http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11629 Did the White House Give the Taliban $43 Million?
By Dan Kennedy, Boston Phoenix October 2, 2001 According to commentators of all ideological stripes – from the Nation's Christopher Hitchens on the left to the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg in the center to the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly on the right – the US gave $43 million to Afghanistan's Taliban government as a reward for its efforts to stamp out opium-poppy cultivation. That would have been a shockingly inappropriate gift to a government that had been sanctioned by the United Nations for its refusal to hand over international terrorist Osama bin Laden.
Would have been, that is, if it had really happened. It didn't.
The truth is contained in the transcript of a briefing given by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who on May 17 announced the $43 million grant; it was aimed at alleviating a famine that threatened the lives of four million Afghans. Far from handing the money over to the Taliban, Powell went out of his way to criticize them, and to explain the steps the United States was taking to keep the money out of their hands.
"We distribute our assistance in Afghanistan through international agencies of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations," Powell said. "We provide our relief to the people of Afghanistan, not to Afghanistan's ruling factions. Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have.<snip>
U.S. SENDS 2 TO ASSESS DRUG PROGRAM FOR AFGHANS by Barbara Crossette, 25 Apr 2001 New York Times
In a first cautious step toward reducing the near-total isolation of the Taliban, the Bush administration has sent two American narcotics experts to Afghanistan as part of an international team assessing how to help farmers who have ended opium poppy cultivation, United Nations officials said today.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell confirmed that he had approved the trip in a letter last week to Secretary General Kofi Annan. Although experts have no plans to meet the Taliban's leadership, they will meet with farmers and local Taliban officials.
United Nations narcotics officials reported earlier this year that it appeared that the Taliban, a militant Islamic group that controls most of Afghanistan, had all but wiped out poppy crops under a ban announced last year. American drug experts have begun their own survey and expect to have final results by early summer. Until this year, Afghanistan was the world's largest producer of opium, the source of much of the heroin sold in Europe.
The United Nations Drug Control Program had met resistance from the Clinton administration to any projects to assist Afghans in a drug-eradication program. American policy had been to isolate the Taliban and punish them through United Nations sanctions because of their refusal to turn over Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic militant wanted in connection with bombings of two American Embassies in Africa. The United States may now have a less rigid policy.
"The United States is prepared to fund a United Nations International Drug Control Program proposal in Afghanistan to assist former poppy cultivators hard hit by the ban," General Powell wrote to Mr. Annan on April 16. "However, we want to ensure that assistance benefits the farmers, not the factions, while it also curbs the Afghan drug trade. I have authorized U.S. participation in a U.N.D.C.P.-led mission to Afghanistan to assess the potential for assistance and the cooperation of local authorities."
United Nations narcotics officials say that while it is too soon to talk about a long-term program with the Taliban, there is an urgent need to help farmers now approaching the "hunger season" if opium poppy planting is not to resume. <snip>
http://www.mapinc.org/newscsdp/v01/n729/a03.htmlMay 20, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 1; Page 7; Column 1; Foreign Desk
The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's largest crop in less than a year, officials said today.
The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world's opium and most of the heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season. But the eradication of poppies has come at a terrible cost to farming families, and experts say it will not be known until the fall planting season begins whether the Taliban can continue to enforce it.
"It appears that the ban has taken effect," said Steven Casteel, assistant administrator for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.
The findings came in part from a Pakistan-based agent of the administration who was one of the two Americans on the team just returned from eight days in the poppy-growing areas of Afghanistan.
Mr. Casteel said in an interview today that he was still studying aerial images to determine if any new poppy-growing areas had emerged. He also said that some questions about the size of hidden opium and heroin stockpiles near the northern border of Afghanistan remained to be answered. But the drug agency has so far found nothing to contradict United Nations reports. <snip>
On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan in additional emergency aid to cope with the effects of a prolonged drought. The United States has become the biggest donor to help Afghanistan in the drought. <snip>
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