Karzai drug claims prompt questions about President’s state of mind !

From The Times

April 8,2010

Karzai drug claims prompt questions about President’s state of mind !

Jerome Starkey,Kabul

Controversial claims by a former UN ambassador that Hamid Karzai has taken drugs are based on a classified report about life in the presidential palace in Kabul, western officials have told The Times.

Peter Galbraith, the former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, told the US network MSNBC about the UN report and the allegations in it concerning the Afghan President.

Although Mr Karzai’s war-ravaged country is well known for its bumper opium harvest — much of which is converted into heroin before it is exported — The Times understands that Mr Galbraith’s remarks do not refer to heroin.

Asked to corroborate his claim, Mr Galbraith said only: “There are reports to that effect but, whatever the cause is, the reality is he can be very emotional.”

Two officials who have seen the report said that it detailed the President’s likes, his dislikes, whom he trusts within his inner circle and how he relaxes. The document, which amounts to old-fashioned espionage, was compiled by Western analysts at the personal instigation of Mr Galbraith during his brief tenure in Kabul, the officials told The Times.

Although the allegations are unlikely to cause much of a stir in Afghanistan, where smoking drugs is as commonplace as having a drink after work, it will raise further questions about Mr Karzai’s state of mind days after a series of vitriolic outbursts against his western paymasters. Mr Karzai has a reputation for being loyal, both to his brothers who helped to raise him and to the American bodyguards who once saved his life, but he is also notoriously highly strung. Mr Galbraith said: “He’s prone to tirades, he can be very emotional, act impulsively.”

A detailed profile with the headline “Karzai in his labyrinth”, published last August in The New York Times, painted a picture of a tortured leader cracking under the claustrophobic pressure of his job. “His friends told me he has health problems. He’s skin and bones. He always has a cold or a cough and takes effervescent vitamin C tablets compulsively,” wrote Elizabeth Rubin. “He snaps easily. Promotes flatterers. Kills the messenger. Hugs his enemies. Abuses his friends. And his twitching eye — a nervous tic, [friends] say — is unusually active.”

Although aides claim that Mr Karzai’s latest outbursts against America and the EU were misunderstood, he has described his temper as an asset. “When needed, my extreme toughness with our allies is an asset I want the Afghan people to have if they choose so,” he said. He does, however, cry a lot in private, sources told The Times.

Abdullah Abdullah, his second-placed presidential rival, said that he thought the President was behaving erratically. “I think he’s lost it,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk / Bulgaria Today