ONDCP DIRECTOR WALTERS AND INL A/S PATTERSON MEET

C O N F I D E N T I A L LONDON 006160

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

WHITE HOUSE PLEASE PASS ONDCP FOR SISSONS, STATE FOR SCA/A,
INL, EUR/UBI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/22/2016
TAGS: SNAR AF UK
SUBJECT: ONDCP DIRECTOR WALTERS AND INL A/S PATTERSON MEET
AFGHAN CN MINISTER

Classified By: Classified By: PolMinCouns Maura Connelly for reasons 1.
4 b and d


1. (C) SUMMARY: ONDCP Director Walters and INL A/S Patterson
met August 9 in London with Afghanistan,s Counter Narcotics
(CN) Minister Habibullah Qaderi. The Minister said
Afghanistan's CN Strategy is good but needs to be implemented
fully; he agreed that more needs to be done on public
outreach. Qaderi said this planting season will determine
whether ground eradication is sufficient: if poppy
production increases significantly, it will be time to
consider other options. Walters and Patterson stressed the
need to show progress given the enormous costs of CN efforts
to date. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) Director Walters and INL A/S Patterson met August 9 in
London with Afghanistan,s Counter Narcotics (CN) Minister
Habibullah Qaderi. The Minister,s spokesman Zulmay Afzaly
sat in, as did Brian Blake and Gerard Burns of ONDCP, Gina
Costante of the U.S.-UK Joint Narcotics Analysis Center, and
Poloff (notetaker). The meeting was scheduled for thirty
minutes but lasted a full hour. Qaderi affirmed that
Afghanistan,s CN Strategy is good but needs to be
implemented fully, and said President Karzai now shares this
view. The CN Strategy needs the full support of all
ministries and international partners; Qaderi has sometimes
considered quitting because he did not feel he had that
support. In his view, the CN challenge has three main
factors:

- External: The Pakistani border is open, Lashkar-e-Tayiba
is training Afghans in Pakistan,and the Taliban live in
Pakistan and conduct cross-border operations. Qaderi said he
did not know to what extent the Government of Pakistan might
be involved.

- Economy: There are not enough jobs (the Iranian embassy is
swamped with visa-applicants) and the infrastructure needed
to revive the economy is still lacking. Qaderi agreed with
Walters that the concept of "alternative livelihoods" does
not involve some other crop that can directly substitute for
opium poppy, as none exists; rather, it means enabling
farmers to make a living, which is what rural development is
all about. Roads are a huge factor for development, the
Minister said: in Farah province, road construction led to
farmers being able to earn five times as much for their
watermelons. Qaderi also cited the need for investment in
agriculture and animal husbandry, access to credit for
farmers, and water and electricity projects.

- Corruption: The GOA lacks the institutional capacity to
tackle the huge corruption problem. Yet steps are being
taken: 85 police chiefs have been sacked, and the Minister
expects five governors to be sacked soon and the other 29
"changed."


3. (C) Qaderi highlighted two other factors crucial to CN
success:

- Public outreach: he agreed with Director Walters that
talking to the population is key, and that President Karzai
and his ministers need to get out more despite the security
risks. The Minister perceived that due to public outreach,
this year's eradication program had met with less popular
resistance than last year's, despite covering three times the
area (15,000 hectares vs. 5,000).

- Mainstreaming CN: all ministries need to see CN as their
responsibility, and the international community needs to
convey its strong support continually. All government
projects should include CN messages in their public outreach.


4. (C) Eradication: Qaderi assessed that eradication was

"very good" this year, and that surveys show it is deterring
farmers from planting opium poppy. He insisted that this
planting season will determine whether ground eradication is
sufficient: if poppy production rises significantly, it will
be time to review our strategy and consider other options.
He was adamant that the governors must be the primary channel
for eradication, with the Central Eradication Force as their
backup, but asked that funding be directed through his
ministry - otherwise he loses influence. He credited
governors with 13,000 of the 15,000 hectares of poppy
eradicated this year.


5. (C) CN Ministry: Regarding his own ministry, Qaderi said
it had made progress but still has a long way to go. The CN
Trust Fund has 35 million dollars, of which 10 million has
been committed to some 15,000 projects. Prosecutors and
judges are moving to a new facility. It is important to go
after the "big fish"; new legislation is needed on
money-laundering and asset forfeiture, but even with that,
the GOA lacks the tools to put the major dealers out of
business. The new law on wiretapping helps, but the biggest
impact would come from credibly threatening the property and
money of the major dealers.


6. (C) Amnesty: On the issue of amnesty, the Minister said
that is a question for Parliament to decide. It could
include some formula for partial return to the state of
ill-gotten gains. Some dealers are signaling their desire to
go straight and invest in Afghanistan, he said. Even a few
asset seizures would send a strong signal, but the GOA needs
to show it is acting in a balanced way, not just picking on
specific individuals.


7. (C) Need To Show Progress: Walters and Patterson
stressed the need to show progress in Afghan CN, given the
enormous cost of efforts to date. The Minister said that we
should wait for this year's final statistics before setting a
goal for next year. He remarked that the 19,000 dollars per
hectare that the U.S. has spent on CN in Afghanistan is
equivalent to twice the cost of the land itself. If we gave
farmers 1,000 dollars per hectare rather than the current 60,
that would make a huge impact. He politely suggested that
the U.S. approach was unnecessarily heavy and expensive,
noting that he had personally talked Dyncorp down from 700
persons on a project to 125.

8.(U) ONDCP Director Walters and INL A/S Patterson cleared on
this cable in draft.

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