POPPY FIELDS PROVE FERTILE GROUND FOR TALIBAN

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned European leaders last week
that unless they stepped up their support for Afghanistan, they would
likely face more terrorist attacks at home.

His remarks, in Munich, were the most strident in a weeklong
succession of warnings from Washington that Afghanistan would fall
deeper into chaos unless Europe assigns more troops to the NATO force there.

While the warnings and retorts flew across the Atlantic, the United
Nations put out a major report that got little notice but could have
a more direct effect on the security problem than troop deployments
or counterterrorism strategies. The U.N. drug-control office found
that Afghanistan's opium-poppy crop, in the words of the agency's
executive director, was once again "shockingly high."

Neither Gates nor other officials involved in last week's public
debate over Afghanistan's future ever mentioned the opium-poppy
problem - except once, in answer to a question. They seem preoccupied
with putting more boots on the ground.

What none seem to realize or want to admit, however, is that the
opium problem has helped create and sustain the Taliban insurgency.
Without it, the Taliban would have trouble maintaining their offense.
And yet, while the United States and Europe continue to agonize about
the deteriorating situation, little is being done about the poppies.

That United Nations report plainly states what most people in public
life have quietly assumed: that the Taliban extort money from the
poppy farmers. U.N. workers interviewed dozens of these farmers and
then ran the numbers. Last week, the executive director of the U.N.
agency that published the opium report, Antonio Maria Costa, made
public the conclusion.

"Opium is a massive source of revenue for the Taliban," Costa said.
"They tax farmers, it's called the usher, set roughly at 10 percent,
and generate close to $100 million a year."

One hundred million dollars a year!

How much explosives and weaponry can Taliban leaders buy with that?
How many families of suicide bombers can they pay off? For all that
money, how eager might they be to keep the insurgency going, to
maintain control of the southern and southwestern provinces where the
bulk of the poppies are grown?

That money is, of course, wholly unaccountable. Taliban leaders can
do with it whatever they want. With all that wealth, they're not
likely to buy BMWs and palatial homes complete with saunas and home
theaters. But perhaps they are stashing cash in foreign banks for the
future. It's a rare person, no matter how righteous, who does not
appreciate wealth. And the opium trade is a steady, reliable gravy
train - for their terrorist insurgency and, potentially, for themselves.

The $100 million estimate may be conservative. The Taliban also
maintain heroin refining labs throughout Afghanistan. Refined heroin
is worth much more than raw opium. What's more, in just the last
year, Afghanistan has become the world's largest grower of marijuana.

So, wouldn't ending the opium and marijuana trade starve the
insurgency, cripple the Taliban? That sounds easy, but controlling
narcotics production has proved exceedingly difficult around the
world. Except in one place - Afghanistan.

Paradoxically enough, when the Taliban were in power, they managed in
just one year to virtually eliminate the nation's opium-poppy trade
simply by exhorting the people, warning them that growing poppy was
contrary to the teachings of Islam - and plowing under the crops of
anyone who disobeyed.

That was in the spring of 2001, and hundreds of poppy farmers wound
up in refugee camps or neighboring states that were more forgiving of
their trade. But then, of course, came Sept. 11, 2001, and the
American invasion. With the Taliban gone, the opium crops returned.
Since then, the crops have grown exponentially. Afghanistan now
produces 90 percent of the world's opium.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered the only comment about
this in recent days, in answer to a question.

"The Afghans have to step up," she said. "They have to step up
against corruption. They have step up against the cartels."

But the United States shares some responsibility. The Pentagon is
spending $2.5 billion this year to train and equip the Afghan police.
But, despite strong objections from the State Department, these
police are being sent to fight the Taliban - not the drug traffickers.

Ultimately, though, responsibility rests with Hamid Kharzai, the
Afghan president. Americans quietly express frustration with his
reluctance to take on the opium farmers. Still, he does seem to
understand the stakes. I asked him once, on a visit to Kabul, about
fighting the opium trade.

"If we fail," he averred, "we will fail as a state and eventually
will fall back into the hands of terrorism."

Karzai may not be a particularly effective president. But no one can
argue with his prescience.