Iraq a New Transit Point for Drugs

[beetbox]

Iraq a new transit point for drugs
By Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Colin Freeman in London
September 5, 2005

Officers posing as would-be buyers have found 20 kilograms of the drug hidden in a car, the latest in a string of increasingly large seizures in the past year.

The Afghan-produced heroin comes in via Iraq's porous border with Iran, creating what United Nations officials say is an important new drug route to Europe.

During Saddam Hussein's rule, heroin was virtually unknown in Iraq because of his police-state law enforcement, which imposed the death penalty even for possession.

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Some Iraqis can now add drug addiction to their existing woes of car bombs, kidnappings and a lack of jobs.

http://smh.com.au/news/world/iraq-a-new-transit-point-for-drugs/2005/09/04/1125772411712.html

[bemildred]

1. Failed states and lawless territories are great for Drug Enterpreneurs.

And Iraq fits that description very well.

[Chemical Bill]

2. This is no coincidence.

SE Asia in the '50s and '60s.
Central and South America in the '80s.
Afghanistan and now Iraq in the '00s.

Where the CIA and the military go drug smuggling follows.

Bill

[Nimrod]

3. A war zone is an opportunity

Everything slips right under the radar. Hell, drug running has been a major source of income for the military for as long as there's been one. Not to mention prostitution, gun running, black market... hell, pick your mode of war profiteering and I guarantee you it's going on right now, perpetrated by our own angel-faced favored-of-God troops as much as by the "bad guys".

This is just the way of things. It's expected behavior.