AFGHAN HEROIN BIZ BOOMS AS U.S. NODS, CHUCK SEZ

WASHINGTON - With Afghanistan's record poppy crop supplying nearly all
the world's heroin, lawmakers are questioning the Pentagon's
narcotics-fighting efforts there.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) yesterday demanded that Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld explain why he only requested $18 million to
fight Afghan drug trafficking, which has helped fuel the Taliban's
violent resurgence.

The U.S. military has only mounted three joint combat operations to
hit opium processing labs with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
commando teams since agents arrived in Kabul 18 months ago, sources
told the Daily News.

"It's next to impossible to get those guys in the military to go out
with us," said one frustrated law enforcement official.

DEA agents sometimes ride along with British commandos on drug-lab
raids instead.

Because Afghanistan is an active war zone, the 25 DEA agents who
rotate into the country must have military choppers and soldiers to
back them up when they attack remote labs that process poppies into
opium.

The DEA also was expected to train the Afghan narcotics police, but
"they don't even have weapons," a source said.

In his letter to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Rice and Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales, Schumer criticized their failure to stem a
$4 billion harvest that the UN says supplies 92% of the world's heroin
and funds the Taliban.

This year's crop has soared by 59%.

"Without a clear and cogent plan to tackle this problem, Afghanistan
will remain violent," wrote Schumer, who has tried to appropriate
$700million for Afghan drug fighting.

But in a report on drug-producing nations yesterday, President Bush
faulted Afghan President Hamid Karzai for not cracking down on
trafficking, charging that it "could undermine security [and]
compromise democratic legitimacy."