The story...

A Pakistani diplomat confirms that the Afghan war was pre-planned months before 9/11.

Our take...

David Ray Griffin's "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions" has one take on this.

When the Bush administration came to power, however, it decided to give the Taliban one last chance. This last chance occurred at a four-day meeting in Berlin in July 2001... According to the Pakistani representative at this meeting, Niaz Naik, US representatives, trying to convince the Taliban to share power with US-friendly factions, said: "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." Naik said that he was told by Americans that "military action against Afghanistan would go ahead...before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest." The US attack on Afghanistan began, in fact, on October 7, which was as soon as the US military could get ready after 9/11.
"The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions": Page 125

Griffin's suggestion is that the "US war against the Taliban was related more to the [Unocal] pipeline project than to 9/11". Does this make sense? Maybe not.

First, the talk of the Bush administration giving the Taliban "one last chance" and the mention of US representatives might make you think this was an official American Government delegation. But in reality, those attending were all retired diplomats including a Clinton appointee, and the meeting itself was sponsored by the UN. Read more here.

Second, Griffin wants to tell you that the war was more about pipelines than terrorism. Unfortunately accounts from the meeting tell a very different story.

Third, no-one else at the meeting confirms Naiks account.

Fourth, Naiks story contains an implausible amount of detail.

And fifth, a Salon article suggests Naik may be an unreliable witness, and offers a reason why he may have exaggerated what he heard.

However you take this story, there's no evidence here whatsoever that the Unocal pipeline was more important than terrorism: quite the opposite, in fact. And because of that, how does any of this fit in with the theory that 9/11 was "an inside job"? 

After all, what would America have done if the Taliban had heard about the "carpet of bombs" and decided to hand over Bin Ladin? Wouldn't this have been just a tiny bit inconvenient with regards to the "War on Terror"? Not for the first time, the conspiracy explanations just don’t seem to fit the facts..