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AFGHANISTAN: ARE THE BRITISH

COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS GOING WOBBLY?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 1, 2004

Serial No. 108–224

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director

NICOLE GARRETT, Clerk

TONY HAYWOOD, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 1, 2004 ................................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Charles, Robert B., Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs ................................................................ 9

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Charles, Robert B., Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs:

Followup question and response .............................................................. 24

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 14

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 7

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 3

(1)

AFGHANISTAN: ARE THE BRITISH COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS GOING WOBBLY?

THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND

HUMAN RESOURCES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:30 a.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Souder (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings, and Clay.

Staff present: Marc Wheat, staff director and chief counsel; Nicole Garrett, clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; and Jean

Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

Good morning, and I thank you all for coming. Our subcommittee

continues its oversight work on the impact of Afghan opium poppy

production and what impact it has on the global supply of heroin.

Last year’s Afghan opium poppy production was the second highest

on record. According to data and maps provided to the subcommittee by a U.S. intelligence agency, Afghan opium poppy cultivation

is soaring, and the estimates of hectares under cultivation are now

approaching the highest level of past production. I am concerned,

because over 20,000 Americans die every year from drugs, and 7

percent to 10 percent of heroin sold in the United States is traced

to the Afghan region.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], has

conducted annual opium poppy surveys in Afghanistan since 1994.

The 2003 survey shows that Afghanistan again produced threequarters of the world’s illicit opium last year, resulting in income

to Afghan opium farmers and traffickers on the order of $2.3 billion, a sum equivalent to half the legitimate GDP of the country.

The UNODC concluded that ‘‘Out of this drug chest some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable

share. Terrorists take a cut as well. The longer this happens, the

greater the threat to security within the country and on its borders.’’

Today, we bring into focus a very time-sensitive concern that the

British-led effort on eradication of opium poppy is stalled just as

the opium harvesting season in the south of Afghanistan is upon

us. Reportedly, the weather has been remarkably good for the

growth of poppy, and therefore the harvest season is accelerating.

The subcommittee has received disturbing reports that while our

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British allies were supposed to eradicate a targeted 12,000 acres of

opium poppy, they are barely off the ground in Helmand and have

done almost nothing in Nangarhar. According to our sources, there

is dithering on agreement on how to measure what is actually

being eradicated, which hampers accountability among the governments pledging counternarcotics resources.

Let me be clear: if it is true that there is some degree of foot

dragging by the British in this complex matter, the U.S. Department of Defense comes off far worse. Let me quote from our House

Government Reform Committee’s Views and Estimates on the Fiscal 2005 Budget of the United States, which was unanimously approved by the committee on February 26, 2004: Our British allies

have identified many Afghan opium processing plants necessary to

the heroin trade. Yet despite the financing of terrorists and other

destabilizing elements from the drug trade, the Department of Defense does not view these as military targets. The committee urges

in the strongest terms for the Department to reconsider, and will

monitor this issue incident to its oversight activities on behalf of

the public safety. Therefore, if the Department is unwilling or otherwise task saturated and unable to fulfill its authorizations, the

committee would support the President’s requested reduction with

the provison that the funds be redistributed to other agencies capable of filling the void.

Let me continue by saying this. I am tough on everyone working

the difficult mission of counternarcotics in Afghanistan because the

stakes are so high. I met with both the former King and President

Karzai in Kabul just recently. I had previously met with the former

King when he was in exile in Rome. Both told me and other Members of Congress who were there that elimination of the drug trade

is vital to the future of Afghanistan. They also pointed out that it

didn’t used to be in Afghanistan years ago, that it was a very productive agricultural country prior to heroin.

And when Mr. Cummings and I met with him in Rome, he made

that very clear. He said, I don’t want my country to go back and

be an opium country. I want us to work with alternative development, to come up with other things. It would be a devastation for

Afghanistan to go this direction.

They agreed again on this last trip with the U.N. Assessment Office of Drugs and Crime, that there will be a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands

of drug cartels and narcoterrorists. We owe it to the people of Afghanistan and the people of the United States and of Europe and

around the world to make sure that this does not in fact happen.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I now yield to the distinguished ranking member.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, just over a month ago, this subcommittee heard

testimony concerning the rapid rise in production in Afghan opium

and the state of international efforts to combat opium production

in Afghanistan. The testimony received from DEA Administration

Karen Tandy and Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles, who

appears again before us today, underscored the importance of coalition counter-drug efforts to the success of the broader reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.

The testimony also revealed what an enormous challenge Afghanistan faces in terms of establishing a governmental presence

and respect for the rule of law and how high the stakes are for curtailing the drug trade. As the Director of the U.N. Office on Drugs

and Crime put it recently, Afghanistan is at a critical juncture. It

could go either way. It could embrace democracy and the rule of

law and prosper under it, or it could devolve into a lawless

narcostate in which terrorist and extremist elements once again

thrive.

Clearly, Mr. Chairman, we cannot afford to allow the latter to

take place. Given that opium harvesting season is imminent and

Presidential elections in Afghanistan are on the near horizon, the

next several weeks and months will be critical to Afghanistan’s future. The links between the drug trade and factions seeking to destabilize the interim Karzai government and/or perpetrate international terrorism appear to be well established. Breaking those

linkages is critical to the effort to provide for security and stability

in Afghanistan and to eliminate what appears to be a key source

of funding for terrorists and other groups hostile to democracy in

and beyond Southwest Asia.

Eradication of opium poppy is regarded by experts as a key component of coalition counterdrug efforts in Afghanistan. Thus, it is

troubling to hear that on the verge of the harvesting season, the

United Kingdom may not be equipped, literally speaking, to handle

its share of the load in this area, despite being the lead nation on

counter-drug efforts in Afghanistan.

The subcommittee has not received much in the way of background on the particular issue of the British readiness to pursue

eradication aggressively. Thus, I look forward to hearing the testimony of Assistant Secretary Charles, and hope that he can shed

some light on the situation on the ground in Afghanistan as it relates to the United Kingdom’s commitment and capacity to eradicate opium poppy in its areas of responsibility.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you and I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. I want to add just a little bit further that

several years ago, when I traveled with this subcommittee to England and we met with the different departments there in London

as well as the intelligence there, they were very critical of our efforts in Afghanistan and our commitment on the heroin question

and urged us to be more aggressive against our own Government

in pushing them on, which we have been doing.

At last year’s InterParliamentarian conference that was held in

Europe, one of the major discussions in addition to another prevention conference that Ambassador Sembler’s wife, Betty Sembler, organized in Rome, UNODC directly criticized the United States for

not being more aggressive on the heroin effort in Afghanistan. We

need to be working together, and with our close allies, of which

Britain is clearly our closest ally in the world right, and on this effort. They’ve been prompting us and we need to work together. I

wanted to make sure I got that into the record.

