AP: Report: Afghan Officials Aid Traffickers

[Eugene]

Report: Afghan Officials Aid Traffickers
U.N. report says key government officials in Afghanistan are protecting
drug traffickers

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 28, 2006
By JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press Writer

(AP) Afghanistan's criminal underworld has compromised key government officials
who protect drug traffickers, allowing a flourishing opium trade that will not be
stamped out for a generation, an ominous U.N. report released Tuesday said.

The fight against opium production has so far achieved only limited success, mostly
because of corruption, the joint report from the World Bank and the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime said.

The findings show a "probability of high-level (government) involvement" in drugs,
said Doris Buddenberg, the UNODC's Afghanistan representative and co-editor of the
report.

The report in particular presented a strong indictment of the Interior Ministry, which
runs the country's police, and said Afghanistan's criminal underworld could not operate
without the support of the political "upperworld."

-snip-

Full article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/28/ap/world/mainD8LM8IC00.shtml

[frylock]

1. BAU..

business as usual.

[Tempest]

2. Well big DUH!

The Afghan government is top heavy with warlords and their underlings who cut their teeth trafficking in opium.

Who in their right mind thought it would stop just because they were elected or appointed to office?

[mirandapriestly]

3. Opium Funds Terrorism and U.S. does nothing

to stop opium trade in Afghanistan. Put two and two together.