December 14, 2007	Friday	Zilhaj 3, 1428

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13: The US effort to eradicate the production of opium and heroin in Afghanistan has failed, says Defence Secretary Robert Gates. In a report to the US Congress, Mr Gates warned that the drug trade continues to threaten the foundations of Afghan society and the Karzai government. “I think it’s patently obvious that we have not been successful in the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan,” he conceded.

“They now provide about 90 per cent of the opium for the rest of the world.” Although Mr Gates blamed both the Afghan government and America’s Nato allies for this failure, he was particularly bitter with European nations who are helping the United States fight the war in Afghanistan.

Mr Gates pointed out that although most of the heroin produced in Afghanistan goes to Europe, but America’s European allies have not been as cooperative as they should be. “I think part of the problem has been … that our allies have not taken the narcotics problem as seriously perhaps as we have,” he said.

Mr Gates noted that the US effort has also been inhibited by a serious difference of view that isolates the United States from both its Nato allies and from the Afghan government.

The United States, he said, continue to press for using aerial spray to weed out poppy crops but “virtually no one else wants to do that, including the Afghan government.”