Thank you for the question.
I'll just start at the third point and work backwards. I'm a Newfoundlander, so my mind works in mysterious ways, even to me at times.
On the poppies and the drug issue, this is a massive problem. Nobody minimizes it and I certainly would not. I've seen it first-hand. You see fields, acres, and valleys covered in poppies, and you know what's coming from that: 95% of the world's production of opium, 5% to 10% of which is flowing into North America itself. That's a direct threat to us.
Let me offer you General Hillier's assessment, based on what I know about this mission and what I've seen in the country.
There is no short-term solution. You almost have to a build the country around the problem and eradicate it that way. The United Nations drug prevention programs say that any country that has a per capita income of more than $1,000 per year will not be a drug-exporting country. Afghanistan right now stands somewhere in the $450 range of per capita income. You have to help build an economy, a rule of law, and a government structure that can maintain both those things to finally, fully, and effectively get rid of the drug problem—certainly reduce it significantly, but get rid of it completely.
In the shorter term, various programs inside the country, Afghan-led and funded by many different nations, have had varying degrees of success. But that success has not yet been able change the fundamental scope of the amount produced, although there's been lots of determination for it. It's a long-term solution, I believe.
Secondly, on the development side and whether we are winning the hearts and minds, what I suggest to you is what I alluded to in my opening remarks. If you draw a line around Helmand, Kandahar, and perhaps a couple of other provinces in the south, in the rest of Afghanistan in that great arc--including Kabul and Badakhshan province, Mazar, Balkh, and Herat--the development has been absolutely phenomenal. There are basic medical services, roads, transportation networks, and those kinds of things. Those are very basic but are still going in. People have been able to go back to farming, move back to their homes, and have some security. Even though we continue to question and be concerned about the capacity of the police, we actually think that around the rest of Afghanistan the development is phenomenal.
If you go to Kabul after you've been to the provinces, you kind of say, “Why are we wasting our time here? We should be putting the effort out there because the development is so far ahead.” But that development, particularly on the transportation side, relates to problem three. You can offer farmers an opportunity to plant something else. They're world famous for watermelons and fruits and vegetables, which they used to provide to Pakistan. They used to supply all of India's demand for figs, but all that disappeared when their basic transportation systems were destroyed. As an opium farmer, you can take a $10 million crop out on a mule train, but if you want a $10 million crop of watermelons, etc., you need to have a road network with a transportation system to move it to market.
So the development part is fundamental to it. We see it right around the country. It's more difficult in the south because of the greater risk and lack of security, or the instability.
Leading to the issue of sustaining the peace, there's no question there are two pieces to helping Afghanistan become a stable country.
First is helping them build their own structures, including the security structures to look after their own businesses.
Second is helping Pakistan resolve the issues on the federally administered tribal area provinces and being able to improve the lives of people there. We have great concerns about some of the things that have happened on the frontier and the easy flow of people back and forth with weapons at places. We think Pakistan has done a lot—and I'm speaking from the military perspective—in the past several years, and in the past months particularly. It needs to do much more and will need some help, there's no question about it. The solution is equally in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the challenges are immense.