dunbar, Minister of Lands, Mines and Energy for the Taylor regime. He has been reported as a collaborator with other cronies of the Liberian strongman in facilitating the work of international criminal gangs. Dunbar's name also surfaced in the fraud investigation into Greater Ministries International, an investment scam operated by Rev. James W. List of Tampa, Florida. List has already been convicted in U.S. federal court for his participation in the scheme, and it was Dunbar who vetoed concerns by the Ministry of National Security, and ushered through the permits allowing List and his group to operate in Liberia. In addition, Dunbar has an indictment against him in the Oklahoma where he worked as an inspector for the state and monitored oil wells. According to Perspective magazine, Dunbar "orchestrated fraud and received bribes and kickbacks for ignoring safety hazards."

   -- Robertson, Jackson and others defend Taylor against charges of corruption and megalomania; but the Freedom Gold operation in Liberia required direct intervention by Taylor who bypassed his own legislature in order to obtain mining concessions for the prominent American televangelist. The Robertson-Taylor document was labeled "Mineral Development Agreement Between the Republic of Liberia and Freedom Gold Limited." It gave Robertson control of gold mining concessions that had belonged to an established businessman named Ken Ross II, a supporter of an earlier regime.

   The Liberian legislature, though, refused to ratify the Agreement. A second contract was drawn up in October, 2000 which provided that the Taylor-Dunbar-Robertson deal would take effect "when approved by the president of Republic of Liberia." Gone was language that provided for the document to be in force "in accordance with the constitution and laws of the Republic."

   Even the conservative U.S. News magazine was alarmed at the penchant of prominent Americans, including Robertson, Jesse Jackson and others, to turn a blind eye to the situation in Liberia. Was there any hint of involvement between Taylor's regime and links to al Qaeda through the lucrative "conflict diamonds" trade? Staff writer Michael Barone warned last November that Taylor's defenders and business partners "should have known that they were dealing with, and aiding, a very unsavory character indeed.'

   ¶    Questions linger as Capitol Hill gears up for hearings on the Enron collapse. What is the full story involving oil giants like Enron, its network of literally hundreds of subsidiaries and partnerships, and the quest for oil in Central Asia and elsewhere? Prior to September 11, did U.S. government foreign policy turn a blind eye to the excesses of the Taliban regime in hopes of striking a lucrative deal? And why do the names of so many stalwarts and heroes of the religious right continue to be mention in connection with everything from Enron to "conflict diamonds"?

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