AFGHANISTAN: NEXT STEPS FOR COUNTER-NARCOTICS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 002262

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR SRAP, INL/FO, INL/AP, PASS TO ONDCP

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/05/2019
TAGS: SNAR KCRM PREL AF
SUBJECT: AFGHANISTAN: NEXT STEPS FOR COUNTER-NARCOTICS

Classified By: Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry. Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D).


1. (C) Summary. The U.S. Mission in Kabul is applying more
resources and new capabilities to support Afghan government
counter-narcotics (CN) interdiction efforts in 2009-2010.
While downgrading/eliminating USG funding for large scale
Afghan police eradication of poppy fields, we will expand
agricultural assistance and ramp up interdiction and
prosecution of narco-traffickers. New evidence-gathering
capabilities, along with establishment of a CN intelligence
fusion cell at Regional Command-South (RC-S),will extend the
reach of DEA and ISAF interdiction operations in close
coordination with vetted Afghan forces. Public information
and demand reduction programs will grow. We will continue
co-funding with the UK the Good Performers Initiative (GPI)
and deepen bilateral strategy coordination. Comprehensive
civilian-military CN planning and coordination will occur at
the national, regional, and provincial levels to sustain the
gains of the last two years and take advantage of the new
security situation created by the influx of U.S. troops in
the south. The Embassy will intensify its CN partnership
with the Afghan government, ensuring more visible Afghan
leadership. To reinforce all these efforts, we will create
an executive strategy group joining the major international
CN players in Kabul. The U.S. and our partners need to
continue assistance to build Afghan capability and to keep up
pressure to sustain and build political will for concerted
enforcement and judicial action against drug networks. End
Summary.


Overall CN Assistance Grows while Eradication Support Ends
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) As new military campaigns improve security in the
south, where virtually all of Afghanistan's opium poppy is
now cultivated, the U.S. will boost assistance to the Afghan
government in most of the eight pillars National Drug Control
Strategy (NDCS). The sectors of agricultural assistance,
interdiction, criminal justice, public information, and drug
demand will see major funding increases. However, the State
Department has terminated its contract with DynCorp
International providing logistical and operational support to
the Ministry of Interior's Poppy Eradication Force. Though
we will no longer spend U.S. funds to support large scale
eradication, the Afghan government has informed us
emphatically that it will continue to apply eradication,
which is one of the NDCS pillars, using their own resources
and any other available external support.


New Resources for Agriculture
--------------


3. (SBU) USAID will expand agricultural assistance,
especially in the poppy-prone southern provinces where U.S.
military operations will continue. The goal is to increase
licit crop production and provide farmers economic
opportunities after military clearing operations. USAID's
new "Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Production in
Agriculture Plus" (AVIPAP) $250 million program for Helmand
and Kandahar will provide at least 125,000 vouchers to
farmers redeemable for agricultural supplies such as fruit
and nut saplings, grape vines, and trellises. Cash-for-work
programs will supply full-time employment for 166,000 people
for six months. USAID will also offer to farmers and farmer
associations small in-kind grants, training, and technical
assistance to increase productivity. In addition, Embassy
Kabul's Interagency Agriculture Team, consisting of staff
from USAID, USDA, U.S. Army Agriculture Development Teams and
USACE, are working together to implement the new U.S.
Agriculture Assistance Strategy for Afghanistan. The new
strategy is focused upon increasing productivity, creating
jobs, raising incomes and strengthening the capacity of the
Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock.


Greater Focus on Interdiction
--------------


4. (SBU) This year DEA will dramatically increase its
assistance to special units of the Counter-Narcotics Police
of Afghanistan (CNPA) for Afghan-led interdiction of

KABUL 00002262 002 OF 003


high-level traffickers. With Department of Defense funding
support, the DEA Kabul Country Office is growing from 13
personnel in FY 2008 to 81, including 47 special agents, in
FY 2010. DEA will embed agents in the CNPA National
Interdiction Unit (NIU) teams operating from Regional Law
Enforcement Centers in Konduz, Jalalabad, Herat, and Kandahar
(the Konduz center is complete while the remaining centers
will start operating in FY 2010). The NIU specializes in air
mobile operations directed against targets such as
clandestine labs and drug storage sites and has recently
participated in U.S. military operations against
narco-insurgency centers in Helmand province. Such
DEA-backed Afghan cooperation with the U.S. military, ISAF,
and other inter-agency partners against narco-insurgency
targets will increase in the coming yea
r, and we expect improved results.


