U.S. turns blind eye to opium production in parts of Afghanistan

KABUL — The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marjah has put U.S. and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.

From Gen. Stanley McChrystal on down, the military's position is clear: "U.S. forces no longer eradicate," as one NATO official put it.

Opium is the main livelihood of 60 to 70 percent of the farmers in Marjah, which was seized from Taliban rebels in an offensive last month. U.S. Marines occupying the area are under orders to leave the farmers' fields alone.

"Marjah is a special case right now," said Cmdr. Jeffrey Eggers, a member of the general's Strategic Advisory Group, his top advisory body. "We don't trample the livelihood of those we're trying to win over."

U.N. drug officials agree, though they acknowledge the conundrum. Pictures of NATO and other allied soldiers "walking next to the opium fields won't go well with domestic audiences, but the approach of postponing eradicating in this particular case is a sensible one," said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, who is in charge of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime here.

Afghan officials are divided. Though some support the U.S. position, others, citing a constitutional ban on opium cultivation, want to plow the fields under before the harvest, which has begun in parts of Helmand province.

"How can we allow the world to see lawful forces in charge of Marjah next to fields full of opium, which one way or another will be harvested and turned into a poison that kills people all over the world?" said Zulmai Afzali, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Counternarcotics.

"The Taliban are the ones who profit from opium, so you are letting your enemy get financed by this so he can turn around and kill you back," he added, referring to how the Taliban squeeze farmers for money to run their operations.

The argument may strike some as a jarring reversal of early tensions with Afghan officials, some of whom vehemently resisted U.S. pressure to stop opium production in the years right after the 2001 invasion.

Though the U.S. government's official position remains to support opium-crop eradication in general, some U.S. civilian officials said the internal debate over Marjah is far from over within parts of the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Brendan O'Brien, said officials would decline to comment while the matter was under review.

At the heart of the debate with Afghan officials is an important question of cause-and-effect: Is poor security in Marjah the reason there is so much opium, or is so much opium the reason there has been poor security?

"Every province in Afghanistan where you find opium cultivation, you have insecurity as a result," Afzali said.

U.S. military officials and U.N. drug officials have a different view. Opium cultivation has been largely wiped out in 20 provinces where security has been improved, and in the seven most insecure provinces, poppy is still farmed.

"Nothing can compete with opium in an insecure environment," Lemahieu said. "A secure environment is the precondition for governance and a long-term solution."

Although the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO force that McChrystal commands, no longer carries out eradication programs, its official position is that it supports the Afghan government's efforts to eradicate and lends backup and protection to provincial officials, who are responsible for carrying out eradication.

The ardently anti-opium governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal, has a record of success, cutting back cultivation by 33 percent last year. But he, too, is willing to make an exception for the current harvest.

"In general I've been told by my higher-ups that this year you will not eradicate there, because people have suffered a lot of hardships because of the fighting," Mangal said. "We may do it next year."

Afzali, however, said the Counternarcotics Ministry still hoped to prevail in time to eradicate the current crop in Marjah. Mangal said, "If they order me, I will start the destruction of Marjah's opium the same day."