U.S. TAKING HEAT FOR AN AFGHAN DRUG BOOM

Opium Trade Blossoms Again

The Bush administration, already under fire for under-funding the rebuilding
of Afghanistan and permitting that country's warlords to retain their power,
is now facing charges that it is allowing Afghan drug production to boom.

The charges, initially raised by a handful of independent experts, were
aired at a Senate hearing in May. Critics say the administration has turned
a blind eye to an explosive increase in Afghan opium production, either
because it cannot control the countryside or because it does not want to
undermine regional warlords who profit from the trade and are fighting
America's proxy war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied the
administration was looking the other way, insisting the American anti-drug
policy was serious and urging critics not to expect immediate results.

Production of opium, officially banned by the American-backed government in
January 2002, reached 3,400 tons in 2002, according to the United Nations.
The 2003 harvest is expected to reach a similar level, making Afghanistan
the source of three-fourths of the world's opium, officials and experts say.
Opium, a paste derived from poppy seeds, is the basic component in heroin.

The developments are likely to fuel criticism that the administration has
sidelined the war on drugs to favor the war on terrorism or the war in Iraq.

"This is just outrageous," said Larry Johnson, a former State Department and
CIA official who is now a consultant to government and business on terrorism
and narcotics. "If any other country was in the position we are and allowing
this to happen, we would accuse them of being complicit in the drug trade.
The Bush administration is showing benign neglect."

Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware has expressed outrage on several
occasions over the administration's apparent toleration of Afghan drug
production, most recently in May during judiciary committee hearings on
links between international drug trafficking and terrorism.

"Despite President Karzai's truly valiant efforts, Afghanistan has now
regained its status as the world's largest source of opium," Biden told the
committee. "We can't separate fighting terrorism and fighting drug
trafficking, given the considerable linkages between the two."

"Afghanistan is the No. 1 opium producer again, this time on our watch," a
Biden aide told the Forward.

While American government estimates are lower than those of the U.N.,
officials of both the State Department and the Drug Enforcement
Administration acknowledge that Afghan production is rising again. They
contend, however, that the rise is unavoidable given the lack of overall
security and central government control in the country.

The State Department's international narcotics and law enforcement division
is managing a $60 million program in Afghanistan focused on building police
and judicial forces and developing alternative crops. This compares to more
than $1 billion allocated to eradication efforts in Colombia, the main
center of cocaine production.

The official, acknowledging that production in Afghanistan was rising, said
it was "disappointing though not unexpected."

The 2002 and expected 2003 figures mean that production has rebounded to its
level in 2000. Output fell sharply in 2001, reaching a low of 180 tons that
year as a result of a ban on poppy farming enforced by the Taliban.

Some critics charge that by allowing cash-strapped Afghanistan to cash in on
the drug trade, the administration might be using questionable means to help
the country regain its footing.

Andrew McCoy, author of the just-published book "The Politics of Heroin: CIA
Complicity in the Global Drug Trade," said that opium was the "ideal drug
for Afghan reconstruction" since it requires a massive workforce and little
water in a country plagued by unemployment and an arid climate.

The figures are indeed staggering. The U.N. estimates that between 1994 and
2000, Afghanistan's gross income for opium production was about $150 million
per year, or some $750 per family. In 2002, it jumped to $1.2 billion, or
$6,500 per family. And income from trafficking is estimated to be as high as
$1.4 billion in 2002.

However, little of that money reaches the ordinary Afghan, whose average
wage is $2 per month.

Johnson, the ex-CIA official, said the administration had in fact decided to
"privatize aid to Afghanistan."

"The drug users will help rebuild Afghanistan," he said.

In recent weeks, several American troops, aid workers and Afghan officials
have been killed by what American officials say are remnants or sympathizers
of the Taliban.

At the same time, the central government is struggling to establish its
authority outside of the capital, Kabul, and is locked in a fight with
powerful warlords over their unwillingness to send tax and customs proceeds
to Kabul.

Critics say the United States may be backpedaling in the war against drugs
because it was allied to the warlords, funding them and using them to fight
the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda last year. As it happens, those
same warlords control the drug trade, experts said.

This helps explain why the implementation of the ban on opium production and
trade announced by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in January 2002 has
been piecemeal, experts said.

"You have a contradiction in the U.S. policy in Afghanistan," said McCoy, a
history professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "You have U.S.
forces chasing the Taliban and Al Qaeda with the warlords-cum-drug lords and
you have an effort to build a central government... So you won't see much
U.S. support for the official eradication policy of Karzai because we are in
bed with the warlords."

Several sources speculated that Afghanistan's drug production may have
captured less attention than Colombia's production among Washington
policymakers in part because the vast majority of the Afghan drug ends up in
Europe, while 90% of Colombia's drugs are United States-bound.

Reinforcing those suspicions, American officials have openly hinted that the
Europeans should pay the bulk of the Afghan eradication effort. A State
Department official confirmed that the administration was "encouraging" the
Europeans to do more.

Administration officials contend that the Taliban used its opium policy
cynically, banning the drug only to encourage scarcity and raise prices.
U.N. figures appear to reinforce this view. The Taliban initially encouraged
poppy production, prompting it to reach more than 4,600 tons a year,
according to the U.N. Production of the drug - though not the trade - was
banned in 2001, leading to a decline in production and a spike in prices,
which rose tenfold at harvest time in the summer of 2001 and doubled again
that fall, reaching 20-fold before September 11.

Ethan Nadelman, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a private
group that promotes alternative drug policies, said that while he lamented
the administration's cynicism, the policy might be viewed as a refreshingly
pragmatic, "strategic" stance on opium production.

"We know that when you push production down in one place, it will pop up
somewhere else," he said. "So where does opium production have more
strategic interest for the U.S.? Maybe they are better off having it in
Afghanistan."