US Arrests Drug Lord Informer

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/world/asia/12drugs.html?ref=world

Propping Up a Drug Lord, Then Arresting Him


WASHINGTON — When Hajji Juma Khan was arrested and transported to New York to face charges under a new American narco-terrorism law in 2008, federal prosecutors described him as perhaps the biggest and most dangerous drug lord in Afghanistan, a shadowy figure who had helped keep the Taliban in business with a steady stream of money and weapons.

Confiscated opium is destroyed. Opium and heroin production soared after the fall of the Taliban.

But what the government did not say was that Mr. Juma Khan was also a longtime American informer, who provided information about the Taliban, Afghan corruption and other drug traffickers. Central Intelligence Agency officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents relied on him as a valued source for years, even as he was building one of Afghanistan’s biggest drug operations after the United States-led invasion of the country, according to current and former American officials. Along the way, he was also paid a large amount of cash by the United States.

At the height of his power, Mr. Juma Khan was secretly flown to Washington for a series of clandestine meetings with C.I.A. and D.E.A. officials in 2006. Even then, the United States was receiving reports that he was on his way to becoming Afghanistan’s most important narcotics trafficker by taking over the drug operations of his rivals and paying off Taliban leaders and corrupt politicians in President Hamid Karzai’s government.

I thought this was pretty interesting. Also a bit confused. Why did we suddenly decide to bring him in after the damage was done? According to the article, we already knew what he was up to. Was the intelligence gleaned from him worth letting him spawn a narcotic empire that ultimately still was getting our soldiers killed because he financed the Taliban?

I feel like we screwed up here. I mean, there's gotta be better ways to get information we need. The fact of the matter is that most fighters in the Taliban ranks are there simply because they need the wages. Many have economic motivations, not really religious. We've been trying to "buy them off" because of this. Cutting off their funding seems like it would be more than half the battle and this sounds like a pretty bad error.

CS