AFGHANS' DRUG WAR

Afghanistan is a changing nation. Only three years ago, regional
leaders who helped defeat the Taliban agreed in Bonn to a roadmap to
democracy. In January they adopted an enlightened constitution, and on
Oct. 9, more than 8 million Afghan men and women voted in their
nation's first-ever presidential election. Each voted for a single
candidate, but all voted for democracy.

Progress toward a safe and democratic Afghanistan has been steady and
significant. That progress, however, faces a threat that requires
renewed attention by the Afghan government and a helping hand from the
international community. The threat is illegal drugs and a booming
drug trade that transforms innocent and otherwise honest farmers into
laborers trapped in the service of a criminal enterprise. The trade is
in illegal narcotics, and the challenge is to free Afghan farmers from
their dependence on poppy cultivation.

Narcotics production has been a major problem for Afghanistan for
decades. It is a problem that the Afghan people clearly recognize, and
one that will only be solved with their determined leadership and
perseverance, along with the assistance of the international
community. It is by no means a problem that defies solution and the
Afghans have already drawn up a national drug-control strategy.
Colombia's dramatic progress against a pervasive narcotics trade
demonstrates the power of credible, coordinated and comprehensive
policies to reduce the destabilizing threat of drugs. The United
States is playing a valuable role in Colombia's progress, and now we
are prepared to assist Afghanistan fight its drug war.

Our assistance will rest on five pillars: First, we will assist the
Afghan government with a public affairs campaign designed to
discourage poppy cultivation and dissuade participation in any aspect
of the drug trade. Toward this end, the Afghan government may choose
to pursue an amnesty policy for narcotics involvement.

These efforts will be enhanced by the second pillar: increased law
enforcement. We will help the Afghans build a special narcotics
prosecution task force and aid construction of judicial and detention
facilities expressly for counternarcotics cases. We will also lend
technical assistance from our Department of Justice to examine ways to
free poppy farmers from debts incurred to opium middlemen.

Clearly, progress against the drug trade is impossible absent the
alternative livelihoods needed for poppy farmers to feed their
families and prosper. Our third pillar will create new opportunities
for growing legitimate and high-value crops. These fresh livelihood
opportunities will initially be made available in key provinces
targeted for poppy eradication. Micro-credit programs, improved
irrigation, and access to improved seeds and better roads will make
turning away from poppy cultivation a real choice.

Nothing the Afghan government does to quell the drug trade can be
effective without aggressive and effective interdiction policies. Our
fourth pillar will help the Afghans launch eradication programs to
destroy poppy fields. Farmers in the past faced little threat from
growing poppy and were able to reap three to four times more profits
than those from food crops. Destroying poppy fields outright will be a
powerful tool to discourage any future planting of illicit crops.

The fifth pillar is interdiction. Our goal is to help the government
increase the size and mobility of its counternarcotics police, while
accelerating their tempo. More forces will be trained, "high-impact
targets" will be arrested, drug-related intelligence sharing will be
improved, and the pressure points of the drug trade identified and
suppressed. It goes without saying that no one pillar alone will do
the job. In his recent acceptance speech, newly elected President
Hamid Karzai made clear his determination that fighting drugs is his
highest priority. We agree.

The stakes are high, not only for the future stability of Afghanistan
but also for the United States, our allies and partners. A vibrant
drug trade fosters corruption, undermines the rule of law, can finance
terror and will destabilize the region. It threatens all that the
courageous Afghan people have achieved. In a troubled region's newest
democracy, there simply is no place for that terrible trade.

John P. Walters is the director of the U.S. Office of National Drug
Control Policy.