U.N. SURVEY FINDS SURGE IN HEROIN CULTIVATION IN AFGHANISTAN

BRUSSELS - Heroin production is booming in Afghanistan, undermining
democracy and putting money in the coffers of terrorists, according to a
U.N. report Thursday that called on U.S. and NATO-led forces get more
involved in fighting drug traffickers.

"Fighting narcotics is equivalent to fighting terrorism," said Antonio Maria
Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. "It would
be an historical error to abandon Afghanistan to opium, right after we
reclaimed it from the Taliban and al-Qaeda."

Yet while all sides agree on the goal, disputes over tactics surfaced.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called fighting the narcotics industry
his "top priority," but came out Thursday against U.S. proposals to
use crop dusters, citing possible risks to the health of villagers.

"The government of Afghanistan opposes the aerial spraying of poppy
fields as an instrument of eradication," Karzai's office in Kabul said.

Despite the political progress epitomized by Karzai's election, and
local drug control efforts led by British military advisers, the U.N.
agency said cultivation of opium - the raw material for heroin - has
spread to all of Afghanistan, with 10% of the population benefiting
from the trade.

This year's cultivation was up by nearly two-thirds, it found. Bad
weather and disease kept production from setting a record, although
Afghanistan still accounted for 87% of the world supply, up from 76%
in 2003.

Opium is the "main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond
among previously quarrelsome peoples," the report said. It valued the
trade at $2.8 billion, or more than 60% of Afghanistan's 2003 gross
domestic product.

Most is smuggled across the eastern border with Pakistan, where
Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants demand transit and protection fees,
Costa told reporters.

Calling the problem "overwhelming" for the weak Afghan army and
government, Costa called on U.S.- and NATO-led forces to help out more
in operations against drug labs and convoys of traffickers.

America and Britain are training small paramilitary units to smash
laboratories and arrest drug suspects.

Generally, though, NATO nations have been reluctant get their troops
directly involved in the drug fight.

Last week in New York, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
urged the United Nations to come up with a drug-fighting plan for
Afghanistan and said the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan would be
willing to discuss working under that umbrella.

Afghan officials say the government needs foreign help to eradicate
drugs. Costa said international donors must help alleviate poverty in
the countryside and root out corruption in the Afghan army, police and
judiciary.

He urged the Afghan government to pursue a "significant eradication
campaign," prosecute major drug trafficking cases and take "measurable
actions against corruption."

"The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is
slowly becoming a reality," Costa said in the report. "Opium
cultivation, which has spread like wildfire throughout the country,
could ultimately incinerate everything: democracy, reconstruction and
stability."

U.S. Rep. Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations
Committee, recommended the creation of "counternarcotics battalions."
The Illinois Republican also said the United States and Europe should
encourage Afghan economic development to stabilize the country by
embracing "an Afghan trade preference" that would give Afghan products
easy access to the U.S. and European markets.

The Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004 found that cultivation rose 64% over
2003, with 323,701 acres dedicated to the poppies that produce opium.

That set a double record, Costa said, for "the highest drug
cultivation in the country's history, and the largest in the world."

The total output of 4,200 tons was only 17% higher than last year
because bad weather and disease reduced yields by almost 30%, the
survey found. Still, 2004 production was close to the peak of 4,600
tons in 1999 - a year before the Taliban banned new
cultivation.

By contrast, opium production in southeast Asia's notorious "Golden
Triangle" has diminished 75% and the region "may soon be declared
drug-free," Costa said.