SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R-MN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was not part of this esteemed body when U.S. forces entered Afghanistan, but as a lay citizen I really thought there was a singular mission with then goals being a sub part of that. The president spoke very forcefully about nations that harbor terrorists and that the mission would be to ensure that Afghanistan was a place that no longer harbored the terrorists that were responsible for September 11th, depriving terrorists of their sanctuaries. And so I thought that was the mission, and it appears to me then there are various goals then, if you want to make sure that mission stays successful, you don't want to step back. So, clearly we need long term stability in Afghanistan. We need to deal with and have concerns about the influence of Afghanistan's neighbors and I want to get back to a question about that.
We want them to stand and be cognizant of and deal with the fragility of the Karzai regime. And, you know, what are its long term prospects for success? We're obviously concerned about the limited geographic reach of ISAF. So, there are series then ofif the mission, and again, my sense is, and please correct me, that we were successful in the principle mission as established by the president, is that Afghanistan was no longer going to be a place that was going to harbor terrorists responsibleprovide sanctuary for terrorists who were responsible for September 11th. My concern is about the long term success of that mission and in particular a question raised by the chairman when he talked about the influence of neighbors.
Iran has described as part of the axis of evil. If Iran is having an influence, do we run the risk of, in portions of Afghanistan, losing the success, losing what we've achieved in terms of the mission? So, if you can help me on that one and then I'll throw out one other question. There was an article in the Christian Science Monitor just the other day that talked about the Afghan national army, 600 new recruits being entered, and I presume that's a long term prospect. But can you talk to me a little bit about the prognosis for the impact of the Afghan national army in terms of providing the kind of stability that will allow for the continued success of the mission, which is to make sure that Afghanistan is not a place that is providing sanctuary for terrorists.
SEN. COLEMAN: If I can, Mr. Chairman, raise one other question with the time that I have, and it's an area that we haven't touched upon, but a U.N. report released in February of 2003 noted that Afghanistan was the world's largest source of opium in 2002. I'm concerned about in this country the rise again of heroin abuse and addiction and I'm wondering what is being done to reduce opium production, how aggressive has the Afghanistan government been in enforcing the ban on production, giving these alarming statistics?