TOO MANY POPPIES BLOOM

"Afghanistan, the narco-state," is not how the White House would advertise
the country it touts as a major success in the war on terrorism. Yet
poppies are flourishing more than democracy in the country that produces
nearly 90 percent of the world's opium, which is then turned into heroin.

Cultivation levels equate to a "239 percent increase in the poppy crop and
a 73 percent increase in potential opium production over 2003 estimates,"
the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy announced Friday. That's a
sixfold increase since the United States invaded in October 2001 to oust
the Taliban, which had sheltered Al-Qaeda. Worse, the sharp rise in
production last year reached the highest levels in the country's history
and in the world. Only drought and disease prevented yet another record
crop. In another alarming sign, the United Nations reported Thursday that
poppy growing has spread to every province of Afghanistan. The wildfire
spread of cultivation "could ultimately incinerate everything: democracy,
reconstruction and stability," said Antonio Maria Costa, director of the
U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime.

These reports offer more evidence of the Bush administration's failure to
follow up invasion with timely rebuilding. President Hamid Karzai, for all
practical purposes, is only mayor of Kabul, the capital city. Competing
provincial warlords run the countryside and everything that goes on there,
including the opium trade. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban still are profiting
from the illicit sale of drugs. There are signs of increasingly
sophisticated ties between the country's drug industry and international
organized crime.

In an attempt to counter the $2.8 billion opium trade that accounts for
more than 60 percent of the country's economy, the U.S. has announced a
$780 million "Plan Afghanistan." John P. Walters, director of the drug
policy office, said the program will include a public-affairs campaign
designed to discourage poppy cultivation, the subsidizing of alternative
crops, eradication by using defoliants, and interdiction. To have any
chance of success, the plan must properly balance those elements and must
be long-term. The Bush administration also must be willing to recognize,
for example, where it leaves farmers at the mercy of warlords, and that
interdiction is a particular area in which the Europeans, who get most of
the harvest delivered to their streets, should be asked to offer major help.

NATO already is doing most of the peacekeeping work in Afghanistan. Though
American forces continue to hunt terrorists, Afghanistan has become a
comparative afterthought to Iraq. By neglecting the country, we are making
the mistakes the Soviets made two decades ago. The 8 million Afghans who
voted in October want more than a facade of a plan.