This morning on CNN Newsroom, Kyra Phillips reported on going out on patrol with the Iraqi border police looking for drug smugglers. Transcript follows…

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: War in Iraq. A new enemy emerges — drug money helping fuel the insurgency.

CNN’s Kyra Phillips is tracking that angle. She is live now from Baghdad.

Kyra, how seriously do investigators actually take this?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Heidi, here in Iraq, if you’re the head of a drug ring and you’re caught, without question you die for your crime. We’re on patrol with the Iraqi border police. They’re looking for drug smugglers.

(on camera): Does the drug money support terrorism?

(voice over): “Yes,” the investigator tells me, “it’s very clear.”

Clear, because once unheard of in Iraq, high-profile drug busts are now the norm, and this is where many of them end up.

(on camera): Tell me what type of criminals you deal with in this jail.

(voice over): “Drug smugglers, terrorists, kidnappers,” he tells me, “and murderers, the worst.”

Welcome to Baghdad’s major crimes unit, where we have to protect every investigator’s identity.

(on camera): I’m told your investigators are murdered for what they do.

(voice over): “Our country should be secure,” he says. “We need to make a sacrifice for that. This is the principle.”

If you’re convicted and sent to this prison, you are executed or locked up for life.

Shaban Ali (ph) was arrested for smuggling hasheesh. He says he’s innocent. But he had no problem describing how hasheesh, heroin, and marijuana are the popular drugs here. Most of it, investigators say, smuggled from Iran and Afghanistan, funneling millions of dollars and plenty of drugs to the terrorists.

(on camera): Why would — why would you want to kidnap and kill anybody? Why?

(voice over): Mohammed Kadam (ph) says he is not a terrorist, but he admits he did kidnap and murder a man. He says he did it for the money.

Back at the border, back to yet another post-war reality, drugs. Just one more enemy in this war in Iraq.

PHILLIPS: And Heidi, the lead investigator also said to me that these drugs are being used as a tool of motivation, sort of like what we’ve seen with the children soldiers in Sudan. They’re given these drugs, and then they commit these acts of terror, and as the investigator says, they’re completely unaware of what they’re doing. They’re high.

COLLINS: That’s amazing. Isn’t execution a harsh punishment for drug smugglers?

PHILLIPS: That was one of the questions that I asked, and the general of the high crimes unit said, look, drugs have a lasting effect. Once you become an addict or once you start bringing that money in, it not only ruins you as an individual, but it completely ruins your society.

So, they’re already seeing that effect, and the number of drug addicts has even increased. This was a problem that was — or an issue that was not necessarily a big problem in Iraq, and now it’s ongoing. And even these addiction centers have more people and are growing across the country because of the drugs being smuggled in.

COLLINS: Well, we must be talking about obviously a significant problem. I mean, how much money do the smugglers make?

PHILLIPS: Well, for example, the bust that you saw there, that the patrol did, they seized 1,500 pounds of hasheesh, $10 million street value. So, it brings in a lot of money for the insurgency and the terrorists to be able to operate, buy weapons.

And as these drugs are coming over, Heidi, weapons come with them, other chemicals come with them. So the type of things that are being smuggled with the drugs, that’s increasing as well.

COLLINS: Yes. And therein lies the real problem, I would imagine, that they’re looking at. All right. CNN’s Kyra Phillips live from Baghdad this morning.