By James Ridgeway
An earlier version of this story ran in Jim's website: Unsilent Generation
Last week, the New York Times ran a story headlined,"US Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan.'' Talk about old news! The country's mineral wealth has been known for centuries. Records of it date back to the time of Marco Polo.
Yahoo News points out that more recently, McClatchy Newspapers reported that this last year, Agence France Presse has written about it and Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself has boasted of the nation's wealth . Afghanistan's mineral reserves were mapped by the Soviets during their occupation of the country, and more recently by other mining experts. It's possible that the team of Pentagon officials and American geologists credited with the "discovery" by the Times may have added some detail to existing knowledge on the subject, but it's hardly the revelation their reportsand the articlesuggest.
So could this "revelation"in the Times in factbe an Obama administrationPRcampaign to buttress U.S. involvement in the troubled war in Afghanistan? For years, we were told of Afghanistan's potential valuable oil or oil pipeline prospects. Whenoil faded from the picture there was no economic reason to be there. The place wasn't like Iraq, where the internationaloil companies gottheir hands on a huge oil reserve.But now, with the Times apparently swallowing the Pentagon's bait, we've suddenly got a new reason to fight: Getting our hands on a lucrative mining colony.
James Risen in the Times reports :
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
The previously unknown deposits -- including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium -- are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.
The vast scale of Afghanistan's mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
Running counter to the claims of a huge discovery is an existing undated report called Minerals in Afghanistan, prepared by the Afghan Minining Ministry jointly with the British Geological Survey andeasily obtained on the web. The report has this to say on the subject:
In central Afghanistan occurrences of rare metals have been identified in sediments below several lakes and depressions where lake brines contain higher than average metal concentrations. Trial pits have indicated that salt deposits covered by clay and loam layers contain high concentrations of lithium, boron, lead and zinc.
In a 2006 special edition onAfghanistanof Mining Journal, pre-eminent publication in the field, the mining minister, Hon. Eng. Ibrahim Adel, writes in the introduction:
Mining in Afghanistan has a history dating back over 6,000 years, and despite all the upheavals over the past 25 years, mining has continued to operate. The main task facing us now is to expand the industry from its present small base. The Government regards the development of Afghanistan's natural resources as the most important driver of economic growth, and essential to the reconstruction and development of the country"For example, construction minerals production has grown dramatically with the increased need for raw materials to feed road building and reconstruction. I expect this will be followed shortly by further investment in the coal, cement and hydrocarbons industries. The first signs of grassroots mineral exploration for gold have started, and with the appointment of Tender Advisors for the future development of the world class Aynak copper deposit, I expect this to lead to really significant investment in the mining sector of the economy in the very near future. Aynak is one of the world's largest undeveloped copper deposits and it has already attracted interest from a wide spectrum of international companies.
Mining Journal provides an in depth account of the history and potential for mining all sorts of minerals. Here is the Journal"s overview:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
