RUMSFELD CONCERNED ABOUT AFGHAN DRUG TRADE

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said
Monday a flourishing drug trade in Afghanistan may be helping fuel a
Taliban resurgence, potentially undermining the young Afghan democracy.

"I do worry that the funds that come from the sale of those products
could conceivably end up adversely affecting the democratic process
in the country," he told reporters accompanying him on an overnight
flight from Washington.

"I also think anytime there is that much money floating around and
you have people like the Taliban that it gives them an opportunity to
fund their efforts in various ways," he added in the interview.

U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to oust the radical
Taliban regime, and although the country now has a democratically
elected government the Taliban have made been making a comeback.

At a news conference after Rumsfeld met with President Emomali
Rakhmonov and other senior government officials, Foreign Minister
Talbak Nazarov told reporters that the Taliban is trying to "turn
Afghanistan back to its past." He expressed confidence that the
fundamentalist movement would fail.

Rumsfeld said there is U.S. intelligence information indicating that
the Taliban have taken a share of drug profits in exchange for
providing protection. He did not offer specifics or elaborate.

The defense secretary also said the bulk of the demand for heroin and
other drugs supplied by Afghanistan is largely in Europe and Russia,
and he called on the Europeans to do more to help fight the problem.

"Western Europe ought to have an enormous interest in the success in
Afghanistan, and it's going to take a lot more effort on their part
for the Karzai government to be successful," he said, referring to
President Hamid Karzai.

Tajikistan, which has supported U.S. anti-terror efforts including
the war in neighboring Afghanistan, lies on a major route used by
drug traffickers to smuggle narcotics to Russia an Eastern Europe.
The United States has worked with the Tajik government to attempt to
improve its border security.

At the news conference, Nazarov said his country is given too much of
the blame for being a drug conduit. He cited a list of
drug-interdiction figures that he said showed his government last
year had seized large quantities of heroin and other drugs
manufactured in Afghanistan, and he said seizures were up 27 percent
in the first quarter of 2006.

Rumsfeld told reporters the Pentagon has no interest in setting up
more permanent bases in Central Asia, but he noted that other basing
arrangements are needed to support military activities in
Afghanistan. Under an existing "gas-and-go" agreement, U.S. warplanes
are permitted to stop in Tajikistan to be refueled but there is no
arrangement for full-scale U.S. basing here. U.S. planes supporting
operations in Afghanistan also are permitted to overfly Tajik territory.

In the in-flight interview - which came on Rumsfeld's 74th birthday -
the defense secretary declined to discuss that subject in detail. But
he indicated in general terms that the Pentagon is interested in
finding more basing options to support war operations in Afghanistan.

"We obviously always need to be positioned so that we have more than
one option," he said, referring to a basing arrangement in Kyrgyzstan
- - an arrangement now in doubt because of a dispute over U.S. payments
and the Kyrgyz government's desire for more extensive political
support from Washington.

"In any situation where you have only one way to do something you can
become a captive," he added.

Rakhmonov, who has led the country since 1994, has jailed several
former loyalists and opposition leaders and pushed through a
referendum that would potentially allow him to stay in power until
2020 if re-elected. An election is scheduled for November.

Rumsfeld said this was his third visit to Tajikistan since the Sept.
11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring
Afghanistan a month later. His most recent previous visit was in July 2005.

The U.S. military has no troops based in Tajikistan. Another
neighboring state, Uzbekistan, kicked U.S. forces out in a dispute
over the Uzbek government's handling of civil unrest in the eastern
city of Andijan in May 2005. That diplomatic flap has added to the
importance of Tajikistan as a strategic ally in the war on terrorism
- - in particular in prosecuting the war in Afghanistan.