@Robrob
You seem to be mixing up the order and time line of events so I will simply walk you through them in the correct order.
In 6 easy steps I will demonstrate that there was motive to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban government BEFORE 9/11. And the individuals and corporations with motive to overthrow the Taliban had used their vast resources to influence and lobby congress to do so. Including many of the self-proclaimed neoconservatives who were members of PNAC (which desired world domination by securing strategic energy reserves) and were also influential members of the Bush administration serving in several key positions and whom also had made it clear their early desire to invade Afghanistan BEFORE 9/11. Therefore establishing both the political and cooperate will to secure Afghanistan BEFORE 9/11.
FIRST:
Bush ordered plans to be drawn up in May 2001 for the invasion of Afghanistan. The May 2001 plan to oust the Taliban called for military operations to begin in OCTOBER 2001 and was coordinated by Khalilzad who previously worked under Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz when he helped him write the controversial 1992 plan to control strategic energy reserves for US world domination and was a member of the neoconservative think tank “Project for the New American Century” which also called for the US to forcefully take control of strategic energy reserves in order to become THE world leader/empire.
Khalilzad who coordinated the May 2001 US invasion plans to oust the Taliban, (by beginning military operations in OCTOBER 2001), had previously pushed for the overthrow of the Taliban 2 years earlier with other members of Unocal after he conducted the risk analysis for Unocal (Union Oil Company of California) for the infamous proposed $2 billion, 1,500 kilometer-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan [TAP] gas pipeline.
Khalilzad the former Unocal exec, was responsible for picking Hamid Karzai, the former Unocal consultant, as head of the interim government who subsequently was elected President of Afghanistan, and welcomed the first U.S. envoy—-Mr. John J. Maresc a, Vice President for International Relations of the Unocal Corporation, who had implored Congress three years previously, (with other members of Unocal including Khalilzad), to have the Taliban overthrown. Mr. Maresca was succeeded by Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad—-also a former Unocal consultant. (Mr. Khalilzad had since become Ambassador to Iraq which was phase TWO of securing the US’s geopolitical goals in the region which included surrounding Iran, ending Russia’s pipeline monopoly, establishing bases, and etc.)
Because of the vital importance of the TAPI pipeline, one of the first things the new Afghan/Unocal government did was sign the TAPI pipeline deal with Turkmenistan and Pakistan. But the TAPI plans have stalled along with the Afghan war do to the Taliban continually increasing its rate of inflicting US casualties while maintaining a strong resistance/insurgence in the key areas the pipeline must travel through thus making it, (like Afghanistan), impossible for the US to secure.
SECOND:
I have already posted a dozen news reports BEFORE 9/11 from around the world that were “ALL” accurately reporting in June 2001 that the US was preparing to launch military operations to oust the Taliban and that the US had even told other countries in June 2001 that the May 2001 plan for US military operations would begin in Afghanistan in OCTOBER 2001. Even according to Condoleezza Rice, testifying before the 9/11 commission, Bush AUTHORIZED ON SEPTEMBER 4, 2001 to begin the May 2001 plan for military operations “against Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control, air and air defense, ground forces, and logistics.”
Some people on this thread have suggested that the reason Bush Authorized on SEPTEMBER 4, 2001 the May 2001 plan for military operations to begin in OCTOBER 2001 against the Taliban was to get OBL but I have shown evidence that Bush did not care about OBL BEFORE 9/11 when he approved on September 4, 2001 to begin military operations for the October 2001 attack “against Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control, air and air defense, ground forces, and logistics.”
THIRD:
For example there was a huge rift between the Taliban and OBL and the Taliban desperately wanted to get rid of OBL. An e-mail from two leading Arab jihadists in Afghanistan to Bin Laden in July 1999, later found on a laptop previously belonging to al Qaeda in and purchased by the Wall Street Journal, referred to "problems between you and the Leader of the Faithful (Mullah Omar) " as a "crisis".
The e-mail, published in an article by Alan Cullison in the September 2004 issue of The Atlantic, said, "Talk about closing down the camps has spread." The al Qaeda jihadists feared the Taliban regime was going to "kick them out" of Afghanistan.
The Taliban was so fed up with OBL that they had a shootout with OBL’s bodyguards when they took OBL from his home in Kandahar and had him taken to an isolated house in the country while they attempted to get rid of him.
FOURTH:
The CIA station Chief Robert Grenier confirmed the Taliban offered to hand OBL over and Elmar Brok, a German member of the European Parliament, confirmed that he helped Kabir Mohabbat, (who also confirms Taliban tried to hand over OBL), make contact with the US government after the Taliban had arrested OBL. All three confirm that Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil told the US officials “You can have him (OBL) whenever the Americans are ready. Name us a country and we will extradite him.” But according to the German member of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, and Robert Grenier, the CIA station chief in Pakistan a “political decision” was made by US officials not to except the Taliban offers.
CIA station Chief Robert Grenier, said about the meetings; “They were saying, ‘Do something to help us give him up.’… I have no doubts they wanted to get rid of him. He was a pain in the neck.” The Taliban also proposed to hold bin Laden, who was at this time a prisoner, in one location long enough for the US to locate and kill him. According to Kabir Mohabbat and Elmar Brok the Taliban became so frustrated that they even offered to pay the US for the missile strike on Bin Laden. However, this offer was also refused by US officials. Despite that Clarke had been pushing for several months that the US use predator drones to collect data in Afghanistan and take out/kill OBL but Tenet said the only way the CIA will operate the predator drones was “over my dead body.”
FITH:
Because Tenet did not want to use drones and because he continually turned down missile strikes and the use of Special Forces and etc, to kill or apprehend OBL. Bush might have had no choice but to have the May 2001 plans drawn up, vetted and finally approved on 9-4-01 to begin military operations in OCTOBER 2001 against the Taliban. As Tenets refusal to use predator drones, missile strikes and etc, does explain why the Bush administration repeatedly denied the Taliban all of their many requests for the US to conduct a missile strike, special force op, or etc, (including their offer to pay for a missile strike), on the Taliban’s prisoner location of OBL and thus help remove what had become a major pain in the neck for the Taliban.
Either way there was a plan to oust the Taliban BEFORE 9/11 and that plan had been openly supported for years by many of the self-proclaimed neoconservatives serving in key positions of the Bush administration. Their reasons for invading and securing Afghanistan had to do with securing strategic geopolitical interests of the US in the region.
SIXTH:
The excuse used to suggest that Bush had authorized the invasion of Afghanistan a week before 9/11 because he wanted to apprehend OBL for the USS Cole attack has also been debunked. Do to the FACT that before 9/11 the CIA was illegally withholding crucial information from the USS Cole investigators and Rice and Tenet were saying before 9/11 that the USS Cole investigation was still ongoing and that there was currently NO evidence indicating that OBL had planned, ordered, or sanctioned the USS Cole attack. Yet according to Condoleezza Rice, testifying to the 9/11 commission, Bush authorized on September 4, 2001 the May 2001 plan for military operations “against Taliban targets in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control, air and air defense, ground forces, and logistics.”.
But after a decade of trying unsuccessfully to oust the Taliban US officials now insist that the Taliban are not enemies of US interests, (TAPI pipeline), so therefore the US should/has included the Taliban in the negotiations and the US is desperately trying to pay off the Taliban, through its currently corrupt Afghan puppet government, by offering to pay the Taliban a share in dollars for every cubic foot of gas that goes through the TAPI pipeline so that the Taliban will help to secure the pipeline/Afghanistan instead of acting as an enemy of US interests/pipeline.