New SIU Intercept Capability and Afghan Threat Finance Cell
-------------- --------------


5. (C) DEA has just brought on line a country-wide capability
within the Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU) of the CNPA to
conduct judicially authorized telecommunications intercepts
of drug trafficking organizations and narco-corrupt
government officials. The SIU's 56 Afghan personnel have
been vetted by means of polygraphs, background checks, and
urinalysis prepared for their work with specialized training
at Quantico, Virginia. SIU personnel will rise to 75 in FY

2010. DEA and other U.S. government offices will also
support a new Afghan Threat Finance Cell (ATFC),an
interagency body created by the National Security Council to
identify and disrupt funding to the insurgency. Since the
insurgency receives significant financial and material
support from the drug trade, the Embassy and United States
Forces-Afghanistan have directed that among ATFC's priorities
will be targeting of narcotics traffickers who provide direct
support to the insurgency and corrupt public officials
connected to the drug trade.


Surer Prosecution of Major Traffickers
--------------


6. (SBU) The Embassy will do more to help the Afghan
judiciary bring important traffickers to justice. The
Department of Justice (DOJ) will increase assistance to the
Counter Narcotics Justice Center (CNJC),a secure facility
where high-level traffickers are investigated, tried, and
detained. DOJ already provides legal advice and operational
support to the CNJC's 35 CNPA investigators, 30 prosecutors,
and 14 judges. DOJ's Afghanistan staff will grow in FY 2010
from the current number of six federal prosecutors and one
police mentor to 12 DOJ prosecutors (in Kabul). DOJ currently
has three police mentors at work in Kabul. Through the CN
executive strategy group now being set up (see Paragraph 10),
the Embassy will undertake coordinated high-level action to
ensure that the Afghan government supports high-level
prosecutions, convictions, and jail terms rather than
obstructing them, as has occasionally been the government's
practice.


More Resources for Public Information and Demand Reduction
-------------- --------------


7. (SBU) Funding for Embassy assistance to public information
efforts will more than double in FY 2010, including for the
Counter Narcotics Advisory Teams (CNAT) program. CNATs,
which consist of 8-10 Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN)
personnel with two international advisors, promote CN public
information and CN planning within governors' offices of
seven large or potentially large narcotic-producing
provinces. The CNATs in Badakhshan, Nangarhar, and Helmand
were instrumental in recent progress against opium
cultivation in those provinces. Direct Embassy assistance to
national and local CN media campaigns will also increase.
Finally, to assist in the NDCS pillar of drug demand control,
the Embassy will add to the 16 drug treatment centers already
funded and revamp treatment practices for better and more
extensive reach.



KABUL 00002262 003 OF 003


Strengthening the Good Performers Initiative (GPI)
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) GPI is an Afghan government-administered incentive
program that awards development projects to provinces that
reduce poppy cultivation or stay poppy-free. GPI has played
an important role in Afghanistan's successful drive to
increase the number of poppy-free provinces and confine
narcotics cultivation to a few insecure provinces. The U.S.
and UK will continue to co-fund GPI at full levels while we
also seek additional international donors to increase
incentives GPI offers. The Embassy, which recently hired a
special advisor for MCN, will hire local engineers,
accountants, and other personnel to increase MCN's capacity
to administer GPI quickly and effectively.


Planning and Coordination
--------------


9. (SBU) ISAF's Regional Command-South (RC-S) is setting up a
Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force (CJIATF) for
intelligence fusion and comprehensive civilian-military CN
planning for RC-S, where the vast majority of Afghanistan's
poppy grows and where narcotics trafficking and the
insurgency have developed a mutually sustaining relationship.
CJIATF will provide actionable intelligence and synchronize
CN, law enforcement, and military resources to target,
interdict, and disrupt narco-insurgent linkages while also
enabling prosecution of narco-corrupt government officials.
Comprehensive CN planning in narco-prone provinces such as
Helmand and Nangarhar will take place at local ISAF task
forces, with participation by the CNAT, Provincial
Reconstruction Teams, including support from newly created
Rule of Law partners, and other local actors.


10. (SBU) At the national level, the U.S. and UK embassies,
along with ISAF and USFOR-A, will establish an executive
level CN strategy group composed of the major international
CN players with senior representation. This group will be a
subset of the Embassy's Executive Working Group, which does
comprehensive civilian-military planning and coordination
across the spectrum of our mission in Afghanistan. The
executive CN strategy group will undertake national-level CN
planning and high-level coordination of operational efforts.
It will also provide a joint mechanism for securing better
Afghan government cooperation in CN, particularly in the
arrest and prosecution of major traffickers and narco-corrupt
government officials.


11. (SBU) A vital part of our strategy is to support and
encourage visible Afghan leadership in the CN effort. We
currently work closely with a small but dedicated cadre of
ministers and officials. We need to continue to build
capability, notably in the still weak and under resourced
CNPA but also in the judicial system. Essential is constant
high level pressure on political leaders to support arrests
and detentions and to resist releasing politically
influential traffickers or weakening existing law enforcement
efforts.
EIKENBERRY