http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
xml=/news/2005/07/17/wafg17.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/17/ixworld.html
US 'disappointed' at British failure to stem opium trade
By Colin Freeman
(Filed: 17/07/2005)
American drug-enforcement officials are "disappointed" and "deeply
concerned" about the failure of British-led efforts to fight
Afghanistan's heroin trade.
Last week's blunt warnings from the State Department's Bureau of
Narcotics also claimed that the international battle against the
country's drugs lords was doomed to failure unless funding was
vastly increased.
Government workers destroy an opium poppy crop in Afghanistan
The disclosures come ahead of a meeting between Hamid Karzai, the
Afghan president, and Tony Blair in London this week, when the
threat posed by the country's "narcocracy" is expected to be high on
the agenda.
The problem has been given added urgency by the London bombings,
where investigations have pointed to likely links with groups
affiliated to al-Qaeda in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area, many
of which are thought to raise funds by drug smuggling.
The UK is in the middle of a three-year term leading US, European
and local forces in the fight to eradicate Afghanistan's drug trade,
which resurged after the collapse of the Taliban in 2001. But to
British officials' embarrassment, the level of opium cultivation
during their stint at the helm has reached an all-time high of
nearly half a million acres.
The extent of Washington's unease was revealed during a House of
Representatives hearing in Washington last Tuesday, at which
Republican legislators branded the situation a "disgrace". Giving
evidence, Nancy Powell, an acting assistant secretary of state for
the bureau of narcotics, said: "We are not only disappointed but
deeply concerned by our results to date."
Ms Powell said bad weather and the lack of co-operation from Afghan
authorities meant that opium destruction rates had dipped this year
to just 565 acres. With Congress allocating around $1 billion
annually to fight the trade, it meant a net bill of around $200,000
per acre.
Despite the high cost, she said, only more money and more manpower
would repeat the relative successes against drugs barons in Latin
America and South East Asia. "I do believe it will take time and
it's going to take considerably more resources."
British officials stressed that the war against drugs is still in
its early stages and that production was always likely to increase
until Kabul's fledgling law enforcement agencies caught up.
Washington, however, has expressed reservations in the past 18
months over Britain's "softly-softly" approach, which emphasises
providing opium farmers with alternative livelihoods. Some believe
that this approach has involved too much carrot and not enough
stick, although Ms Powell indicated that America was swinging
further behind the British approach.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "There have been early signs that
there will be a reduction in opium poppy cultivation this year as a
result of our strategy - of which eradication is just one part."
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