Also, the unusual title of today’s hearing about, ‘‘Are the British

Counternarcotics Efforts Going Wobbly,’’ I want to make sure people understand why we chose that title. When President Bush was

presenting the Medal of Freedom to Margaret Thatcher, he used

the story, he said, I called her to tell her we were fully intending

to interdict Iraqi shipping, we were not going to let a single vessel

heading for Oman enter the port down at Yemen without being

stopped. She listened to my explanation, agreed with the decision

and then added these words of caution, words that guided me

through the Gulf crisis, words I’ll never forget as long as I’m alive,

remember, George, she said, this is not time to go wobbly.

And that’s very appropriate as we tackle this Afghan heroin

question. We both need to be pushing hard.

With that, I look forward to hearing more data on what’s exactly

happening on the ground over in Afghanistan from Assistant Secretary Charles. Thank you for coming this morning.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT B. CHARLES, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

OF STATE FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS

Mr. CHARLES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Congressman Cummings.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here in front of you to testify

on this topic and on the topics that orbit this topic. Your hearing

today is extremely timely and could not be more important. I might

note very briefly that today’s Washington Post has an article on

page A19, ‘‘Afghans Asked for Economic Aid to Prevent Domination

by Drug Trade,’’ a critical telling signal of our times. And I just

wanted to quote one statement from what was a very poignant plea

yesterday.

Mr. SOUDER. I’m sorry, I forgot a procedural matter that you’re

very well familiar with. I need to swear you in.

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Please stand and raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show you responded in the affirmative. Also let me take care quickly of the other two procedural

things, I’m sorry. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have

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5 legislative days to submit written statements and questions for

the hearing record, that any answers to written questions provided

by the witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection,

so ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and

other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be

included in the hearing record and that all Members be permitted

to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, so ordered.

What made me think of that is that we’ll submit that article for

the record.

Sorry to interrupt.

Mr. CHARLES. Not at all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thought I might also just quote from President Karzai’s quite

poignant speech yesterday in Berlin. Many poignant lines in the

speech, but perhaps the most powerful one was the quote, the fight

against drugs is actually the fight for Afghanistan. And that relates of course to democracy, stability, rule of law and all the

things we value, not to mention the impact here.

Two opening thoughts before I go to my formal testimony. One

is that while all seems quiet, I will always tell you the straight

facts as you ask me to come before you, and I will respond as fully

as I can in this open session to every question you ask. You have

both been leaders in this area and I feel that my obligation very

much to the U.S. Congress and people is to give you everything I

can give you.

While it is all quiet, this is crunch time in Afghanistan. The first

crop is coming very rapidly. And if we don’t react collectively, all

those who wish to bring democracy the kind of hope that it has

there, we will pay a price later if we don’t react right now.

The second thing I want to say is that what happens in Afghanistan directly affects us here. It affects us because the Afghan heroin goes directly to the world heroin market, but it also affects us

because it feeds the extremists and the terrorists that have destabilized so much of the globe.

So once again I’m grateful for the chance to be here. and for your

steadfast leadership. I am here chiefly to update you on the status

of the impending 2004 poppy crop and the eradication efforts that

we are jointly undertaking in Afghanistan. There is no more urgent

or fundamental issue than the drug situation, which left unchecked

will become a cancer that spreads and undermines all that we otherwise are achieving in the areas of democracy, stability, anti-terrorism and rule of law.

Opium is a source of literally billions of dollars, if you count it

out, to extremists and criminal groups worldwide. As a result, it

should go without saying that cutting down the opium supply is

central to establishing a secure and stable democracy as well as

winning the global war on terrorism. A chart I have here today

shows the potential relationship of Afghan opium to some of the

terrorist and extremist groups. I don’t know if there’s any way to

put it up, but you have it in front of you at the very least. In fact,

there are two charts, one is color coded, the other is a description

of the four of the main extremist/terrorist groups in Afghanistan,

the HIG, the Taliban, the IMU and Al-Qaeda. You’ll see that one

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has a full description of the linkages and the other one has the various levels of linkage as we know them.

Of course, terrorists don’t carry cards. So the idea of having a

card carrying terrorist of a various organization is always subject

to review and rethinking. But the bottom line is that there are

linkages that seem quite clear, and that’s one of the reasons we’re

most concerned about the Afghan heroin.

It’s hard to imagine how any economic development program can

be feasible if it ignores the fact that the IMF estimates how that

as much as 50 percent of the GDP of Afghanistan is derived from

narcotics, or the opium crop can yield up to 100 percent more profit

than the alternatives. Clearly, Afghan drugs affect Afghanistan

and the progress of democracy there. But Afghan drugs also affect

all consuming nations and dozens of countries on the drug trafficking routes. Afghan heroin presents a sobering domestic issue for

our European allies, since 90 percent of the heroin in the European

streets comes from Afghanistan.

As Ronald Reagan was fond of pointing out, facts are stubborn

things. Initial reports just in from the field indicate that we could

be on a path for a significant surge. Some observers indicate perhaps as much as 50 to 100 percent growth in the overall 2004 crop.

Those are troubling figures, because they give us an uptick from

what was already the second largest production year last year.

By these measurements, unless direct, effective and measurable

action is taken immediately, we may be looking at well over

120,000 hectares, certainly in the range of 90,000 hectares, of

poppy cultivation this year. That would constitute a world record

crop, empowering traffickers and the terrorists they feed, raising

the stakes and vulnerability of the Afghan democracy, and raising

the supply of heroin in the world market.

Even more disturbing, these reports indicate that the clock is

ticking faster than many anticipated, due partly to warmer than

expected weather in southern Afghanistan, and I should say southern and eastern Afghanistan. You have before you a map which

has been declassified, as in fact the other two charts are declassified. It shows that among the places where a great deal, in fact

two of the breadbaskets, if you will, of heroin are Helmand and

Nangarhar, and that in these locations and the others to the south,

the weather is warmer now than was anticipated. In other words,

there’s been good weather and they’re seeing as a result an earlier

harvest.

I have recently learned that the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime

expects that the unusually warm weather in southern Afghanistan

will result in an early harvest, which in some provinces has already started. As you know, the U.K. is the designated lead on

counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan. Our two nations have

worked very closely together with the Afghan government and our

coalition partners to achieve a consensus on how best to combat the

illicit drug economy in a free Afghanistan.

Let me say unequivocally that we have no better ally on

counterterrorism and counternarcotics in the world than the

United Kingdom. The cooperation between our governments, our

diplomatic services, our military forces, our intelligence agencies

and our law enforcement agencies has never been greater and conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:21 Nov 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96745.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tinues to yield innumerable successes in these areas. Some of these

I can talk to you about in this setting, others I can’t but I can talk

to you about in another setting.

With respect to counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan in particular, we continue to work hand in hand to achieve our mutual

goal of destroying the illicit drug economy in Afghanistan. It’s a

daunting task.

In general, the support of overall counternarcotics program in Afghanistan, the United Kingdom is providing roughly 70 million

British pounds over a 3-year period. There is a typographical error

I think in the text there, but it is over a 3-year period. Their focus

has been on drug law enforcement, capacity building and demand

reduction. one program which has received significant results is the

Afghan interdiction unit, whose efforts are strongly supported by

the United Kingdom. Under the supervision of the Afghan Ministry

of the interior, which is also quite dedicated, this special drug

interdiction force is playing a crucial role as part of the wider Afghan law enforcement effort on illegal drugs.

As the lead government on counternarcotics in Afghanistan, the

United Kingdom has pledged approximately 2 million British

pounds, approximately $3.6 million, for manual eradication by provincial Governors. The United Kingdom is integrally involved in

the creation of what they call the central planning cell within the

Afghan Ministry of the Interior to address eradication. The British

have pledged to provide eradication targeting options directly to

senior levels of the Afghan government and provincial Governors.

The U.K. counternarcotics officers have also worked closely with

INL officers to develop a phased eradication plan for the three key

provinces. I mentioned before Helmand and Nangarhar. I mentioned also the third very big one, which is Badakhshan. And I’ll

talk more about the phased program if asked.

Though it’s too early to predict the level of success in our overall

eradication effort and what we will ultimately get, we continue to

work together to achieve significant results. Here I must pause. It

would be inaccurate to say that we are in complete agreement on

all aspects of the eradication effort or on the ways to achieve the

essential, critical and mutual goal of eradicating a measurable and

significant quantity of heroin poppies.

For example, we believe that the current set of eradication targeting criteria, while designed with the best of intentions, may be

overly restrictive. Criteria such as developing alternative development to be in place and a preoccupation with avoiding any possibility of resistance may restrict our ability to collectively reach these

eradication goals. By current estimates, without targeting approximately 35,000 hectares for eradication, the Afghan-led, British supported phase I effort, combined with the Afghan-led U.S. supported

phase II effort, will not effectively counter and deter the 2004 crop.

We believe eradication of a significant portion of this target is

achievable and in fact would be sufficient to deter future planting

across the country. I know that Chairman Souder and Congressman Cummings have both been involved in efforts previously in

other hemispheres, this hemisphere, for example, in which similar

percentages of targeting have actually generated very significant

results. So I think that it’s clear that if we do what we set out to

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do, we can achieve the kinds of results that we all believe we need

to.

In addition, we firmly believe that it is the role of the Britishled planning cell to provide the Afghan government with a comprehensive target list to determine, based on domestic considerations and concerns, what targets are suitable, and then aggressively support eradication in these areas. If Afghanistan’s future

matters, and it does, we cannot speak warmly of progress in eradication without the planning, blood, sweat and conviction that will

make our words real.

Since you have obviously also seen the worrisome phase I

progress to date, and thus called this hearing, we would encourage

the British Government to revisit the issue also of funding available to their program in support of the Governor-led eradication.

The window of opportunity for effective eradication in the two

major opium producing provinces of Helmand and Nangarhar is

fast closing. Substantial efforts must be made immediately if we

are to begin genuinely deterring the expansion of the opium

growth. Specifically, we are entering the first stage of the poppy

harvest. The harvest begins in the southern provinces, and actually

has already begun, in fact, and will continue in counter-clockwise

pattern across the country, including in the northern provinces in

September. Actually if you look at the current projections on

whether it may even be August or July, possibly even as early as

June.

The U.K. financed, Governor-led eradication effort commenced

just in one province this past weekend, and has reportedly been

unfolding somewhat slowly. There is still time for it to unfold in

a way that will make a direct, significant impact in these provinces.

Speaking frankly, I think it is now important that we and the

U.K. redouble our efforts and provide the necessary additional resources to achieving our mutual, critical and attainable goals. The

climb is steep but the pace must be swift and our resolve must be

unwavering. Indeed, it has to match President Karzai’s words,

again, I want to note that he says, the fight against drugs is the

fight for Afghanistan.

We are going to continue to work with our closest ally and together send a clear message, together, to traffickers that heroin

has no place in Afghanistan. Mr. Chairman, I hope that on my next

appearance I will be able to report that we are in fact accomplishing many of these common objectives. And I stand ready for questions.

I did want to add one last footnote, because I know it’s of extreme importance to you and Mr. Cummings and the rest of the

subcommittee. This morning, or last night, I think in many ways

because of the pressure that you have provided upon all of us, including my office, we did come into possession of what appears to

be the frag, or the guidance, military guidance that will govern

what our military does in Afghanistan. I believe it is unclassified.

I think it’s all unclassified. And I would like to be sure that you

get a copy of that, if you don’t already have one.

I stand ready for questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Charles follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. We will also insert any unclassified portions into

the record.

Let me start with just clarifying again just exactly what we’re

talking about today. You’re saying that the poppy is coming to harvest, meaning it’s ready to be cut by the people who are going to

send it to the processor to ship to market. Now, it’s already being

processed and it’s earlier than we expected.

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir. In the southern portions of the country,

southeastern.

Mr. SOUDER. That is expected to continue to be early, as it moves

to the north as well?

Mr. CHARLES. Correct.

Mr. SOUDER. And when you said the U.K. financed—well, let me

ask you this question first. It’s my understanding that the British

have the overall lead in counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan.

They have particular responsibility for helping the Afghans in the

Pashtun speaking areas, which would be the south, predominantly,

the east, while the United States is supporting a major eradication

effort in the Tajiki speaking north, where the harvest season begins probably around May.

If there is minimal effort in the next few weeks at eradicating

in the Pashtun speaking areas but a major effort then undertaken

in the Tajiki speaking areas, wouldn’t it be natural for the people

of the north to think that there has been discrimination against

their section where the Pashtuns are and the Pashtuns got off

easy? Couldn’t they blame President Karzai, who is in fact

Pashtun?

In other words, when the British don’t move in this area, in the

Pashtun area, how does that affect us in the north and our ability

to follow through? How does it impact potentially the elections in

Afghanistan if there is discrimination? And in fact, the British

backing off could put us in a box or President Karzai in a box and

the north as well.

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir, let me address that with two thoughts.

First, I want to make clear that the British have begun in the

Helmand area. I think the main point again, to respond directly

and honestly to what you have asked today of me, the main point

is that we need to be more aggressive and we need to be more complete and we need to be more determined and we need to be more

ambitious about addressing these two huge and significant producers of heroin poppy. So I don’t want to say that it has not begun,

and I think that’s important.

The second point is a significant overlay to the production issue

by itself. You’re absolutely right, these two provinces, Helmand and

Nangarhar, are Pashtun majority and actually, the entire north basically, or the portions you’ve been talking about, Badakhshan, are

Tajiki. So you do have what could seriously be a problem in terms

of the sense that we have made a commitment to eradicate, and

the United States takes over on May 1 the support of the central

government in eradicating in Badakhshan. And actually probably

in time beyond that at great numbers, thousands of hectares.

If we have not been highly aggressive in the south in doing the

same, I think the question could be raised, why not. And I think

your point almost speaks for itself.

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Mr. SOUDER. When you say that they have begun, and that you

believe they are proceeding slowly, do you believe they have adequate resources devoted to this to eradicate the crop before it’s

going to market? That’s really two questions. One is, do they have

adequate resources to do the eradication fast enough, and at the

pace they’re moving, will they get it eradicated, or is it going to get

to market unless there is a change?

Mr. CHARLES. The resources that the British have dedicated, as

I understand it, to these regions, amounts to about $3.6 million. It

is certainly, I guess if you were asking me whether we both, both

countries could use more money and that would have an effect, I

think the answer is yes, we could use more, and yes, it would have

an effect. My sense is that if there is still a window, that window

remains open for us to become more aggressive and for the British

support of the provincial Governors, who incidentally have to be

brought along to this effort, but are being brought along, if there

were more money available, it would probably move faster and it

would probably also give us a better shot at creating the kind of

deterrence that you have aptly described needs to be created.

Mr. SOUDER. You said in your testimony that one of the problems

here was that they believe the alternative development process

needed to be in place before eradication. Could you clarify what

precisely that means? All of us believe that alternative development is critical for Afghanistan. All of us realize we need to spend

more money in that. The question is, do you have, what do you

mean, do you mean that they are going to let the coca out if they

don’t have the alternative development in place. The coca is going

to be cut down and processed and go to the streets of the United

States and Europe if they don’t have the alternative development

in place?

Mr. CHARLES. I think there are several layers of continuing discussion which probably need to be accelerated to a conclusion pretty rapidly on the ground in Afghanistan between the British and

the United States. One of them does relate directly to the sequencing and the way in which alternative development or alternative

incomes are made available. I think our position is that it would

be valuable to have alternative incomes available at the time.

It is also true, however, that vast majority of the Afghan cultivated land, in fact 92 percent of the Afghan cultivated land, without alternative development, I might add, is planted with wheat,

that’s the No. 1 crop. The No. 2 crop is barley, the No. 3 crop is

corn. Only 8 percent actually of the overall crop of cultivated, not

cultivatable but cultivated land, is heroin poppy.

It appears that our point of disagreement, to some degree here,

and I point to it very directly, is that we believe that if there are

alternative income streams, but more importantly, if there is heroin poppy there, which needs to be eradicated, we shouldn’t be

picking and choosing, we shouldn’t be delaying, we shouldn’t be

making it conditional upon providing an instant and available income stream.

I would note that the 92 percent which are alternative crops,

that’s the free market doing its job. Where the invisible hand is

creating in effect, corn seeds and fertilizer are available, so is

wheat, so is barley. The bottom line is what we need to do is make

21

sure that this heroin poppy crop is actually destroyed. And the key

here again is that deterrence occurs not because you have put alternative development programs in place first, or simultaneously.

It occurs because it is no longer economically feasible to go to this

roughly twice as valuable crop to them, and why does that matter

to us? It matters to us, Mr. Chairman, because if we allow this to

go on for anything like another year or year and a half or two,

what we will see is the institutionalization of Colombia-like cartels

in this domain, where the traffickers coerce the farmers very, very

vigorously to produce. That is what we are seeking hard to avoid.

And frankly, that’s what I think President Karzai has made very

clear is his priority.

So the short answer is, we do have a point of disagreement. We

have time to resolve it, but we need to resolve it very quickly. And

the point being that our priority should not be, it seems to me,

some kind of misplaced sympathy for someone who will have to do

a little more work, provide more resources ultimately for fertilizer

and seed in order to grow an alternative crop, but rather to look

at both the direct and indirect impact, the direct being destabilization of that government, the indirect being the destabilization of

other governments and frankly the killing of many people through

heroin in the rest of the world. We have to be direct and, this is

a business that involves not looking away from the hard questions,

but looking hard directly at them and resolving them. And in this

case, heroin poppy eradication is a front and center problem that

we need to just tackle.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. First of all, I want to thank you for all your hard

work. I thank you for just being so candid with us. As you well

know, we share many of your views with regard to trying to rid our

world of illegal drugs. So I’m really glad that you would come at

such short notice at our request.

Can you tell me why it is, and you may have answered this when

I left for a moment, why is it that production has gone up so high

in such a short period of time? I think you said the production of

opium has just skyrocketed. Is that because the country is in disarray or what?

Mr. CHARLES. I think that two things are at work. One involves

the rule of law and the other involves economics. The rule of law

piece is that this is a country which is recovering from war. They

had been dominated by a group that was shot through with terrorists, and frankly, they are a post-war, post-conflict environment in

which it is still difficult out in the fields to be assured of stability

and security.

In that situation, criminal elements frankly have an opportunity

to grow up. So the rule of law has to be properly established and

addressed, and frankly, part of that is prosecuting bad guys, which

they are doing, and frankly, the United Kingdom has also been

very helpful on interdiction and on prosecution, law enforcement

support in a number of ways. But the other part of it has to do

with eradicating the crop which is in fact illegal.

The second piece of that is purely economics. Survival is a day

to day issue for the many Afghans. They can survive by growing

wheat, they can survive by growing corn, they can survive by growVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:21 Nov 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96745.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing heroin poppy right now until we make it clear that the heroin

poppy is not, and the Afghan government is able to with our help

make it clear that the heroin poppy is not going to be a staple of

their future economy.

But what do they do right now? They get about $1 at the farm

gate, if you will, for what commands about $100 on the streets of

Paris or London. And therefore, they don’t make very much money

on this, the farmers. The people who make the money are the traffickers, who in turn are feeding a lot of the extremist groups that

I have no chart that you have seen. The short answer again is that

we are seeing what is the natural evolution of criminal organizations who, I would even say criminal individuals at this point, it

has not been fully institutionalized, who are taking advantage of

the average, everyday farmer. And some of it’s forced, some of it

is just survival.

But what we have to do is make it crystal clear, there is such

a thing as a rule of law and we have to be extremely supportive,

both we and the British, of what the President, President Karzai

and his team want to do. I have heard no more moving speeches

in the last year than the speech he gave yesterday in Berlin, and

frankly, the one that was also given by Minister of the Interior

Jalali who departed from his prepared remarks to make it crystal

clear that the drug problem, including right down to and very

much the eradication issue, are central to the success of a democracy in Afghanistan.

As you may have heard me say once before, because I think it’s

a good metaphor, you cannot build a castle that will last for any

length of time on sand, and you cannot build a democracy that will

last for any length of time on a heroin economy. So what we’re seeing is the natural outgrowth of a war-torn country that is now

seeking to get back on its feet with legitimate crops and legitimate

economic inputs.

Mr. CUMMINGS. When you and Administrator Tandy were here

not very long ago, you all talked about the training of police and

just basically putting together the law enforcement apparatus to

ensure that those involved in the drug trade would be arrested and

hopefully prosecuted. Where are we with that right now? Have we

made any progress? I know it was just about a month ago that you

were here. But how are we moving with that?

And talk about this whole idea of the urgency of this moment

and exactly what time period do we have to act. And if you could

have a wish list as to how to address this 50 percent more heroin

going out into the market, what it is that we could do in the Congress. Because that’s what this is all about. How do we take steps

now to prevent drugs from flowing all over the world? And just listening to your testimony, it appears that we could possibly do

something right now that would be far less expensive than allowing

all of these drugs to flood the market and then for us to have to

deal with its consequences, not only based upon the expenditure of

funds, but the wasting away of human lives.

So this is a critical moment from what I’m hearing from you. I

want to know how critical and I want to know how long the moment is.

23

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir. We are all reacting, of course, to the assessment that the season has come earlier and that we need to be

very aggressive right now. Let me address each of your questions

in turn, police, progress and wish list.

Police. We have trained about 6,500 police right now, frankly,

with German assistance, in Afghanistan. That is the beginning of

an effort that will produce 20,000 police by July 1 if not sooner. We

are on track, we have the PERT charts, we watch it every day, we

have seven academies, actually we have six up right now and we

have two more on line coming. We have a very aggressive effort to

be sure that everything that Minister Jalali and President Karzai

need and want for purposes of stability, we are aggressively supporting.

Congressional support has been absolutely essential to that, the

bipartisan congressional support has been absolutely essential to

the product that I’m trying to produce by supporting the government there. So we could say a lot more about security, but the answer is, since the last hearing when Administrator Tandy and I

testified, we are on track and we are in fact producing more police

every day. The capacity is actually rising in each of the schools and

more schools are being opened.

Point two, progress, and in particular, progress with respect to

counternarcotics as a result of this and also a result of British participation and non-interdiction. There are some things, and I will

just say it elliptically here that the British are doing to support the

Afghan government and that we are doing which have a lot to do

with interdiction, information sharing, intelligence sharing and

taking down both terrorists and drug traffickers. Those particular

efforts are highly successful. And you may want to get a brief from

me or from others in the Federal Government about exactly what

those are. But they are successful, and the mechanisms being used

are successful.

I would note that as an adjunct to that, in Badakhshan, for example, in January, there were seized and destroyed about 2 tons

of opium and heroin. Laboratories and equipment were destroyed

and there were 11 arrests. Direct progress from what we’re doing.

In March, in Nangarhar, again, one of the three big provinces for

these purposes, about 500 kilograms of heroin and 150 kilograms

of opium were destroyed, 5 heroin producing laboratories were destroyed and a large quantity of weapons were seized. Several traffickers were arrested.

At 4 p.m. yesterday, in fact, there was a dramatic takedown, and

I’m hoping I have a copy of it here somewhere, which involved a

number of laboratories and actually produced the kind of result

that we all wished for on the interdiction front, a very direct apprehension of people and a number of arrests. I will get you a copy

of that, I don’t seem to have it right at my fingertips. But I will

get you a copy of that.

[The information referred to follows:]

24

25

Mr. CHARLES. With respect to wish lists, I think I want divide

it out into two different categories, if you will, of wish lists. What

you are reacting to, the UNODC assessment that there is a dramatic uptick, that this is the first harvest, that we must not fail

here, because ultimately if we fail here, the entire crop will be affected. The amount of heroin and of cultivation and of heroin that

they have gotten from their cultivation will be dramatically and

negatively affected if we do not right now, within a matter of the

next week or two, become highly aggressive and the British in their

lead position supporting the two provinces that we’re talking about

are not able to tackle with all of the various elements we’ve talked

about already today, tackle it and get at it.

I think that my wish list in the first instance would be, you’ve

done it here, I guess, I guess it’s not really, I don’t wake up looking

for opportunities to testify, but by calling me up here and asking

me these questions, you have answered one question, you’ve helped

to push this forward in a way that makes it clear that we have to,

for example, we have to collectively go after the fully flowering

poppy. We can’t say, well, these farmers have put a lot of effort

into the poppies, so let’s let it go this time. There is no let it go

this time. If there’s a let it go this time, there may not be a next

time.

So that’s why we have to be highly aggressive at taking out the

fully flowering poppy. We have to say, yes, of course, we all want

alternative development support. But we cannot make our eradication efforts conditional on pre-existing or parallel, the necessity

of parallel development. We have to be in lockstep with each other,

all of us, the United States working under the British lead, the

British and the United States working with both the provincial

Governors, who the British are chiefly leading with in phase I, and

with the central government where the United States is leading for

phase II which begins May 1st.

So I would tick down through a list, if you will, of minor roadblocks or obstacles that I feel we are all guilty in effect for not having yet resolved, and we need to get those resolved and we need

to get them resolved fast, because there isn’t a lot of time.

The last point I would say, you asked about resources. The truth

is that if you look to 2005, sir, we will probably, I think the British

and we probably could use twice the amount of money we have

right now dedicated to eradication. As you know, the United States

has dedicated just to eradication $40 million and $250 million to

the overall effort including police and counternarcotics. But $40

million is going to be enough to help us in May, but by the time

the clock ticks around again, we may very well need twice that

amount of money. The same is probably true with the British effort.

I think what you’re really seeing is, I think you could help us by

encouraging us, which you are doing, to be as aggressive as we can

be in support of the Karzai government and the provinces, the provincial Governors. And you could encourage us, no doubt, by continuing to ask whether we could use more resources, which I think

in this instance we probably in time will.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one other thing. One of the things that certainly, in reading your testimony, and it’s certainly a concern for

26

this Congress, is the link between the drug trade and terrorism. It

seems to me that if there is a link, and I do believe that there is,

the urgency becomes even more significant. The President has been

very clear that terrorism is a major concern for all of us. And when

you think about Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and those folks

who do these harmful acts all over the world, I’m sure Americans

sit and ask the question, where does the money come from to do

this stuff?

And we get an answer in part from what’s happening in Afghanistan and what we’re talking about today. I just was curious, I know

we have come to certain conclusions in the past that there is a link

between the terrorism and this drug trading. As you move forward,

are you seeing evidence more and more of that?

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir, I am.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you’re thoroughly convinced that there is a direct link?

Mr. CHARLES. Let me explain. Very often when people get on this

topic, including me, we find ourselves being conclusory. We intuitively understand that terrorists need money and that bad guys

spend time together and that somehow the linkages in places like

Colombia where the ELN and the AUC are active, that it’s sort of

self evident. To a lot of people, I think it isn’t self evident. And that

leads to both understatement and overstatement of the problem.

Let me tell you why I am convinced, particularly in this area.

First, our intelligence does support, and I’d like to use the word

linkage, because I think linkage gives us bread, those who say,

well, do we have corroborating evidence, do we have wire taps, do

we have card carrying members of one group also to be found with

a card from another group in their same billfold. Well, no, very

often you don’t have the level of evidence that beyond a reasonable

doubt would allow you in a court of law at a 99 percent certainty

to achieve utter and complete overlap between the two.

So let’s talk about linkages and indications and very strong suggestions and anecdotal evidence. Again, you’ll see much of this captured in the two charts that I’ve declassified, which I don’t think

have ever showed up in a newspaper, which are extremely relevant. And let me say that there are things happening right now

that are changing and tightening that link. Let me give you some

examples.

In 2002, the efforts supported by the U.S. Congress of President

Bush were extremely successful at squeezing or wringing the terrorist financing out of the banking system and out of institution to

institution transfers. There was approximately $125 million of terrorist money taken immediately in that first year after September

11 out of the system. That’s more than $125 million actually, because if you think about it, really those bank accounts were instant

flow-throughs. They were channels, they were tubes through which

the terrorists pumped lots of money from many sources, including

drugs, but from many sources.

What we did is put a grate down right in the middle and we

knocked them backward in that way. In 2003, that effort continued

and we pulled an additional $15 million, and Treasury and all the

departments that have worked together on this out of that system.

What did that do to the terrorist world? What it did was it obviVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:21 Nov 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96745.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ously set them back, but it also pushed them to move value, because they need money for OPSEC, they need it for recruiting, they

need it for operations, they need it for maintenance, they need it

for execution, they need it for all the things they do. Some are high

value, some are low value, but they need money.

It moved them to three different areas right away. It moved

them to something called alternative remittances, or ‘‘huala,’’ with

which I know you’re familiar, in which you have informal exchanges country to country. It moved them to commodities that are

high value and easily transported and carry their value in low

quantity, gold, diamonds, other what you’d call legitimate commodities but being traded for illegitimate purposes and for money laundering.

The third thing it did is it pushed them into false receipts, trade

falsification of documents between countries in particular. What’s

happened as a result of that? Well, in the last year in particular

there has been a very highly aggressive follow-on strategy which

has produced significant movement toward trade transparency,

which in turn begins to wring the money out of those, we’re not

done, but wring the money out of those conduits.

Where does that push the terrorists? It pushes them very naturally to high value, non-perishable, easily divisible, easily

transferrable assets that are otherwise untracked. And what are

two of the biggest ones? Heroin, which you can bury in the ground

and come back weeks later and find exactly as you left it, high

value, low quantity, and amphetamine type substances. So what I

think you’re seeing is a movement naturally, do we have rock solid,

99 percent certainty evidence? Of course not. But we have movement naturally, intuitively and objectively in that direction.

Another thing that’s happening is that they are realizing that in

places like Colombia and Afghanistan that there is a high quantity

of drug money available, and that’s why we have to attack this

with every ounce of effort and every sinew of our fiber to try to get

after it.

And the last thing I’ll say is that in many ways, I’ve used the

metaphor once before in writing, but I think it is true that if you

wait to see the jaws, we spend time in my family sometimes up in

the north Atlantic, if you wait to see the jaws of a shark, and we

have seen them often, it is too late. You don’t see the jaws of a

shark, you see the fin. When you see the fin, you act. The fin is

the drug money. The jaws are the terrorist acts that grow directly

out of the financing that we permit them to have.

Mr. CUMMINGS. We’re about to go out of session, so we have 2

weeks that we won’t even be here. So what is it that we can do,

right here, right now? As I understand it, a decision, you said, is

in the process of being made? Is that accurate?

Mr. CHARLES. Let me say, sir, yes, but let me say where the decision is being made. My understanding is that both President Bush

and Prime Minister Blair are in absolute synch on the significance

of this issue and of attacking it with vigor. I don’t think there’s any

sunlight between them. I don’t think there’s any sunlight between

Secretary Powell and the foreign minister. I think that somewhere

down in the chain, somewhere in our chain, somewhere in their

chain, there is not yet full agreement on the significance. I know

28

there is not yet full agreement, and you know from the documents

that you’ve put in front of me that there is not yet full agreement

on how urgent this is.

My view is, it is urgent, you are right, the United Nations is

right. My office and my effort has to be 150 percent to go after it

now, but we do phase II, we are preparing for phase II. That’s the

May 1 launch, working with the central government to go after the

north. The British are leading in the support of phase I, which is

in the south.

And I think one of the things that you can do and you are doing

is you bring to my attention and to their attention that this is

something that we cannot stutter step on, neither of us. We have

to do everything in our power to get to immediate agreement and

get to immediate execution. And I think we’re willing to do that.

I think we know that we have to do that, but your leadership and

public effort to make us do that is doubly important.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, let me just send a message, if it helps, and

thank you very much for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, but I

think this is such a critical moment. I hope that you will deliver,

from this side of the aisle, and I’m sure the chairman can speak

for his side of the aisle, is that we believe in the efficient and effective use of taxpayers’ dollars. We also are very, very concerned

about the eradication of illegal drugs, wherever they may be found.

When you put those two together and you look at what’s happening based on your testimony and what we have before us, it is only

rational, logical and it just simply makes sense that we act with

all deliberate speed to address this issue. Because doing otherwise

simply allows those drugs to flood neighborhoods all over the world,

and then we go against the very things that we preach over and

over again, that is the effective, efficient use of taxpayers’ dollars.

I would ask you to deliver, from this side of the aisle, an urgent

message that we must act at this critical moment, critical. And I

do appreciate your testimony and hopefully we will save some lives,

hopefully by acting immediately we will save some anguish and

pain and suffering and we will save the taxpayers money so that

we can then have more money in the long run to continue the efforts that we have been making in this regard.

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir, I will deliver that message.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thanks. I want to cover a few more particular questions. If I can understand what you said, that you are saying that

the British have a reluctance to eradicate heroin poppy as it’s flowering, is that true or not? Is that the U.S. policy as well? Why

would there be such a reluctance?

Mr. CHARLES. First, I want to say again, I feel as though in

many ways we’re discussing the one room in the house where there

is still a little clutter when the rest of the house is as neat and tidy

as you would ever want it to be. These are our best allies in the

world, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, as cleaning people, we’re interested in the one

room that might need cleaning. I’ve sponsored the resolution,

praised Britain for what they’ve done, Tony Blair came to Congress, he’s our hero for standing with us in many ways, and he’s

29

taken a lot of grief back home. The fact is, if we have a cluttered

room, we’re trying to look at the cluttered room.

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir, and I think in this particular case, the

clutter could grow elsewhere if we don’t address it here.

I guess I will say it this way. My understanding, I think it’s the

policy of the United States wherever we are to eradicate and when

we set out to eradicate poppy fields, which in turn turn into opium

and into heroin, we do not say, well, it’s gotten to a point where

they’ve put so much effort into it, we really hate to do that. That

would be tantamount to saying, gosh, the trafficker is right on the

steps of the bank, it really seems a shame to not let him make his

deposit.

The bottom line here is all of us are convinced, and I think everybody, frankly, I think the British and the United States, everybody

is convinced that when you have the opportunity for maximum impact on the grower of heroin poppy you should go after it. I think

probably somewhere down in the lower parts of our organizations

is where the information comes back up to me that there is some,

let’s call it, absence of clarity, absence of commitment that we both

share, that we are completely on board with the idea that even if

we don’t have alternative development right there at our fingertips

for people who are having their crops destroyed, that we need to

go ahead and do the act of destroying drugs which in turn will

have a horrible ripple effect if we don’t destroy them out across all

the regions, not just Afghanistan but trafficking routes and into

London itself and frankly into the United States. Some of these

drugs make it here, too.

So I think that what I was expressing to you is that it has come

back to me that there is maybe just an absence of agreement on

this point, and that I wanted to let you know that my conviction

is that wherever and however there is a crop which has gotten to

maturity, it’s my conviction that we do not stop, it is our position

that you don’t stop eradicating because for some reason it would be

inconvenient or might have a disproportionately direct impact

based on the amount of time that someone’s put into growing it.

Remember, they make about one one-hundredth of what the trafficker is going to make on that crop. They may not make as much

by growing the wheat or the barley or the corn, but right now that

92 percent that’s out there that’s grown is really not the direct result of alternative development programs. It has to do with the fact

that the risks and costs for those people of growing something

that’s illegal and has all these bad, negative effects downstream

are higher than the incentives that come with a stable, non-criminal feed your family crop in a different area.

So what we want to get to better agreement on, and you’re putting the burden on me, and I understand that, and it is true, we

need to get to full agreement that we are not going to be stutter

stepping in this. We are absolutely dedicated, both we the United

States and Great Britain.

Mr. SOUDER. In Colombia, we see when we do eradication, we

look at it from the air, we monitor from the ground on a regular

basis, and we’re told that with X number of reduction. Are they

monitoring this? Will we be able to see next week or the week after

whether in fact it’s being eradicated?

30

Mr. CHARLES. In theory, we should be able to see that. In fact,

I do not know of any monitoring that’s in place.

Mr. SOUDER. So we could be looking at a situation like happened

a few years ago under the Taliban where we saw this huge surge

and then in fact a drop the following year merely because so much

hit the market that they don’t grow it the next year, because the

market is saturated. And this surge could come at the very time

when it’s under ours and Britain’s watch.

Mr. CHARLES. Let me clarify. We will have certain national technical means and other means by which we will measure the total

cultivation in the succeeding year. Frankly, what you’re seeing

is——

Mr. SOUDER. Once the people on the street are dying of heroin

and buying the heroin, we’ll know that we’ve had a big increase.

Mr. CHARLES. Yes, sir, that would be one way to know. And the

other way——

Mr. SOUDER. Will we know, when it’s time to cut it down, will

we know whether there’s a big increase?

Mr. CHARLES. And that’s what I was responding to. I do not

know at this point of a Phase I metric saying that this is the large

number. I think we have to be looking country-wide at about

35,000 hectares, if we’re going to be serious about this. And I think

we need to actually get down at least 25,000 hectares. And I think

more than half of that has to occur probably in these two provinces

we’re talking about in Phase I in which the British are in support

of the provincial governments, which we have to work with again

and bring aboard and bring along.

But the bottom line is, I do not know of any, if you’re asking me

if I know of a monitoring mechanism for identifying how much, do

I know that there has been a monitoring mechanism agreed by

which we will measure how much the British support efforts in the

south right now will be eradicating, or what the metrics are, no,

I do not know of that. But if you’re asking the larger question,

which is will we know later this year by technical means with a

high degree of certainty both through the U.N. and through our

own Government what the actual crops are, yes, we will know that.

And of course, as you indicate, we will also know it because if the

heroin in the global economy, the global heroin economy is increased we will see that, because we will probably see prices fall

further and all the other——

Mr. SOUDER. So we’ll know how much is planted and some measure of indication of how much was bought on the street by pricesupply. But we won’t know how much was harvested.

Mr. CHARLES. No, I want to be clear again. For the phase II U.S.

part——

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, and when you say phase II, that’s the United

States.

Mr. CHARLES. We will track the amount that’s harvested. We are

actually contracting to do that right now.

Mr. SOUDER. But you don’t know whether the British——

Mr. CHARLES. I do not know.

Mr. SOUDER. Let me ask one other round of questions. The British Government officials in the region have told our staff that attacking static targets like the opium warehouses and processing

31

plants, in other words, if these flowering poppies are harvested and

they go to market, we’ve failed at round one. Now we’re going to

round two.

They’re arguing that the opium warehouses and processing

plants right now would have an enormous impact on destructing

the drug trade in and around Afghanistan. How many warehouses,

laboratories and other stationary drug targets have been destroyed? Do you have any idea?

Mr. CHARLES. I would say it is in the double digits, but it is not

in the triple digits, based on what I know. Clearly this is a choke

point, and we must—and when I say we, I don’t mean just the British or just the Afghans, I mean we the United States as well, we

have to be very aggressive at tackling both the warehouses and the

laboratories.

There was one very significant destruction that occurred, and

when I say double digit I’m referring to both laboratories and warehouses, there was one very significant destruction of a warehouse

that occurred in January. The effect that one destruction had sent

a shock wave, a shiver throughout the entire affected economy. And

frankly, it said very clearly that if you send a signal on eradication

and you send a signal in interdiction that drugs will not be tolerated, that this is a criminal act and it will be both prosecuted and

destroyed, you will have a very direct effect.

And why? You’ll have a direct effect more there than almost anywhere in the world, because it has not been institutionalized, because there are other strong factors that will support the idea of

a non-drug economy. There is nothing inevitable, nothing inevitable

about the Afghan economy being dependent upon heroin, nor the

Afghan people. I think any democracy that’s going to survive, and

it will, and it is making enormous progress in this direction, has

to recognize that, and we have to recognize that in support of them

we have to get the drugs out of their economy in a significant way.

I think the point is, if we stay on the course we’re at, where

we’re doing both strong interdiction, for which the British deserve

enormous credit, but we also do strong eradication, and we don’t

let the horses get out of the corral in the first place before we go

try to hunt them down, we’ve got to bring them back in again,

we’ve got to make sure that we stop the heroin from actually being

produced at the farm gate and then we have to go after the places

where it does get out and we have to be very effective about it. And

we can be very effective about it.

Mr. SOUDER. How do you request assistance or assets from the

Department of Defense, and do you usually get what you ask for,

and how about when you seek it from the British?

Mr. CHARLES. I think with respect to the coordination and cooperation with our Department of Defense, there are really two aspects. One is information sharing. I was in Kabul about a month

or a little more than that now ago, and one of the points I made

there is that we need to do a good job, a better job of sharing with

each other, if you’re hunting terrorists and you find drugs, you

need to share that information with the people, like the DEA and

others who are going to go out and tackle the drug issue. If we’re

hunting drugs and we find information in other ways, where the

Afghan government does and we’re working with them, then we

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need to share that mutually so we can make maximum use of it,

and maybe it’s also feeding terrorists. And we need to tackle that.

So information sharing is a big one. And by and large, I think

that relationship is a good one and it’s getting better.

The second piece of course that I think can be very valuable, our

programs are multi-faceted. We support, this Bureau supports the

training of the police, it supports many of the things happening in

the field in the judicial sector, we’re actually building courthouses,

training judges, training prosecutors, helping the Afghan government to get institutional support capacities, to be able to do the

things it needs to be able to do to bring people to justice. And of

course we do the eradication piece and a lot of the counternarcotics

support.

But at the same time, I think that, I do think that probably one

of the things that has to happen is that we have to be better at

getting at the interdiction side, and frankly, this piece of guidance

that just came out is something that I myself have been looking for

for quite a while, and I know you had put great pressure on all of

us to find this. I find it redeeming, it really does say that drugs

are found, they will be destroyed, and I haven’t studied it in any

great depth. I know that there is——

Mr. SOUDER. Let me ask you a question about this, because we

have a hearing come up that’s been delayed, but it will be in April

with the Department of Defense, and like you say, I’m really happy

to see some of the clarifications. It’s a little disturbing that some

of these things weren’t done, for example, the discovery of drugs

and drug paraphernalia by coalition forces has resulted in a need

to clarify procedures. Now in the clarification they’re saying if they

find drugs and drug paraphernalia they should seize it, if I basically understand the document to say. It also says that by seizing

drugs and drug paraphernalia, on the last page, during the course

of normal operations, that doesn’t mean that they’re now on a drug

mission or a law enforcement mission, they’re still in the military.

But then it says, it says also they will report any quantity of

drugs or drug paraphernalia found during normal operations.

Which means no special operations, basically, and then confiscate

and destroy the drugs and drug paraphernalia. Which is good

news, it makes you wonder what the position was before the order.

Then it says this authority does not extend to the destruction of

poppies in fields or unprocessed poppies. It also through silence

doesn’t suggest if it’s not discovered in the course of normal operations, in other words, there won’t be special operations.

Does that mean that they won’t help you when you request? Does

that mean that they’re undergoing, if they see a lab but it’s not in

the course of normal operations, they won’t hit it? Do they then tell

you in your agency?

Mr. CHARLES. Those are good questions, sir, and the document

does say what you say it says. I think that we will have to see how

this plays out.

I guess I can make two observations. One, I look at the date-time

group on it, and I notice that it was promulgated by this command,

by JTF, I’m sorry, CJTF 180 in Afghanistan on January 31, 2004.

So apparently it’s been out there, that’s good to know. So maybe

there are some documents and facts out there already to be found.

33

Second, I have had no moment at which we have a disagreement

in any way between the Department of State and the Department

of Defense on this issue, except to the extent that I think going forward the problem gets bigger. We have to be able to both prioritize

counternarcotics, not in place of counterterrorism in any way.

Counterterrorism is essential. And it is the priority.

But we also have to recognize, as President Karzai said, that the

fight against drugs is actually the fight for Afghanistan, that if you

win the battle today but you lose the war, it’s not going to do you

any good. If you right the sailboat and we’re all content that we’ve

gotten the democracy piece right but we’re heading over a waterfall, we’re in bad shape.

So we have to be able to go directly to both of these problems,

coordinate well within the U.S. Government, which I think we are

doing, and this is to me great evidence of the fact that it has been

raised as a priority, perhaps by your leadership. But it certainly is

out there, and it is making, it’s going to make, I have no doubt it

will make a difference. Then we have to coordinate well with our

allies, which we are increasingly doing and frankly, we are doing

well on almost every other category than the couple of rough spots

we’ve discussed today.

Mr. SOUDER. But you haven’t received any calls from the Department of Defense or British coalition forces saying, it’s not in our

area but we know from our intelligence that there’s a drug lab over

here, there’s a stockpile over here, we can’t hit it, can you do something?

Mr. CHARLES. I would have to consult with people in the field to

know whether a call like that had come in.

Mr. SOUDER. Must not be very regular.

Mr. CHARLES. Well, I will tell you, again, I just got this frag

today, this morning. So I will have to go back now and find out,

maybe the next time I testify you can ask me whether we’ve gotten

progress in greater and greater coordination.

Mr. SOUDER. I will ask you in writing for this thing and try to

get that out.

Mr. CHARLES. Certainly.

Mr. SOUDER. Because as we get into our followup hearings, one

of the questions is what is the coordination. We’ve been arguing the

Department of Defense needs to see this as not the primary but

part of their mission there. If it isn’t part of their mission, then at

least they should have the transfer of information.

Let me just say, on the ground, having been there, I know they’re

getting the information. The question is, what do they do with it.

I saw it with my own eyes.

Mr. CHARLES. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. So without getting into any specifics with it, I know

the information is there because of the way they’re doing their

things in Afghanistan.

Mr. CHARLES. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. So the question is, how does that information get

transferred, and if they’re not going to take action, how do we turn

it over to other departments as we up the DEA presence there, as

you have the law enforcement and narcotics eradication and alternative development in force. But whose responsibility is this, beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:21 Nov 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\96745.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cause the American people aren’t pouring billions of dollars into Afghanistan to watch it turn into the heroin poppy nation of the

world and an undemocratic, narcoterrorist controlled state. That’s

not why we went there. That’s not why people in my district, who

are there right now risking their lives along the border, getting

shot at, are there fighting so that it can become a narcostate.

Mr. CHARLES. I could not agree with you more, and I take on full

responsibility for the counternarcotics piece that the Department of

State is responsible for in that country, and I do reach out to my

DOD colleagues and I have had good response in general. I find

great hope in this document, because I think it suggests that whoever is sending the message, it’s being received that we have a dual

mission and it is terribly important, and as the Department of Defense migrates naturally from being war fighters and just tacklers

of terrorists, at the same time there is going to be a counternarcotics component and it’s going to grow and we’re going to see

goodness out of that.

I will say that when I was in Kabul, either shortly before or

shortly after you were, I will say that I did ask the question, had

this gotten to the field yet, and at that time, the Marines I spoke

to said they were more than willing to destroy drugs, but that the

guidance had not actually arrived at that point. I now think based

on what I’m reading here that it’s there, and I think what that

says to me is that on this topic, with respect to U.S. coordination

among ourselves, this is a very good thing. I think we’re headed in

the right direction and I think the Department of State and Department of Defense will work well together.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, thank you for coming to this hearing today.

I appreciate the time you took, and on short term notice. It’s very

important that our allies in Britain move aggressively. I strongly

support alternative development efforts. We know that there’s

going to be huge challenges. Most of the people are following the

law, all the people need to follow the law, raise legitimate products.

But the bottom line is, while we feel empathy to very poor people

in many parts of the world, we cannot allow heroin and cocaine to

come into the world markets that destroys families all over the

world and eventually will come back and destroy, if not sooner, it

will later destroy the countries that are producing it. We’ve seen

this in Colombia, we saw how it corrupted their system, how judges

were killed, how mayors are still killed and how President Arribe

and Estran and others before him had to fight and we’re still pouring billions of dollars into Colombia to try to make sure it gets stabilized.

We know President Karzai is committed to democracy, to reform

in Afghanistan. The country is struggling. We cannot, as the coalition forces there, forget the long term, because we’re struggling so

hard and so importantly in the short term.

Thank you for your leadership with this, and we look forward to

continuing to work with you.

35

Mr. CHARLES. Thank God for your leadership, sir. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:54 p.m., the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 2:30 p.m. the same day.]

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