Another Record Opium Crop in Afghanistan
Pastor Dale Morgan
Another Record Opium Crop in Afghanistan*
Saturday August 4, 2007 5:31 PM
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest
this year that cements its status as the world's near-sole supplier of
the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is
stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say.
As President Bush prepares for weekend talks with Afghan President Hamid
Karzai, divisions within the U.S. administration and among NATO allies
have delayed release of a $475 million counternarcotics program for
Afghanistan, where intelligence officials see growing links between
drugs and the Taliban, the officials said.
U.N. figures to be released in September are expected to show that
Afghanistan's poppy production has risen up to 15 percent since 2006 and
that the country now accounts for 95 percent of the world's crop, 3
percentage points more than last year, officials familiar with
preliminary statistics told The Associated Press.
But counterdrug proposals by some U.S. officials have met fierce
resistance, including boosting the amount of forcible poppy field
destruction in provinces that grow the most, officials said. The
approach also would link millions of dollars in development aid to
benchmarks on eradication; arrests and prosecutions of narcotraders,
corrupt officials; and on alternative crop production.
Those ideas represent what proponents call an ``enhanced
carrot-and-stick approach'' to supplement existing anti-drug efforts.
They are the focus of the new $475 million program outlined in a
995-page report, the release of which has been postponed twice and may
be again delayed due to disagreements, officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because parts of the
report remain classified.
Counternarcotics agents at the State Department had wanted to release a
123-page summary of the strategy last month and then again last week,
but were forced to hold off because of concerns it may not be feasible,
the officials said.
Now, even as Bush sees Karzai on Sunday and Monday at the presidential
retreat in Camp David, Md., a tentative release date of Aug. 9, timed to
follow the meetings, appears in jeopardy. Some in the administration,
along with NATO allies Britain and Canada, seek revisions that could
delay it until at least Aug. 13, the officials said.
The program represents a 13 percent increase over the $420 million in
U.S. counternarcotics aid to Afghanistan last year. It would adopt a
bold new approach to ``coercive eradication'' and set out criteria for
local officials to receive development assistance based on their
cooperation, the officials said.
Although the existing aid, supplemented mainly by Britain and Canada and
supported by the NATO force in Afghanistan, has achieved some results -
notably an expected rise in the number of ``poppy-free'' provinces from
six to at least 12 and possibly 16, mainly in the north - production
elsewhere has soared, they said.
``Afghanistan is providing close to 95 percent of the world's heroin,''
the State Department's top counternarcotics official, Tom Schweich, said
at a recent conference. ``That makes it almost a sole-source supplier''
and presents a situation ``unique in world history.''
Almost all the heroin from Afghanistan makes its way to Europe; most of
the heroin in the U.S. comes from Latin America.
Afghanistan last year accounted for 92 percent of global opium
production, compared with 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade
earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan brought world production to a
record high of 7,286 tons in 2006, 43 percent more than in 2005.
A State Department inspector general's report released Friday noted that
the counternarcotics assistance is dwarfed by the estimated $38 billion
``street value'' of Afghanistan's poppy crop, if all is converted to
heroin, and said eradication goals were ``not realistic.''
Schweich, an advocate of the now-stalled plan, has argued for more
vigorous eradication efforts, particularly in southern Helmand province,
responsible for some 80 percent of Afghanistan's poppy production. It is
where, he says, growers must be punished for ignoring good-faith appeals
to switch to alternative, but less lucrative, crops.
``They need to be dealt with in a more severe way,'' he said at the
conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International
Studies. ``There needs to be a coercive element, that's something we're
not going to back away from or shy away from.''
But, in fact, many question whether this is the right approach with
Afghanistan mired in poverty and in the throes of an insurgency run by
the Taliban and residual al-Qaida forces.
Along with Britain, whose troops patrol Helmand, elements in the State
Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, the Defense
Department and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy have
expressed concern, saying that more raids will drive farmers with no
other income to join extremists.
There is also skepticism about the incentives in the new strategy from
those who believe development assistance should not be denied to local
communities because of poppy growth, officials said.
Opponents argue that the benefits of such aid, new roads and other
infrastructure, schools and hospitals, will themselves be powerful tools
to combat the narcotrade once constructed.
One U.S. official said the plan was a good one but might take another
year or two before it can be effectively introduced.
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On the Net:
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy:
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/
State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs: http://www.state.gov/p/inl/
Audio link to comments on new strategy by acting Assistant Secretary of
State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Thomas Schweich at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies:
http://www.csis.org/component/option,com-csis-events/task,view/id,13 50/
U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html