Pubdate: Thu, 9 Oct 2008
Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Copyright: 2008 The Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Author: Paul Ames
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/NATO
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Afghanistan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Taliban

NATO MULLS EXPANDING ITS DRUG ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN

The United States on Thursday pushed NATO allies to order their 
troops to target Afghanistan's thriving heroin trade in a bid to stem 
the flow of drug money to the widening insurgency against the 
troubled international military mission.

A two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers comes amid an increase in 
violence that has created doubts about whether Western forces can win 
the war against the resurgent Taliban militants.

"If we have the opportunity to go after drug lords and drug 
laboratories and try and interrupt this flow of cash to the Taliban, 
that seems to me like a legitimate security endeavor," said U.S. 
Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the meeting.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will seek more troops, equipment, 
funding and other contributions to the Afghan war from the allies.

The U.S. plans to beef up its own troop strength with an extra Army 
brigade early next year and as many as three additional brigades in 
the following months. The increases reflect concerns that Afghanistan 
is becoming the key battlefield in the fight against international terrorism.

NATO's top commander believes cutting the estimated $100 million that 
the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies receive each year from 
Afghanistan's heroin industry is one way to hit back.

"The money from the narcotics trade is feeding the insurgency, it buy 
weapons and it pays fighters," U.S. Gen. John Craddock. "It is a 
cancer that fuels the insurgency."

The Afghan police are too weak to tackle the problem and it's time 
for the 50,000-strong alliance force to take on the drug runners, he said.

"NATO must step up to this task," Craddock told defense experts in 
Brussels this week. "I've asked for expanded authority from NATO ... 
to target laboratories and trafficking facilities."

The U.S. and several European allies support him, but others have 
doubts. Although Craddock said he won't target poor farmers who 
depend on opium poppies for a living, Germany, Italy and Spain worry 
a counter-narcotics campaign could lead to a backlash against 
international troops.

Those countries also fear widening the mission could overstretch the 
hard-pressed troops. They believe that taking the task away from the 
Afghans is a step backward in the goal to hand over security to local forces.

Craddock's supporters hope talks between the NATO ministers and their 
Afghan counterpart Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak in Budapest could overcome 
doubts. Arriving for the meeting, Wardak said he would "like NATO to 
support our efforts in counter-drug campaign" as well as stepping up 
training for Afghan forces.

NATO's mission in Afghanistan is in bad need of a boost following a 
spate of Taliban attacks, the acknowledgment that U.S. air strikes 
killed 30 civilians in August and the reported assertion by senior 
British commander Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith that "we're not going to 
win this war."

NATO officials criticized Carleton-Smith's choice of words but 
insisted what the brigadier meant to say was in line with the 
alliance's long-stated position: that military means alone cannot win 
the war and that Western nations must aid Afghanistan's economic 
development and build up the police, legal system and other state institutions.

"Can there be an exclusively military solution to this? No, we have 
never suggested that there would be," NATO spokesman James Appathurai 
said Tuesday.

The Afghan government is seeking talks with elements in the Taliban 
leadership in an effort at reconciliation and the two sides have 
reportedly had contacts in Saudi Arabia. NATO says any decision to 
open talks with the Taliban is up to the Afghan government but they 
will offer support.

Thirty-three thousand U.S. troops make up the bulk of international 
forces in Afghanistan, including 13,000 with the NATO-led force and 
20,000 fighting the insurgency and training Afghan forces outside the 
NATO command. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake