The NATO-led force in Afghanistan needs to focus more on the illicit chemical labs and support networks that exist to help convert opium into heroin, the ultimate cash cow for the stubborn insurgency, particularly in the south.
That’s the view of U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock, the supreme allied commander of NATO. It’s a position he’s expected to articulate Thursday at a NATO ministerial meeting in Budapest, Hungary, according to an alliance official.
"It is new," the official said, referring to the shift in policy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity. "We expect him to bring it up" at the meeting.
U.S. and NATO officials have spoken for years about the need to address the illicit drug trade in Afghanistan. But officials have been loath to directly involve NATO forces on the ground, maintaining those anti-drug efforts would best be handled by Afghan security forces.
However, officials now draw a much sharper distinction between physically eradicating opium poppies in the field and removing the means and methods of converting the crop into heroin and other drugs. Interdiction, the NATO source said, is not the same as eradication.
Last month, the issue was discussed at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s political decision-making body. Attending the session was Antonio Maria Costa, who heads the United Nations’ office on drugs and crime.
In remarks to reporters afterward, Costa spoke of "hitting the traffickers, neutralizing them," or at least placing them on a U.N. list of major international drug traffickers.
"I’m asking the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan) to destroy, to focus upon and destroy high-value targets: the labs, the open markets, which are so visible in the south of the country, and the convoys," Costa said, according to a transcript of the press briefing.
The convoys, Costa explained, take the heroin out of Afghanistan and carry back in chemicals and other materials necessary for processing opium.
According to Costa, opium revenues have fallen sharply in the last few years, mainly due to the efforts of provincial governors. Weather and a developing Afghan counternarcotics task force of about 3,200 people also have had an impact. Costa said 18 of the country’s 34 provinces are now "opium-free."
While Craddock was unavailable for comment Wednesday, he told a defense publication earlier this week that destroying processing facilities would help "stop the insurgency."
"If we can take out the wherewithal to make bombs and bullets," Craddock was quoted as saying, "isn’t that a good thing?"
