AMERICA ACCUSES BRITAIN OF FAILING IN WAR ON DRUGS

America's love affair with Tony Blair was thrown into crisis yesterday when
a US official publicly accused Britain of failing to take action to
eradicate a bumper crop of Afghan opium poppies.

The Bush administration took the highly unusual step of sending a senior
official to Congress to chastise Britain, its closest ally in the war on
terrorism, for dragging its feet in the fight against drugs.

Robert Charles, the assistant secretary of state for international
narcotics and law enforcement, said Britain was being too squeamish about
eradicating poppy fields before Afghan farmers had found an alternative
source of crops and income.

"Our point of disagreement, and I put it very directly," said Mr Charles,
"is that we believe that if there is a heroin poppy that needs to be
eradicated, we shouldn't be picking and choosing, we shouldn't be delaying,
waiting for an alternative revenue stream to become available."

He said: "Our priority should not be some kind of misplaced sympathy for
someone who will have to do a little bit more work [to grow other,
less-lucrative crops, such as wheat or barley]."

His onslaught came during an appearance before a Republican-chaired hearing
of the House narcotics sub-committee entitled: "Afghanistan: are British
counter-narcotics efforts going wobbly?"

This was a pointed reference to Margaret Thatcher's warning to George Bush
Sr not to "go wobbly" in the run-up to the 1991 Kuwait war.

Britain has been designated by the G8 group of leading industrialised
states to lead the international effort to staunch the flow of drugs from
Afghanistan, the world's biggest heroin producer.

One reason for America's alarm is the evidence of a surge in the 2004 poppy
crop, which Mr Charles said may double last year's production.

"We may well be looking at well over 120,000 hectares of poppy cultivation
this year," he said. "That would constitute a world record crop, empowering
traffickers and the terrorists they feed, raising the stakes for, and the
vulnerability of, Afghan democracy, and raising the supply of heroin on the
world market."

But he said there was "still a window open for Britain to become more
aggressive" before the harvest begins later this month in the south and
moves north.

The British embassy declined an invitation to address the hearing. The
Government responded quickly but cautiously last night, saying it was
determined to stamp out drugs production.

Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, said: "We are making real
progress on tackling Afghan drugs. Much has been achieved, but there are no
short cuts to success."

British officials say they have agreed a 10-year plan with the Afghan
government to rid the country of poppy cultivation, but expected a
"short-term increase" after the overthrow of the Taliban regime, which had
restricted production. The Government has earmarked UKP70 million for the
counter-narcotics effort in the coming three years.

Mr Charles praised British efforts to destroy heroin laboratories and
shipments. But insisted that Britain had to do a lot more to uproot poppy
crops, particularly in the southern Pathan belt, where British officials
are working with provincial governors.

The dispute is tangled in Afghanistan's complex tribal politics. In the
American view, Britain is reluctant to stir up more trouble in the restive
Pathan south, from where the Taliban draws its support.

But unless poppies in the south are eradicated, America fears that any
attempt to destroy them farther north could provoke a backlash from Tajiks,
who would complain that the Pathans were being treated more leniently.

Mr Charles said that unless the drugs trade was brought under control
quickly it might become unstoppable, with "the institutionalisation of
Colombia-like cartels".

It is almost unheard of for the Bush administration to rebuke Britain in
public. US officials will generally tie themselves in knots rather than
criticise Washington's close ally and a Labour leader revered in America.