Pubdate: Fri, 08 Dec 2006
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: A - 28
Copyright: 2006 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times
Referenced: The Los Angeles Times report 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1653/a03.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Afghanistan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/opium

PENTAGON VOWS TO AID DEA IN AFGHANISTAN DRUG RAIDS

Military Finally Responds to Complaints From Capitol Hill

Washington -- The Pentagon, which has resisted appeals from federal 
drug agents to play a bigger role in the campaign to curb 
Afghanistan's flourishing opium trade, has pledged more support for 
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's counter-narcotics efforts.

While the $2.3 billion profit from opium trafficking has helped to 
arm the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents in Afghanistan, the Pentagon 
has long maintained that drug interdiction is primarily a law 
enforcement responsibility, one that belongs to Afghan authorities 
and the British troops in the NATO operation.

But Rep. Henry Hyde, R.-Ill., chairman of the House Committee on 
International Relations, and other critics have urged the Pentagon to 
do more, including transporting and protecting the DEA agents who are 
working in the dangerous country.

In a letter Hyde received Wednesday, Undersecretary of Defense Eric 
Edelman wrote, "We have taken your concerns seriously and will work 
more closely with DEA to make use of this important capability."

Edelman's letter arrived a day after the Los Angeles Times reported 
that U.S. military units in Afghanistan largely overlook drug 
bazaars, rebuff some requests to take U.S. drug agents on raids and 
do little to counter organized crime syndicates.

Hyde, U.S. and U.N. counter-narcotics experts and Afghan officials 
told the Times that the Department of Defense needs to target major 
drug traffickers in Afghanistan, the well-known labs that process 
opium into heroin, the bazaars where the drugs are sold openly and 
the convoys that carry the drugs out of Afghanistan for shipment to 
Europe, Asia and, increasingly, the United States.

In particular, the officials said, U.S. and allied NATO troops in 
Afghanistan need to provide DEA agents with helicopter airlifts and 
heavily armed troops to allow them to investigate major trafficking 
rings and take out the leaders of the criminal syndicates.

Hyde praised the Pentagon Thursday for its vow of help.

"I welcome the support from our Department of Defense," Hyde said. 
"Now we can better target the narco-terrorism which threatens 
Afghanistan today."

Also on Thursday, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, 
Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine (San Diego County), asked for a classified 
briefing on the status of the military's counter-narcotics efforts in 
Afghanistan. The hearing is set for today.

While the Pentagon and the DEA have been at odds, poppy cultivation 
has exploded in Afghanistan, increasing by more than half this year. 
The country now supplies about 92 percent of the world's opium, and 
the bumper crop of poppies, much of it from Taliban strongholds, 
finances the insurgency the U.S. is trying to dismantle.

On Oct. 12, Hyde and Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., sent Defense Secretary 
Donald Rumsfeld a letter asking for more military help for DEA, 
including a formal policy that would allow drug agents to ride along 
on more military helicopter missions and that would have soldiers 
summon the DEA to the scene whenever they found a drug stash or operation.

Eight days later, Rumsfeld wrote that he had asked Edelman, his 
undersecretary for policy, to look into it.

Nearly two months later, the Times article noted, Hyde had not 
received a formal response.

Edelman wrote that the Pentagon has already been working closely with 
the DEA in Afghanistan.

He said Rumsfeld authorized troops more than a year ago to embed DEA 
agents and other nonmilitary counter-narcotics personnel on missions 
in areas of known or suspected drug-related activity. And he said 
U.S. troops have been instructed to notify DEA "regarding the 
disposition of significant drug caches discovered during operations."

Edelman's letter does not make clear how the Pentagon intends to work 
more closely with the DEA. Connie LaRossa Fabiano, a Pentagon 
counter-narcotics official, said she could not comment on either the 
new steps being taken or on the current cooperative efforts.

On Thursday, two senior U.S. counter-narcotics policy officials on 
Capitol Hill said they have seen no evidence of those efforts.

"They had an ad hoc policy where the guys on the ground, a colonel 
here or there, would occasionally bring DEA along. What we've been 
pushing for is a more formal institutional policy," said a senior 
staff member on the House International Relations Committee.

He quoted a recent e-mail from a U.S. counter-narcotics official in 
Afghanistan who said he has seen virtually no cooperation between the 
Pentagon and DEA in Afghanistan on tactical operations. If Rumsfeld 
had ordered troops to work with drug agents, the counter-narcotics 
official wrote, "It was not well known, understood or accepted."

A senior staff member on the House subcommittee on drug policy 
reported similar findings: "We were told in briefings that there were 
multiple times that DEA asked for help and for intelligence and it 
was never honored."

Both staff members spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing 
committee policies that prohibit them from discussing such matters publicly.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake