President Obama is planning an overhaul of the ineffective anti-drugs policy in Afghanistan as Washington prepares to announce the non-military side of its strategy to defeat the Taleban.

Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to the region, announced at the weekend that Congress would soon be asked for funds to rebuild the Afghan economy, in a joint approach with Mr Obama’s appeal to Nato for more forces to join the 17,000 extra troops that he has already promised. The US also wants to boost the Afghan police.

The biggest disaster, according to Mr Holbrooke, is the botched antinarcotics programme that has failed to stop Afghanistan supplying most of the world’s heroin. Mr Obama is expected to announce his strategy for Afghanistan this week before the 60th anniversary summit of Nato in April.

Britain was put in charge of tackling the drug issue under the Bonn agreement of 2001 but has struggled through a lack of resources. British sources have welcomed the US switch from crop eradication to creating alternative livelihoods.

“The United States alone is spending over $800 million \ a year on counter-narcotics. We have gotten nothing out of it, nothing,” Mr Holbrooke told the Brussels Forum on Saturday. “It is the most wasteful and ineffective programme I have seen in 40 years.”

“What we’re looking for is a comprehensive strategy,” Mr Obama said last night in a television interview. “And there’s got to be an exit strategy.”

According to US government figures, last month Afghanistan supplied 90 per cent of the heroin in the world. “By forced eradication we are often pushing farmers into the Taleban hands,” Mr Holbrooke said. “We are going to try to reprogramme that money. About $160 million is for alternate livelihoods and we would like to increase that.”

Senior British officials will welcome a shift in US policy in Afghanistan, saying that they have argued for an approach that puts more emphasis on providing alternative sources of income for farmers.

“Our response is that this is about bloody time,” a British diplomat said. He complained that ever since Britain was given responsibility for the policy it had been pulled in different directions.

Mr Holbrooke confirmed that the US had no plans to send troops into the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, which he considers the root of the terrorist scourge, and suggested that Nato should turn its attention to anti-propaganda measures.

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