U.S. Officials Can't Confirm Former Envoy's Karzai Drug Allegation

U.S. foreign policy and intelligence officials say they have no information that would confirm allegations by a former United Nations envoy in Afghanistan that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's recent erratic behavior might be attributable to drug use. But the former U.N. official, Peter Galbraith, stands by the allegation, though with some caveats attached.

Officials of the Obama administration and other allied governments involved in Afghanistan have become increasingly concerned by some of Karzai's recent behavior and statements, which reportedly included a threat, delivered at a closed-door meeting of Afghan legislators last weekend, that he would quit as president and join the Taliban if foreign interests pressed him too aggressively for reforms. In an interview with the Daily Rundown program on MSNBC on Tuesday, Galbraith, who formerly served as the U.N.'s No. 2 official in Afghanistan, questioned Karzai's "mental stability" and suggested he might be on drugs. "He's prone to tirades. He can be very emotional, act impulsively. In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan's most profitable exports," Galbraith told the cable network.

In an e-mail exchange with Declassified, Galbraith reiterated the drug allegation, but with reservations. "I carefully said I heard from sources in the palace but could not confirm it," Galbraith wrote. But, he added, "of course, I believe it is likely or I would not have raised it." He suggested that MSNBC.com and bloggers mistakenly assumed he was talking about Karzai using opium, whereas "my reference is to hash, which is commonly used in Afghanistan, including by elites." He said his sources for the allegations are in Afghanistan.

Five U.S. intelligence- and foreign-policy officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, told Declassified that they were unaware of any official U.S. government reporting, including intelligence reports, alleging that Karzai was using drugs. One of the officials, who is close to Afghan policymaking councils in the Obama administration, said flatly that Galbraith's allegation was "outrageous." Other officials familiar with intelligence reporting on Afghanistan said they had seen or heard nothing of allegations regarding drug use by Karzai.

While uncorroborated so far, Karzai's allegations were featured prominently not only on MSNBC.com but also on NBC's Nightly News broadcast anchored by Brian Williams on Tuesday. They also spread like wildfire around the Web. (Newsweek.com is a content partner with MSNBC.com, a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft.)

The issue was even raised at Tuesday's White House briefing conducted by presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. A reporter noted that Galbraith had alleged on TV that Karzai was mentally unstable and possibly on drugs and asked Gibbs whether the Afghan president was "a credible partner to the U.S." Gibbs's reply was noncommittal: "He is the democratically elected leader of Afghanistan. And ... we will not hesitate to ensure that the remarkable investment that our men and women are making is met with the type of governance that has to be in place in order to secure parts of a dangerous country. We'll continue to speak out again if need be. And we want to see President Karzai fulfill the commitments that he enunciated both at his inaugural address and at a donors' conference in London—those commitments he made not just to his people but to the international community that have invested in ensuring the security of his country."

Karzai is scheduled to visit Washington in early May, but his recent inflammatory remarks have raised speculation that the Obama White House might delay or even withdraw his invitation. Gibbs said that the meeting is "still on the schedule as of now." But when asked if the administration was considering whether to cancel the May 12 meeting, Gibbs was also noncommittal: "We certainly would evaluate whatever continued or further remarks President Karzai makes as to whether that's constructive to have such a meeting, sure."

Galbraith is not universally beloved in either the U.N. or Kabul. Last year, he was sacked by the U.N. as its second-ranking representative in Afghanistan after he suggested that the international organization's chief envoy in Afghanistan had covered up election irregularities that benefited Karzai's reelection campaign. The chief U.N. representative, Kai Eide, denied the charges. There is also apparently bad blood between Galbraith and Karzai: MSNBC.com reported that a few days before he threatened to join the Taliban, Karzai had accused Galbraith and a European Union envoy of trying to rig the presidential election.

In an interview last week with foreign-policy blogger Spencer Ackerman, Galbraith made an offhand comment about Karzai and drugs: "I sometimes wonder if Karzai is a little too enthusiastic about Afghanistan's most popular export." However, in the context in which the remark was delivered, it appeared to be that Galbraith was trying to make a joke.