AFGHANISTAN OPIUM CROP SETS RECORD

U.S.-Backed Efforts at Eradication Fail

Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent
of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic
high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush
administration reported yesterday.

In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year -- for
a total of 5,644 metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation
in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main
production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central
Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent.

White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news "disappointing."

The administration has cited resurgent Taliban forces as the main
impediment to stabilization and reconstruction efforts in
Afghanistan, and the U.S. military investment has far exceeded
anti-narcotic and development programs. But U.S. military and
intelligence officials have increasingly described the drug trade as
a problem that rivals and in some ways exceeds the Taliban,
threatening to derail other aspects of U.S. policy.

"It is truly the Achilles' heel of Afghanistan," Gen. James L. Jones,
the supreme allied commander for NATO, said in a recent speech at the
Council on Foreign Relations. Afghanistan is NATO's biggest
operation, with more than 30,000 troops. Drug cartels with their own
armies engage in regular combat with NATO forces deployed in
Afghanistan, he said. "It would be wrong to say that this is just the
Taliban. I think I need to set that record straight," he added.

"They have their own capability to inflict damage, to make sure that
the roads and the passages stay open and they get to where they want
to go, whether it's through Pakistan, Iran, up through Russia and all
the known trade routes. So this is a very violent cartel," Jones
said. "They are buying their protection by funding other
organizations, from criminal gangs to tribes, to inciting any kind of
resistance to keep the government off of their back."

Any disruption of the drug trade has enormous implications for
Afghanistan's economic and political stability. Although its relative
strength in the overall economy has diminished as other sectors have
expanded in recent years, narcotics is a $2.6 billion-a-year industry
that this year provided more than a third of the country's gross
domestic product. Farmers who cultivate opium poppies receive only a
small percentage of the profits, but U.S. officials estimate the crop
provides up to 12 times as much income per acre as conventional
farming, and there is violent local resistance to eradication.

"It's almost the devil's own problem," CIA Director Michael V. Hayden
told Congress last month. "Right now the issue is stability. . . .
Going in there in itself and attacking the drug trade actually feeds
the instability that you want to overcome."

"Attacking the problem directly in terms of the drug trade . . .
would undermine the attempt to gain popular support in the region,"
agreed Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency. "There's a real conflict, I think."

The Afghan government has prohibited the aerial herbicide spraying
used by U.S. anti-narcotic programs in Latin America. Instead, opium
poppy plants in Afghanistan are destroyed by tractors dragging heavy
bars. But only 38,500 of nearly 430,000 acres under cultivation were
eradicated this year.

Because of security concerns and local sensibilities, all eradication
is done by Afghan police, and corruption is a major problem at every
level from cultivation to international trafficking. Although the
drug trade is believed to provide some financing to the Taliban, most
experts believe it is largely an organized criminal enterprise.
According to a major report on the Afghan drug industry jointly
released last week by the World Bank and the U.N. Office on Drugs and
Crime, key narcotics traffickers "work closely with sponsors in top
government and political positions."

The report drew specific attention to the Afghan Interior Ministry,
saying its officials were increasingly involved in providing
protection for and facilitating consolidation of the drug industry in
the hands of leading traffickers. "At the lower levels," the report
said, "payments to police to avoid eradication or arrest reportedly
are very widespread. At higher levels, provincial and district police
chief appointments appear to be a tool for key traffickers and
sponsors to exercise control and favor their proteges at middle
levels in the drug industry."

Opium cultivation was outlawed during Taliban rule in the late 1990s
and was nearly eliminated by 2001. After the overthrow of the Taliban
government by U.S. forces in the fall of that year, the Bush
administration said that keeping a lid on production was among its
highest priorities. But corruption and alliances formed by Washington
and the Afghan government with anti-Taliban tribal chieftains, some
of whom are believed to be deeply involved in the trade, undercut the effort.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently noted that "once we thought
terrorism was Afghanistan's biggest enemy" but said that now "poppy,
its cultivation and drugs are Afghanistan's major enemy."

Eradication and alternative development programs have made little
discernible headway. Cultivation -- measured annually with
high-resolution satellite imagery that is then parsed by analysts
using specialized computer software -- is nearly double its highest
pre-Karzai level.

"There is supposed to be a tremendous energy associated with this,"
Jones said of the counter-narcotics programs, "but it needs a fresh
look because . . . we're losing ground.