Fahim and drugs

Marshall Fahim who could become Karzai's vice-president but is involved in the drug trade according to many reports. The NYT has a good article on this worth quoting at length:

The United States could take harsher steps, like going after the marshal’s finances, but this would be a remarkable move, given the deep American involvement in Afghanistan and the importance of its relationship with the Karzai government, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

In 2001, when United States forces swept into Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, Marshal Fahim, then a general, was a crucial ally as the military commander of the Northern Alliance.

He worked closely with the Central Intelligence Agency and was rewarded with millions of dollars in cash, according to current and former United States officials. After Mr. Karzai became head of Afghanistan’s transitional government, General Fahim was named defense minister.

In early 2002, at a Rose Garden ceremony with Mr. Karzai, then a darling of the White House, President George W. Bush announced that the United States would help create and train a new Afghan Army. That meant sending millions of dollars in aid to General Fahim and his ministry.

But by 2002, C.I.A. intelligence reports flowing into the Bush administration included evidence that Marshal Fahim was involved in Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade, according to officials discussing the reports and the internal debate for the first time.

He had a history of narcotics trafficking before the invasion, the C.I.A. reports showed. But what was most alarming in the reports were allegations that he was still involved after regaining power and becoming defense minister. He now had a Soviet-made cargo plane at his disposal that was making flights north to transport heroin through Russia, returning laden with cash, the reports said, according to American officials who read them. Aides in the Defense Ministry were also said to be involved.

The reports stunned some United States officials, and ignited a high-level, secret scramble.

And eventually, the Bush administration hit on what officials thought was a solution: American military trainers would be directed to deal only with subordinates to Marshal Fahim, and not Marshal Fahim himself.

That would at least give the Bush administration the appearance of complying with the law.

But as it turns out, both Afghan and American officials now say that Marshal Fahim continued to meet routinely with top American officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, then the American officer in charge of the military assistance to the
new Afghan Army.

By late 2003, officials said, the Bush administration began to realize its mistake, and initiated what officials called its “warlord strategy” to try to ease key warlords out of power. Marshal Fahim remained defense minister until 2004 and was briefly Mr. Karzai’s running mate as vice president in elections that year, but Mr. Karzai then dropped him.