The fourth pillar was interdiction, efforts toward decreasing the trafficking and processing of the poppy into opium. For this, an alliance had been formed between the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan. But if the National Interdiction Unit (NIU) was to be functional, it would need a lot of training in firearms, raid execution, arrest procedures, interviewing suspects, and evidence collection. All of them were items that would be contracted out—many of them to Blackwater.
