Lawmakers call for opium crackdown
The opium and illicit drug trafficking has greatly increased in recent months and threatens to "totally corrupt all of the new Afghan democratic institutions we support," Illinois Reps. Henry Hyde and Mark Kirk said in an October 12 letter.
Hyde is chairman of the House International Relations Committee and is retiring after a 32-year congressional career. Kirk, now serving his third term in Congress, is a former longtime aide to the committee who also has served as an intelligence officer in the Pentagon's war room.
Rumsfeld had no response to the congressmen's letter as of Tuesday, according to Hyde's committee staff.
A Rumsfeld spokeswoman, Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Finn, said the Pentagon intends to respond. "We take this matter very seriously," she said.
The congressmen suggested that the Drug Enforcement Administration combat the problem by focusing on drug kingpins in Afghanistan, heroin processing labs and drug convoys.
Hyde and Kirk said the convoys that carry the drugs out of the country bring back land mines and modern weapons bought with drug money from the Taliban and other anti-coalition forces.
"We all know the drugs fuel the violence and insurgency, we think that the debate concerning these obvious links is over, and now we need a new policy that addresses both the drugs and related terror, simultaneously," they added.
The congressmen cautioned that the DEA cannot do its job in Afghanistan without military support and assistance, including the Defense Department's military operational and tactical air support for some of the DEA's counter-drug missions.
A coordinated approach needs to be accomplished before the start of the 2007 opium crop, the congressmen said.
Finn said that over the past two years the Defense Department has worked to support DEA efforts to combat the narcotics threat in Afghanistan.
"In accordance with our statutory authorities, the secretary has already authorized Operation Enduring Freedom forces to embed nonmilitary counter-narcotics personnel (to include DEA) when operating in areas of known or suspected drug-related activity," she said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Source: www.read1stnews.com
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