Another successful war ?

Or another fine mess you got us into ?

 KABUL, Afghanistan - Opium cultivation in Afghanistan  has hit record levels - 
up by more than 40 percent from 2005 - despite hundreds of millions in 
counternarcotics money, Western officials told The Associated Press.
A Western anti-narcotics official in Kabul said about 370,650 acres of opium 
poppy was cultivated this season - up from 257,000 acres in 2005 - citing their 
preliminary crop projections. The previous record was 323,700 acres in 2004, 
according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

"It is a significant increase from last year ... unfortunately, it is a record 
year," said a senior U.S. government official based in Kabul...

...The U.N. reported last year that Afghanistan produced an estimated 4,500 
tons of opium - enough to make 450 tons of heroin - nearly 90 percent of world 
supply. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimate that opium accounted for 52 
percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product in 2005.

"Now what they have is a narco-economy. If they do not get corruption sorted 
they can slip into being a narco-state," the U.S. official warned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060816/ap_on_re_as/afghan_opium_boom_3

alan johnstone edinburgh br 


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