Karzai rejects criticism over opium trade

NEW YORK - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday sharply rejected reported U.S. claims that he had not worked strongly enough to curtail production of opium, the raw material for heroin.

“We are going to have probably all over the country at least 30 percent poppies reduced,” Karzai said. “So we have done our job. The Afghan people have done our job.

“Now the international community must come and provide alternative livelihood to the Afghan people, which they have not done so far. Let us stop this blame,” he told CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Ahead of his White House meeting Monday with President Bush, Karzai said he wants greater control over American military operations in his country and punishment for any U.S. troops who mistreat prisoners. He cited reports of prisoner abuse by American forces at the main military prison north of Kabul, the capital.

Production of opium has soared since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, leading to warnings that the former al-Qaida haven is fast turning into a “narco-state” despite the presence of more than 20,000 foreign troops.

Last year, cultivation reached a record 323,700 acres and yielded nearly 90 percent of the world’s supply.

Rice raps Karzai on ‘leadership’
A diplomatic cable sent May 13 from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a U.S.-sponsored crackdown on the world’s largest narcotics industry had not been very effective partly because Karzai “has been unwilling to assert strong leadership,” according to a New York Times report Sunday.

Taking issue with that report, Karzai said, “Instead of blaming Afghanistan, the international community must now come and fulfill its own objective to the Afghan people, and they must not spend money on projects that they cannot deliver properly in Afghanistan, and on creation of forces that are not effective.”

He added, “Where the Afghan government worked, it was effective. ... Where international money and creation of forces for destruction of poppies was concerned, it was ineffective and delayed and halfhearted. We have done our job. Now the international community must do its job, period.”

Karzai noted that he told the European Union this month that poppy production would decline by as much as 30 percent this year and that sustained aid is critical in maintaining the downward trend.

The EU has funded farm projects to keep people from growing poppies and instead turn them toward essential food production. Afghanistan’s illegal trade is estimated to account for over half of the country’s gross domestic product.

Washington already has set aside $780 million to train Afghan anti-drug forces and help farmers switch to legal crops this year. Nearly two dozen Afghans have graduated from a U.S.-funded course to join a unit charged with arresting traffickers.

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