22 June 2005

(Pentagon finds Afghan moderates winning battle to stabilize the country)

By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- As important as the security dimension is in Afghanistan, helping the Afghans build vital political institutions is the most important part of current operations there, says a senior Defense Department official.

The Afghans are building political infrastructure while systematically filling the vacuum left by the defeat of the Taliban regime, says Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.

Rodman testified June 22 before the House Armed Services Committee, which was conducting a hearing to assess current operations and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

While coalition forces are hunting down remnants of the Taliban army and al-Qaida forces militarily, Afghans are marginalizing and isolating the extremists politically, he said.

"Our analysis -- our strategic analysis -- is that the moderates of the country are winning their battle, they're building their institutions, and that the extremists are isolated," he said.

Nevertheless, Rodman said that it is likely there will be a spike in violence as the Afghans prepare to elect a new National Assembly and provincial councils on September 18.

Rodman said one of the most important developments in 2005 was the joint declaration of strategic partnership, which President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed on March 23 during Karzai's visit to Washington.  Its objective is to make sure that Afghanistan never again serves as an incubator of terrorism, he said.

"The strategic partnership that the two presidents agreed upon does declare a long-term American national commitment to Afghanistan's well-being, helping them in the economic area, political area, security area," he said.

At the same hearing, Nancy Powell, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, testified that one of the continuing challenges confronting the Afghan government is the illicit drug trade.

"In 2004, Afghanistan produced a historically high opium-poppy crop of 206,700 hectares under cultivation, with 4,950 metric tons of potential opium production accounting for the majority of the world's illicit opium supply," she said.

There are reports that the amount produced in Afghanistan will be down from 2004's high levels, but it will still be too high, she said.

"And there is no reason to expect that the drug threat in Afghanistan will abate any time soon," she said.  "We must continue to make combating the drug trade emanating from Afghanistan one of the major priorities in our overall efforts to help Afghanistan."

Powell said that the profound destruction and disruption of normal life in Afghanistan caused by more than 25 years of conflict, the weakness of legitimate income sources and the limited enforcement capacity of the national government have left an environment for Afghanistan that is still conducive to narcotics production and trafficking.

"Even though our programs to assist the government of Afghanistan in combating the drug trade are working reasonably well in their initial stages, we have encountered major challenges, notably with regard to helping the Afghan authorities in destroying poppy fields when self-restraint is not sufficient to curb production," Powell said.