Poppy Production Up in Afghanistan; U.S. and Colombia Fight Cocaine Production
WHITFIELD: The United States is fighting drug wars in two countries it calls "narco-states." That's Afghanistan and Colombia. The Bush administration says the Taliban and FARC are terror groups flush with drug cash. Here are some stats from the U.N. Afghanistan exports nearly $3 billion worth of opium every year. Ten percent of the population, some two million people, take part in opium production in Afghanistan. Colombia produces 70 percent of the world's cocaine, and much of it finds its way into the United States. Cocaine experts from Colombia amount to about $1 billion every year. Two reports. First here's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson in Afghanistan.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Every year, when the opium harvest comes in, there is a moment of truth in Afghanistan. Has more or less of the narcotic poppy that makes heroin been grown than during the previous year? Is the country simply turning into a narco-state? More than 90 percent of the world's heroin comes from here, and most years in the past 10, I've been here to report on it. This year, I'm learning from the counter-narcotics minister, the outlook is bad.</s>HABIBULLAH QADORI, MINISTER FOR COUNTER-NARCOTICS: Unfortunately, this year there has been 165,000 hectares of poppy grown in Afghanistan. It is shocking (ph) for the Afghan government, for the Afghan people that there is about 60 percent increase in the poppy.</s>ROBERTSON: On a map, he shows me where the growth has grown up most, in the south, where the Taliban is strongest. Poppies are worth a staggering $3 billion to this impoverished country.</s>QADORI: More than 50 percent of the GDP of Afghanistan...</s>ROBERTSON (on camera): Is from opium poppies.</s>QADORI: It's just from opium poppies. It's 50 percent of the GDP of Afghanistan.</s>ROBERTSON: That's incredible.</s>QADORI: That's -- certainly. That's not easy to remove all this -- 50 percent of the economic of this country. This country will collapse, in any case.</s>ROBERTSON: After talking to the minister, I'm realizing the magnitude of the scale of the problem here. It's massive. And despite all their efforts so far, they still haven't caught any of the major drug barons behind the production. (voice-over): Over the past 10 years, the only effective poppy ban I've seen was implemented by Taliban. A year before 9/11, they took me to their heartland so I could witness them torching a morphine lab as part of their crackdown. On pain of death, they made farmers plant rice instead. But in Afghan drug markets, traders showed me the meager amounts of opium they had for sale and complained to me the Taliban was cynically banning poppy to drive up the price. (on camera): And how much is this now? (voice-over): Across the border in Pakistan, drug traders showed me they still had plenty of opium for sale. At the time, I was meeting the Taliban foreign minister on a regular basis. He admitted to me they got their cut of the poppy profits in a religious tax.</s>COL. JOHN NICHOLSON, U.S. ARMY: The drug production really exposes the hypocrisy of our enemies. You know, when the Taliban was in charge here, they outlawed drug production. Now that they are on the outs and they're trying to regain a foothold in Afghanistan, they suddenly welcome drug production and encourage drug production as a means to undermine the stability of the government.</s>ROBERTSON: In 1997, I even watched a farmer teach his son how to grow the poppy. The problem then, as it is now -- grinding poverty. (on camera): No one knows for sure just how much money the Taliban are making from opium poppies. One informed source, who would lose his job if he appeared on camera, told me it could be as much as a billion dollars. What is for sure is that the money they are making is making them stronger. (voice-over): At the top end of the problem today, high-level government corruption and an intimidated and disillusioned eradication agency. Cracking the corruption problem is the biggest battle Minister Qadori says he faces right now, and he's not sure that's a battle he can win.</s>QADORI: If it becomes a failed narco-state, it will affect everybody in this country.</s>ROBERTSON: And not just Afghanistan. The cost of failure would be global. The country would return to being a narco-terror state. Nic Robertson, CNN, Kabul, Afghanistan.</s>WHITFIELD: And now on to Colombia and cocaine. President Bush will be in that country tomorrow, drugs certainly one of the topics he'll discuss with Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe. Here's CNN's Carl Penhaul in Bogota.</s>CARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a war, and the enemy is cocaine. Helicopter gunships guard planes dumping toxic chemicals on plantations growing illegal drugs. Missions like these often take fire from communist guerrillas, groups the U.S. and Colombia call narco-terrorists, groups tied to the drug trade. Washington finances Colombia's war on drugs and guerrillas, spending about three quarters of a billion dollars a year since 2000. That's what the U.S. spends in Iraq in just three days. Without U.S. support in the drug war, the world would be flooded with cocaine and other drugs, Colombia's interior minister says. But a leading Colombia analyst says the fight cannot be won with the current strategy. Nobody is winning the drug war because the problem isn't one of fighting of war but of carrying out reforms to attack the reasons why this illegal industry exists, he says. United Nations narcotics experts say many cocaine plantations have been destroyed. But still, the amount of cocaine remains close to its all-time high, thanks to more productive strains of coca bush and more efficient processing.</s>SANDRO CALVANI, UNITED NATIONS: So we can now safely say that there are 750 tons, metric (ph) tons, of cocaine being produced in Colombia.</s>PENHAUL: Much of Colombia's cocaine finds its way to the U.S., shipped through Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. The trail starts here, with impoverished peasant farmers like these producing a not so refined form of cocaine. It's then sold at secret markets like this one deep in the jungle. Traffickers test the purity of the powder and pay cash, around $900 a kilogram. On the streets of the U.S., that same kilo will fetch around $100,000. When I talked to this drug trafficker three years ago, he predicted the U.S.-funded drug war in Colombia would not wipe out cocaine. They haven't been able to wipe out coca here because instead of investing in weapons and warplanes, they should be giving peasant farmers aid and loans, he said. Since 2000, more than 80 percent of U.S. aid to Colombia went to the military. Both governments justify that, saying the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- FARC for short -- now controls up to 90 percent of the cocaine trade. The U.N.'s drug expert here says much more must be done to help poor peasant farmers switch from cocaine to legal crops.</s>CALVANI: It is necessary to balance this kind of repression, rule of law, with other measures, like socioeconomic measures.</s>PENHAUL (on camera): But with such colossal spending on its war on terror, Washington's offering little prospect of boosting help to wage the war on drugs. Karl Penhaul, CNN, Bogota.</s>WHITFIELD: And coming up in the NEWSROOM, a pair of legal decisions this week resonating far beyond the courthouse. One could send the vice president's former chief of staff to prison, the other could put more guns in the households in the nation's capital. Scooter Libby's fate and why the NRA is smiling. That's all ahead in the NEWSROOM. But first...</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A violent and strange end for an American icon.</s>WHITFIELD: He has symbolized our country for more than 60 years. So what is the meaning behind the murder of Captain America? You're watching CNN.