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Afghanistan is in danger of once again becoming a "haven for terrorists," the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported July 30. The congressional watchdog warned that "limited" progress in suppressing the country's booming opium trade and the failure of occupation forces to more quickly set up Afghan military and police forces could result in the deposed Taliban and regional warlords taking control of the country.

	incised papaver specimens (opium poppies)

At the head of a coalition of Western powers, the United States invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 in the wake of the attacks on Washington and New York that September. Since then, the country's opium crop, which was almost entirely suppressed by the Taliban in 2000, has rapidly regained its place as the primary motor of the Afghan economy and is now estimated by the United Nations to constitute as much as 90% of the total global opium harvest.

According to GAO, the US military has trained 18,000 of the 43,000 Afghan army troops it wishes to deploy across the country. While training accelerated in 2004, US "efforts to fully equip the increasing number of combat troops have fallen behind, and efforts to establish sustaining institutions, such as a logistics command, needed to support these troops have not kept pace," the report said.

Meanwhile, the Taliban and its Al-Qaeda allies are keeping up the pace. After two years of relatively low-level combat where US military fatalities did not exceed 50 each year, more than 50 American soldiers have already died this year in Afghanistan, including 16 killed last week when Taliban fighters shot down their helicopter in eastern Kundar province. Two US Navy SEALS were also killed in that incident, and one more is missing and presumed dead.

The opium trade is keeping up the pace, too, and the US and its allies are not keeping up, the GAO reported. Opium production "poses a serious challenge to the Afghan government's authority," said the GAO. The agency quoted the State Department as saying "narcotics revenues breed corruption at virtually all levels of the Afghan government while providing revenues to Taliban remnants, drug lords and other terrorist groups."

Britain, which has been charged with leading the anti-opium fight in Afghanistan, was accused of taking only "limited" actions to challenge the opium economy. The British announced late last month they would be sending an additional 5,000 troops to help wage war on the poppy. The heads of state meeting at the G8 summit Scotland were expected to announce an increase in support for the anti-drug effort in Afghanistan, but that announcement had not come as of press time.

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