NEWS

House Foreign Affairs Committee

U.S. House of Representatives

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican

CONTACT: Sam Stratman, (202) 226-7875, February 15, 2007

                     Lee Cohen, (202 226-1139

For IMMEDIATE Release

Ros-Lehtinen Comments on President’s Afghan Initiative

(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commented Thursday regarding the President’s proposals on Afghanistan announced earlier today. Last week, Ros-Lehtinen and four House Republicans sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates outlining a 16-point strategy to address the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan resulting from the impact of skyrocketing opium production and its links to terrorist financing:

I welcome the President’s initiatives in this crucial front in the long struggle against terrorism.  Especially useful are the practical steps being undertaken by Pakistan and Afghanistan to secure the border region with additional military outposts and the creation of a new air wing to support ground forces.  This initiative gives me some optimism that this border region can be brought under control and the Taliban denied a safe haven.

In addition his reconstruction initiatives, the President’s decision to open U.S. markets to Afghan-produced goods is a welcome step toward creating alternative sources of income for an impoverished population that now relies heavily on opium production for its livelihood.

Missing from this new strategy are practical initiatives to target major drug kingpins and warlords whose trade in opium finances the Taliban’s campaign against U.S., Afghan, and coalition forces.  Until the Afghan judicial system has been rid of the corrupting influence of drugs, we should implement an approach that has been used successfully in the fight against drugs in Colombia, namely extradition of the major kingpins to the U.S.  If we are to succeed in Afghanistan, we must create effective deterrence on the narcotics threat where none now exists in order to deny our enemies the profits from this deadly trade.

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