DEA CHIEF: AFGHANISTAN UNABLE TO ENFORCE POPPY-GROWING BAN

WASHINGTON -- Associated Press -- Afghanistan's new government lacks the
manpower to stop farmers from planting the raw material for opium, the Drug
Enforcement Administration chief said Wednesday.

"Enforcement is where the gap is," said Asa Hutchinson, nominated by
President Bush to become undersecretary of border and transportation
security in the new Homeland Security Department.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has banned growing poppies, which are used to
make opium. Hutchinson said there have been some successes: About
one-quarter of the poppies have been destroyed, and some opium has been
stopped at the borders.

But the government has not trained enough police to enforce the ban, he
said, and the United Nations said Afghanistan has "largely failed" so far.

The Taliban, which captured the country in 1996, banned poppy growing four
years later. Farmers resumed growing poppies after the U.S.-led coalition
ousted the Taliban in 2001 in retaliation for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Hutchinson said poppy planting is at pre-Taliban levels.

While traditional drug traffickers are handling the Afghan opium, some of
the money may wind up in the pockets of terrorist groups, Hutchinson said.

"You sometimes see an intersection between those who are interested in
terrorism and those who are interested in ... drug trafficking," he said.

The agency is stepping up efforts to find and develop informants who can
look for drug trafficking and terrorist activity, Hutchinson said. One tip
led to the arrest in North Carolina of a person on the government's
terrorist watch list, he said.