U.S. Official Speeches and Interviews

Press Roundtable Ambassador, Victoria Nuland, U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO, and Karen Tandy, Drug Enforcement Administrator

U.S. Embassy Kabul
Kabul, Afghanistan

September 25, 2007

AMBASSADOR NULAND:  Good evening everybody.  Thanks for coming out tonight.  It is wonderful to be back in Afghanistan.

Administrator Tandy and I are here for three days at the invitation of Supreme Allied Commander General Craddock, NATO Commander.

We are also joined by British Ambassador to NATO, Stewart Eldon, my counterpart from the UK on the North Atlantic Council.

I try to come to Afghanistan two or three times a year.  I am based in Brussels on the North Atlantic Council.  We come to take a look at how our ISAF soldiers are doing, how they’re doing together with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, and what we can do to strengthen and reinforce the mission.

We’ve had briefings from our NATO commanders.  We also had a very good and long meeting with Defense Minister Wardak this morning.  Then we had the pleasure to go down to Sangin in Helmand Province this afternoon.

For me it was particularly terrific to go down to Sangin.  I had been there in April of this year, literally five days after Afghan and ISAF forces had helped liberate the town from the Taliban.  At that time, although we were in control of the town, it was pretty much a ghost town.  The population had left, the bazaar was closed, there was a lot of battle damage.  Today the scene was very different.  Today the bazaar was open, there were families on the street, we saw lots of kids, we visited a school that is going to open right after Ramadan with 500 students already enrolled.  It was really heartening.

We met with the District Governor and a number of elders there in town who spoke very eloquently about the need for security, good governance and development to go hand in hand, and we at NATO certainly agree to that as we do on the U.S. government side.

With that, let me ask Administrator Tandy to speak a little bit about her work in Afghanistan.

ADMINISTRATOR TANDY:  Good evening.  It’s great to be with you.

Over the last three and a half years, this is my fourth trip to Afghanistan, probably the one country out of almost 90 that we’re in that I’ve been to the most over my tenure.

I have a complement of DEA agents here in country and others who rotate into this country and our mission is the same.  It is to work with the Counter-Narcotics Police under the Ministry of Interior and assist them in essentially standing up in Afghanistan what will be the equivalent of DEA in Afghanistan.

DEA has trained more than 150 of these specialized Counter-Narcotics Police and formed groups where they focus on interdiction and enforcing the law, the rule of law, as to interdiction.  Then another specialized group that is focused on identifying the highest level traffickers.

We’ve just passed a milestone, and that is completion of the training of that group that’s going after the high level drug traffickers.

I spoke at their graduation at DEA’s training facility in Quantico just a month ago.  We have already had an opportunity to see some of the success of this specialized counter-narcotics enforcement group.

One of the principal reasons that I am on this trip with General Craddock and Ambassador Nuland is to pursue a course that has been successful for us, and that is aligning the interdiction forces with those counter-insurgency forces.  The alliance between these high value drug traffickers and the insurgents clearly has grown and it is through the relationships and work and partnerships that we have built on the interdiction side together with the military side that is our way forward.

The Drug Enforcement Administration is playing a supporting role to the Afghan Counter-Narcotics Police in integrating that enforcement work with the work on the counter-insurgency side of the Afghan military.

So we are very encouraged by passing the milestone that we have of training, of mentoring, of conducting operations, and looking forward to this integration of counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency and the promise that that holds in the future.

Thank you.

QUESTION:  [Through interpreter].  He said that Afghan people are concerned about two different missions.  One is the security situation in Afghanistan and the other thing is the growing drug problems, the narcotics problem in Afghanistan.  The UN Security Council also extended NATO’s mission in Afghanistan for another year.  You as the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, what should be the priorities for the NATO mission in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people and help the Afghan government?

AMBASSADOR NULAND:  That’s a superb question.  Thank you for it.

First of all just to remind you that the NATO mission has grown considerably over the last year.  It is only a year, almost to the day, that NATO has been charged with security and stability throughout the country of Afghanistan, obviously in support of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan government.

If you look at where we were a year ago where we were fighting fiercely outside of Kandahar and some were predicting that Kandahar could fall, and then as we headed into the winter and the Taliban was planning some grand spring offensive where it was going to take mass swaths of territory in the south and east of Afghanistan, we are in far better shape today and it is the Taliban who are on the ropes.

