U.S. FAULTS 3 NATIONS ON ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — President Bush has determined that Afghanistan, Haiti
and Myanmar "failed demonstrably" in the fight against drugs over the last
year, officials said today.

But Mr. Bush decided not to impose penalties on Afghanistan, where 4,000
American troops are stationed, or Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest
nation. He said it was in the vital interest of the United States to
support those nations. Myanmar remained ineligible for most forms of United
States aid.

The findings are the first under a new procedure that allows the
administration to deliver an annual report card on only those countries it
says are the most egregious cases of noncooperation.

For years, nations like Mexico and Colombia objected to the annual process
known as certification, which they viewed as humiliating and one-sided.
Before the change, the State Department provided detailed assessments of
about two dozen countries linked to drugs.

During a visit to Washington last year, President Vicente Fox of Mexico
made a plea for lawmakers to abandon the certification review. Rand Beers,
the State Department's top anti-narcotics official, said the United States
was studying ways to persuade opium farmers in Afghanistan to plow under
their crops.

The United States is already blocking more than $200 million in loans to
Haiti to prod President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to reach an accommodation
with his political foes.