US-LED FORCES PREPARE TO COMBAT DRUG TRADE IN AFGHANISTAN

US-led coalition forces are preparing a coordinated effort to attack
the narcotics trade in Afghanistan, recognizing that drug income could
be used to fund insurgents and terrorists in the country, US Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says.

He offered few specifics, but noted the British government previously
has taken the lead in working with President Hamid Karzai's
administration to address the drug trade in Afghanistan. "There are
plans being finished now," Rumsfeld said on Tuesday, in Oman for the
first of several visits to US allies in the region. "I don't want to
get into whose troops will do what."

The cultivation of opium poppies has resumed and flourished since 2001
in Afghanistan. It was largely eliminated under the Taliban's
religious policing, but farmers have resumed cultivating and
harvesting the profitable crop in the chaos since the fall of the Taliban.

American military commanders in Afghanistan have said previously they
don't have enough troops to go after the poppy trade and still hunt
Taliban and Al-Qaeda holdouts.

Rumsfeld seemed resigned that the poppy trade would continue to some
degree, saying demand for the drug will always lead someone to create
a supply. Heroin made from Afghan poppies generally reaches markets in
Europe and Russia.

"All crops have been good the last two years," he said of
Afghanistan's poppy cultivation. "It is a terrible thing. It produces
great wealth for people who use it to harm society." The criminal
elements are naturally opposed to a strong, democratic government in
Afghanistan, he said. He also suggested drug money had ties to Taliban
or Al-Qaeda, but provided no concrete information to back that up.

United Nations surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three
quarters of the world's opium last year, and the trade brought in
US$2.3 billion, more than half of the nation's gross domestic product.
New surveys suggest even more has been planted this year, with Robert
Charles, the US State Department's top counter-narcotics official,
saying Afghanistan may be on pace for a world record opium poppy crop
this year.

Rumsfeld pointed to the drug war in Colombia as a partial model for
efforts in Afghanistan. There, US-trained military forces attack
narcotics smuggling routes while the Colombian government tries to
eradicate coca growth in the farmlands through aerial spraying.

The costly Colombian campaign, a US$3.3 billion, five-year military
aid package known as Plan Colombia, has provided Colombian forces with
training, equipment and intelligence. It has led to a huge increase in
drug seizures, and closer judicial cooperation between the countries
has led to the extradition of 120 alleged drug traffickers to the
United States for trial in two years. Despite the progress, cocaine
prices on US streets remain unchanged, a sign that there is no
shortage of the drug. And the program to fly crop dusters over
Colombian coca fields and spray them with herbicides has drawn sharp
criticism from environmental and other groups.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld hailed Afghanistan's efforts to prepare for
presidential elections in October, citing figures saying more than 9
million Afghans have registered to vote, including 3.5 million women.

"If those numbers prove out, that's an enormously successful
registration process," he said.

Karzai is clearly the American favorite, but Rumsfeld and other
officials have avoided endorsing him, saying the US government will
work with whomever the Afghan voters choose.