The NATO family of nations has increased its troop level here by some 8,000 troops.  We’ve also increased our training capacity, as has the United States, greatly.  The Afghan National Army has grown in numbers and in capability.  We are in parts of Helmand Province that we hadn’t even been in before, moving up into Uruzgan.  Obviously it’s difficult and obviously there is a long way to go, but among the things I’m encouraged by is the Afghan National Army increasingly able, willing and ready to take the lead in some of these security operations, particularly in the east of Afghanistan where U.S. forces work with them.

We do see, as you do, increased use of terror tactics -- kidnapping, IEDs -- but these are the tactics of a desperate enemy, not an enemy who is taking territory, but an enemy who has to use cowardly weapons of terror.

Obviously we depend -- Afghan security forces do, NATO does -- on good cooperation with the civilian population against those kinds of tactics, working together.  That was one of the positive stories we heard in Sangin today.  We heard about six attempts by insurgents to plant IEDs in the last short period, five of which were reported by the local population to the ANA and to ISAF and were defused before they could go off.  That’s excellent cooperation and that’s a result of the trust we are starting to build in some areas, and it has to continue.

So what do we have to do next as security allies -- NATO and Afghanistan?  We have to accelerate the training of the Afghan National Army and particularly of the Afghan National Police.  We need more allied countries doing more to contribute to that training.

I think you’ve also seen all of us involved in security here -- Afghans, ISAF, OEF -- take great pains over the last few months to do all we can to avoid civilian casualties and to strengthen our doctrine to ensure all of our soldiers are doing what they can to avoid these kinds of things even as the insurgents use civilians as human shields.

In those parts of the country where we’re having security success we have to also support good governance, economic development, as quickly as possible, and good, clean, anti-corruption practices, and a strong counter-narcotics strategy, which goes to the teamwork that we have here on this trip, where we are looking at how we can ensure that our support for the Afghan counter-narcotics effort and Afghan security efforts go hand in hand.   Because we know that the insurgents and drug lords work together.  With a particular focus on interdiction and those high value targets on the drug side.

QUESTION:  Administrator Tandy, I believe relying on an old memory, that the last time you were here it was announced that President Karzai was going to back the spraying program for the drug crops.  That didn’t turn out to be the case.  I wonder if DEA still would like to see Afghanistan either spray, ground-based or aerial, against the poppy crops, or if you see the increased pairing with the military as the new tactic for next year.

And if I could turn to you, Ambassador, could you tell us in your view how solid the NATO alliance is to go fight in this country, given the referendum that Canada and the Netherlands will have on all the troops that will stay here, and whether headquarters thinks that President Karzai is being tough enough with the issues that he needs to tackle in terms of corruption or drugs?

ADMINISTRATOR TANDY:  I think it’s important to understand DEA’s role here, and that is on the interdiction and enforcement side, not the issues involving eradication and cultivation.

There are multiple pillars of the strategy for Afghanistan and the interdiction pillar is that critical piece that goes hand in glove with the eradication, cultivation issues.

The planting of poppy has to be integrated with taking out the traffickers that we heard as recently as today are responsible for causing much of that poppy to be planted.  So the poppy needs to be eradicated and the traffickers need to be taken out to the extent that these traffickers are actually controlling some of that planting.

The failure to address the interdiction piece with the same vigor as we have addressed eradication will be a significant issue for us, for Afghanistan, in its success overall against narcotics.  It does require both with equal strength, the interdiction piece as well as eradication.

The insurgents who are partnered with these high value drug traffickers are in some of the toughest areas in Afghanistan, where governance and security requires a great deal of additional focus.

These traffickers are responsible for a great deal of the corruption within the governance, in the provinces.  These traffickers are supporting the insurgents who threaten Afghanistan and ISAF and Afghan forces.  And these traffickers provide an important life line for these insurgents, and that is funding.

It is for that reason that on the enforcement side the Counter-Narcotics Police need the Afghan National Army. And in our supporting roles, DEA and ISAF need to be together on this as well.  That translates into shared intelligence, shared planning of operations, and on the enforcement front it is the Afghan National Army in many instances, certainly ISAF forces as well, that make it possible for the enforcement side to actually get into the village to extract, arrest, and ultimately prosecute those traffickers.

