Pubdate: Mon, 10 Jul 2006
Source: Las Vegas Sun (NV)
Copyright: 2006 Las Vegas Sun, Inc
Contact:  http://www.lasvegassun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/234
Author: Robert Burns,  Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

RUMSFELD CONCERNED ABOUT AFGHAN DRUG TRADE

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said 
Monday a flourishing drug trade in Afghanistan may be helping fuel a 
Taliban resurgence, potentially undermining the young Afghan democracy.

"I do worry that the funds that come from the sale of those products 
could conceivably end up adversely affecting the democratic process 
in the country," he told reporters accompanying him on an overnight 
flight from Washington.

"I also think anytime there is that much money floating around and 
you have people like the Taliban that it gives them an opportunity to 
fund their efforts in various ways," he added in the interview.

U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to oust the radical 
Taliban regime, and although the country now has a democratically 
elected government the Taliban have made been making a comeback.

At a news conference after Rumsfeld met with President Emomali 
Rakhmonov and other senior government officials, Foreign Minister 
Talbak Nazarov told reporters that the Taliban is trying to "turn 
Afghanistan back to its past." He expressed confidence that the 
fundamentalist movement would fail.

Rumsfeld said there is U.S. intelligence information indicating that 
the Taliban have taken a share of drug profits in exchange for 
providing protection. He did not offer specifics or elaborate.

The defense secretary also said the bulk of the demand for heroin and 
other drugs supplied by Afghanistan is largely in Europe and Russia, 
and he called on the Europeans to do more to help fight the problem.

"Western Europe ought to have an enormous interest in the success in 
Afghanistan, and it's going to take a lot more effort on their part 
for the Karzai government to be successful," he said, referring to 
President Hamid Karzai.

Tajikistan, which has supported U.S. anti-terror efforts including 
the war in neighboring Afghanistan, lies on a major route used by 
drug traffickers to smuggle narcotics to Russia an Eastern Europe. 
The United States has worked with the Tajik government to attempt to 
improve its border security.

At the news conference, Nazarov said his country is given too much of 
the blame for being a drug conduit. He cited a list of 
drug-interdiction figures that he said showed his government last 
year had seized large quantities of heroin and other drugs 
manufactured in Afghanistan, and he said seizures were up 27 percent 
in the first quarter of 2006.

Rumsfeld told reporters the Pentagon has no interest in setting up 
more permanent bases in Central Asia, but he noted that other basing 
arrangements are needed to support military activities in 
Afghanistan. Under an existing "gas-and-go" agreement, U.S. warplanes 
are permitted to stop in Tajikistan to be refueled but there is no 
arrangement for full-scale U.S. basing here. U.S. planes supporting 
operations in Afghanistan also are permitted to overfly Tajik territory.

In the in-flight interview - which came on Rumsfeld's 74th birthday - 
the defense secretary declined to discuss that subject in detail. But 
he indicated in general terms that the Pentagon is interested in 
finding more basing options to support war operations in Afghanistan.

"We obviously always need to be positioned so that we have more than 
one option," he said, referring to a basing arrangement in Kyrgyzstan 
- - an arrangement now in doubt because of a dispute over U.S. payments 
and the Kyrgyz government's desire for more extensive political 
support from Washington.

"In any situation where you have only one way to do something you can 
become a captive," he added.

Rakhmonov, who has led the country since 1994, has jailed several 
former loyalists and opposition leaders and pushed through a 
referendum that would potentially allow him to stay in power until 
2020 if re-elected. An election is scheduled for November.

Rumsfeld said this was his third visit to Tajikistan since the Sept. 
11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring 
Afghanistan a month later. His most recent previous visit was in July 2005.

The U.S. military has no troops based in Tajikistan. Another 
neighboring state, Uzbekistan, kicked U.S. forces out in a dispute 
over the Uzbek government's handling of civil unrest in the eastern 
city of Andijan in May 2005. That diplomatic flap has added to the 
importance of Tajikistan as a strategic ally in the war on terrorism 
- - in particular in prosecuting the war in Afghanistan.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman