Lawmakers: Taliban profited from drugs

But DEA chief says U.S. lacks evidence linking traffickers, terrorists

10/04/2001

By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have taken in an estimated $50 million a year in proceeds from the drug trade, U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday, and at least some of that money is thought to help finance terrorists.

The lawmakers offered scant evidence Wednesday to support their statements, however.

Taliban leaders portray themselves as anti-drug and last year carried out a widely reported crackdown on opium poppy growers in Afghanistan. Opium is the base ingredient for heroin.

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said at a congressional hearing that Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, wants to kill Americans not only with bombs, but also with drugs.

Mr. bin Laden sees the drug trade as "a weapon of mass destruction" aimed at weakening Western societies, Mr. Cummings said. And with illicit drugs continuing to stream into cities and towns across America, "the biochemical attack has long since begun," he said.

However, finding hard evidence linking Afghan drug traffickers to terrorists is difficult, said Asa Hutchinson, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

But it is clear, he said, that Taliban authorities have "enormous control" over Afghan drug traffickers.

In 1999, Afghanistan produced most of the world's opium. In February of last year, the Taliban ordered growers to stop planting. Many of them did, and the cultivation of poppies plunged dramatically, according to the United Nations. The findings were later confirmed by U.S. drug experts.

Many U.S. officials – Mr. Hutchinson included – said they believe that the Taliban must have close ties to traffickers or they wouldn't have been able to turn off production so successfully.

In any case, Mr. Hutchinson said, the Taliban does tax opium growers and even gives them receipts after collecting the tax.

U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., urged U.S. authorities to pay more attention to the threat of Taliban traffickers.

"We must now confront the new reality that's the Afghan drug trade," he said. "Largely without crossing our borders, it has harmed our country just as much as the drugs from half a world away that's reached American streets. We must quickly determine how best to address serious drug policy issues to which we previously have devoted little national attention."

In recent weeks, Afghan traffickers have evidently been stockpiling their drug supplies, said Bill Bach, an official with the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.