[A-List] Iraq: Baghdad Flooded With Heroin

["annewilliamson" <annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

http://www.balochistanpost.com/item.asp?ID=3968

Where the CIA is in control, narcotics flourish
After Afghanistan, Baghdad is flooded with heroin

 AGHDAD: The city, which had never seen heroin, a deadly addictive drug,
until March 2003, is now flooded with narcotics including heroin.

According to a report published by Londonâ?Ts The Independent newspaper, the
citizens of Baghdad complained that the drugs like heroin and cocaine were
being peddled on the streets of the Iraqi metropolis.

It is not unusual that where the Americans go, the narcotics flourish.
Taliban had successfully eliminated the drugs from Afghanistan but since the
US forces took over the control, Afghanistan has become the largest producer
of heroin.

Some reports suggest that the drug and arms trafficking is patronized by the
CIA to finance its covert operations worldwide.

The killing of two US soldiers in Baghdad within 24 hours last week shows
how far the US and Britain still have to go to end the chaos gripping the
Iraqi capital a month after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Anger is growing among Iraqis at the Allies' failure to restore order in a
city awash with weapons and gangs. Heroin â?" banned under Saddam Hussein's
dictatorship upon pain of hanging - is now being traded in back streets,
reports The Independent.

Residents of Baghdad â?" a conservative city with a large Shia Muslim
population â?" are complaining that the breakdown in order has accompanied
the emergence of some western practices they view as offensive, and which
were prohibited, or tightly restricted, under Saddam.

In al-Bataween â?" the worst of Baghdad's badlands which is blighted by
carjackings and crime â?" residents say heroin is being traded in the
alleys. "In Iraq there were no drugs until March 2003," said Salah
Sha'amikh, a pharmacist. "You would be hanged for trafficking. But now you
can get heroin, cocaine, anything." He pulled out a Russian-made 8.5mm
pistol which he says he keeps to protect his wares.

"We are an Islamic society and we don't like drugs. You tell Tony Blair to
stop these criminals." Gambling, also banned by Saddam, has begun to spring
up too, to the concern of conservative Iraqis.


Sunday, May 11, 2003