Kabul, Afghanistan: October 8, 2007 - Bush administration want to make a bid to counter narcotics strategy that will include increased efforts against traffickers, more aid for legal agriculture and development, and greater military support for the drug fight and are ready to respect the decision of the Afghan Govt. 

American officials have started renewing their efforts in persuading the government here to begin spraying herbicide on opium poppies, and they have found some supporters within President Hamid Karzai’s administration, and it is confirmed from both sides.

Since early this year, Mr. Karzai has repeatedly been declaring his opposition to spray the poppy fields, whether by crop-dusting airplanes or by eradication teams on the ground but now the decision looks to have been reversed by Karzai administration, they first want a trial program of ground spraying that could begin before the harvest next spring.

The issue has created sharp divisions within the Afghan government, among its Western allies and even American officials of different agencies. The matter is fraught with political danger for Mr. Karzai, whose hold on power is weak.

Many spraying advocates, including officials at the White House and the State Department, view herbicides as critical to curbing Afghanistan’s poppy crop, officials said. That crop and the opium and heroin it produces have become a major source of revenue for the Taliban insurgency.

A serious consideration is that any spraying of American-made chemicals over Afghan farms could be a boon to Taliban propagandists. At the same time, spraying herbicide is likely to destroy food crops which the farmers often plant alongside their poppies. It may lower the image of the Bush Administration on one hand and Karzai administration on the other, who is already weak. (IR Summary).

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Thomas A. Schweich, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Issues, said in an interview last week in Washington:

“There has always been a need to balance the obvious greater effectiveness of spray against the potential for losing hearts and minds,” “The question is whether that’s manageable. I think that it is.”

Bush administration officials say they will respect whatever decision the Afghan government makes. Crop-eradication efforts, they insist, are only part of a new counternarcotics strategy that will include increased efforts against traffickers, more aid for legal agriculture and development, and greater military support for the drug fight.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/asia/08spray.html?th&emc=th