RUMSFELD IN AFGHANISTAN FOR TALKS BEFORE ELECTION

US Defense Secretary Says Drug Trade Hurts Democracy Efforts

KABUL: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held talks with US commanders
and Afghan leaders in Kabul Wednesday to review strategy as insurgents step
up attacks to disrupt historic October presidential elections.

Rumsfeld traveled to the Afghan capital from Oman where he warned that the
drug trade from massive opium poppy crops was hampering US efforts to
foster democracy in the war-torn central Asian state.

Shortly after landing in Kabul he flew to the eastern city Jalalabad to
meet a US military-run team of soldiers and civilians helping to provide
security and with reconstruction projects. Jalalabad lies in the center of
one of Afghanistan's biggest poppy farming regions.

Rumsfeld met the US commander of the team, known as a Provincial
Reconstruction Team, before meeting local dignitaries.

Back in Kabul he was due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is
running for re-election on Oct. 9 against 17 other candidates, and Defense
Minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim.

Rumsfeld and other defense officials traveling with him said they expected
more attacks by Taleban supporters in the run-up to the presidential vote,
Afghanistan's first ever, but Rumsfeld said they would fail.

"Is the Taleban still active in the neighboring areas? Sure. That's just a
fact. Are they going to end up being successful? No. They are going to end
up losing," he said Tuesday in Muscat.

"The larger the groups of Taleban that come together, the better the
target, and the faster they'll be killed or captured."

Senior defense officials traveling with Rumsfeld said the secretary would
use his unannounced visit to hold strategy sessions with commanders, US
Embassy officials and Afghan leaders. The US Army heads a 20,000-strong
coalition of troops hunting Al-Qaeda insurgents and their allies.

"We're doing another complete strategy review. It's under way right now,"
the official said, while speaking on condition of anonymity.

Although the Taleban posed no strategic threat to the government or to the
elections, "there are tactical level threats - assassinations, bombings,
the unfortunate killings of NGOs and the like," he said.

"There is a debate over whether we are seeing a spike or whether it is a
steady state."

The defense official said the United States wanted to accelerate training
and equipping of Afghan army and police units.

Rumsfeld expressed concern in Muscat that drug money raised by insurgents
and warlords from bumper poppy crops posed a threat to US efforts to
establish democratic rule in Afghanistan, which spent a quarter century
under conflict including five years of harsh Taleban rule until late 2001.

Opium from the poppies is the key ingredient for heroin.

Rumsfeld said "the enormous wealth that comes from dealing drugs can be put
to uses that are adverse to our interests or the interests of the Afghan
government."

Drug production generated $2.3 billion in 2003, up 6 percent on the
previous year, according to UN figures. The 3,600 tons of heroin produced
in Afghanistan last year accounted for 90 percent of the heroin on Europe's
streets.

"You need a broad effort in Afghanistan to make sure the hundreds and
hundreds of millions of dollars, and undoubtedly billions of dollars over
time ... will not go into the hands of people who want to also destroy
democracy, or reinstitute a Taleban government or provide funds to Al-Qaeda
or whatever," Rumsfeld said.

"To the extent that millions of dollars are available to criminals and to
people who are not democratic, it puts at risk the entire system. So it's
something the government and the coalition are determined to address."

The UN says the drug trade threatens to turn Afghanistan into a failed
narco-state.