U.N. - AFGHANISTAN BECOMING 'NARCO-STATE'

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Afghanistan is on its way to becoming a
"narco-state" and U.S. and NATO-led forces in the country should get
involved in fighting the drug trade as well as terrorists, according
to a U.N. report released Thursday.

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

The agency found that this year's cultivation of opium - the raw
material for heroin - was up by nearly two-thirds. Bad weather and
disease kept production from setting a new record, although it still
accounted for 87 percent of world supply, up from 76 percent in 2003.

The illegal trade is booming despite political progress in the
country, including the first presidential election, and local drug
control efforts directed by British military advisers.

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

Calling the problem too big for the weak Afghan government to tackle
alone, Costa said U.S.- and NATO-led forces should participate in
military operations against drug labs and convoys of
traffickers.

International donors also have to lend support with measures to
alleviate poverty in the countryside and to root out corruption in the
Afghan army, police, judiciary and provincial administrations.

NATO has said it recognizes the seriousness of the problem but had no
immediate comment.

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

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

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

That set a double record, Costa said: "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 percent higher than last
year because bad weather and disease reduced yields by almost 30
percent, 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 percent and "may soon be declared drug
free," he said.

Most heroin from Afghanistan ends up on the streets of
Europe.

British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, whose country is leading
the counternarcotics effort in Afghanistan, said there was an
international commitment to support the Afghan government fight the
problem.

"The challenge is substantial and complex, but we and the Afghans are
in this for the long haul," he said in a statement.