A new UN report says Afghanistan is growing enough opium to make 90 percent of the world's heroin and will have a record poppy crop this year. Last year the crop grew 59 percent, enough for 610 tons of heroin. It is another sign the war there is not going according to plan, as Mark Phillips reports.
MARK PHILLIPS reporting:
The NATO troops in Afghanistan were supposed to be well into a nation-building mission by now, but instead they're still dying in a hot war. NATO casualties are heading toward the 700 mark, these Canadian soldiers just two of the latest in the growing toll.
Well into the fifth year of the Afghan war, what had once seemed like a quick, comprehensive victory over the Taliban regime that had harbored al-Qaeda has turned into a protracted battle where the Taliban has regrouped, where ground once taken has had to be taken again, and where there's a conflict between US anti-terror efforts often involving aerial bombing and civilian casualties and the work being attempted by other NATO members.
Colonel CHRISTOPHER LANGTON (Retired, International Institute for Strategic Studies) : You could find a task force commander who wakes up to be told by an Afghan functionary, a mayor, that a village has been bombed, what is he doing about it, and he doesn't even know that it's happened...
PHILLIPS: Mm.
Col. LANGTON: ...and it's part of...
PHILLIPS: So he's undermined in that way.
Col. LANGTON: So he's undermined.
PHILLIPS: What was a good war in Afghanistan has gone bad. The appointment of American General Dan McNeil as NATO commander may bring more coordination to the anti-Taliban effort. But his background in special forces has some wondering whether he can see the bigger picture.
Ms. TERESITA SHAFFER (Center for Strategic and International Studies): I assume that he is wise enough and savvy enough to recognize that this isn't just another special forces gig.
PHILLIPS: There's a lament now that the main window of opportunity in Afghanistan was immediately after the invasion--with the Taliban dispersed, a power vacuum in the country and a population craving stability. But it was then that the administration began looking away from Afghanistan and toward Iraq.
Ms. SHAFFER: I do think that the prevailing view in the US government, that we could sort of do this with one tied behind our back and then get onto the big stuff, I think that was very misguided.
PHILLIPS: The Afghans are celebrating 90 years of independence this month. Most of that history has been volatile and bloody. It's looking that way again. Mark Phillips CBS News, London.
