RUMSFELD LINKS DRUGS, TALIBAN

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said
yesterday that 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 any time
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. U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October
2001 to oust the radical Taliban regime.

Although the country now has a democratically elected government, the
Taliban has been making a comeback. At a press conference after Mr.
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. Mr.
Rumsfeld said U.S. intelligence information indicates that the
Taliban has 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
Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Tajikistan, which has supported U.S.
counterterrorism efforts including the war in neighboring
Afghanistan, lies on a major route used by drug traffickers to
smuggle narcotics to Russia and Eastern Europe. The United States has
worked with the Tajik government to attempt to improve its border
security. At the press conference, Mr. 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. Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters
that 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.