We know as recently as today from talking to a District Governor as well as others before him, that the Afghan people view these enforcement efforts against these high value traffickers as a critical step to their sense of security.

So that is where DEA’s focus is on the enforcement side.  We are not engaged on the eradication front.  I will defer to Ambassador
Nuland since eradication is a focus from the State Department end.

AMBASSADOR NULAND:  And I’m going to kick to [U.S. Ambassador to Kabul] Bill Wood because he manages those programs in country.

On the question about allied staying power, NATO has made a strategic commitment to Afghanistan. And all 26 of the NATO allies are doing something here, which we should not take for granted when you think about the fact that we are 4,000 miles from the edge of alliance territory, the first out of area mission for NATO, and a very difficult mission for an alliance that was constituted to protect its homelands.  But we’re here because all 26 allies understand that Afghanistan security is our security.

I think what you’re seeing though within the alliance family of 26 as we go into the third year of the ISAF mission, some of the allied countries have been bearing a proportionally heavier share of the load.  Some of those countries have relatively small militaries whose equipment has been stressed, whose force has been stressed, and you will begin to see those countries asking that other countries do more so that they can have some rest.  That’s normal within the alliance.

Obviously it’s our job up in Brussels, it’s some of the fun that I get to have to ensure that there are other allies who are ready and willing, and I’m sure that’s going to happen.  But sometimes it takes some time.

Obviously we’re here to support the elected government of Afghanistan.  We’re here to support the goals of an increasingly democratic, stable, prosperous country, and in that regard we are partners with President Karzai and we have expectations of each other.  His expectation of us is that we will be here, we will not let the Afghan people down. Our expectation of him and his government is that they will continue to lead the Afghan people well, particularly in the areas of anti-corruption, countering narcotics, and standing strong for a stable, democratic Afghanistan.

QUESTION:  As you said, the DEA job is here to interdict the drug traffickers and the law enforcement.  We have been hearing, and there are a lot of reports, that a lot of high-ranking government officials are involved in drug trafficking.  So how many people have been arrested in Afghanistan from those key government officials? 

The other question to you is, the Afghans, some Afghans are asking NATO’s involvement in the poppy eradication in Afghanistan, so what is NATO’s stand on that?

ADMINISTRATOR TANDY:  There have been hundreds of drug traffickers who have been prosecuted by the Criminal Justice Task Force in Kabul.  I couldn’t tell you how many of those have been government officials.  I simply don’t know.  For the rule of law to mean anything it has to mean going after corrupt government officials who are supporting, facilitating and involved in the drug trade.

The Counter-Narcotics Police and the National Interdiction Unit specifically are going after traffickers no matter whether they are government officials or not.  There will not be traffickers who will be able to function with impunity simply because they are a part of the government.

I think when you start seeing some of those government officials arrested by Afghans, prosecuted by Afghans, the important sense of security that the people of Afghanistan have to have about their ability to be secure and to be protected by their government will exponentially rise.

AMBASSADOR NULAND:  NATO’s role in the drug war is to support the efforts of the Afghan government and the Afghan counter-narcotics forces within the means and capabilities of our mission.  That means that when we can and as we can we share intelligence, we support operations that the Afghan government is conducting as we can and when we are asked to do so.  There have been occasions when NATO soldiers have helped lift Afghan counter-narcotics officials into areas where they’ve needed to go, particularly in the east of Afghanistan.  Those are the kinds of things NATO does to support the Afghan effort.

NATO soldiers do not pull plants or spray plants.  We can and we do support efforts of the Afghan government to do what’s necessary in the area of eradication and interdiction.

QUESTION:  A question about the Iranian-made weapons flowing to Afghanistan.  Most of the U.S. government officials are talking about the weapons crossing the border coming to the hands of Taliban.  Is there such talk in the NATO or not?

AMBASSADOR NULAND:  Obviously at NATO we are discussing what we and the Afghan authorities are finding in the way of dangerous weapons coming into Afghanistan from Iran and we’re working together on how we can defend ourselves and defend the Afghan people.

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