I expect the CIA to be somewhat dastardly. That’s part of what they are there for. I understand why they wanted to find some clever way to extract DNA from someone in the Abbottabad compound where they suspected Usama Bin-Laden was hiding. I also understand that their options for obtaining a DNA sample were limited. So, creating a free vaccination program was pretty clever. However, they crossed a line with me when they didn’t follow through with the full vaccination regimen.
As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the “project” in a poorer part of town to make it look more authentic, according to Pakistani and US officials and local residents.
The doctor, Shakil Afridi, has since been arrested by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for co-operating with American intelligence agents…
…In March health workers administered the vaccine in a poor neighbourhood on the edge of Abbottabad called Nawa Sher. The hepatitis B vaccine is usually given in three doses, the second a month after the first. But in April, instead of administering the second dose in Nawa Sher, the doctor returned to Abbottabad and moved the nurses on to Bilal Town, the suburb where Bin Laden lived.
This was a brilliantly conceived plan, but there are kids in Nawa Sher who didn’t get their second and third hepatitis B vaccination shots. I am not cool with that. It may sound like nitpicking considering the remarkable achievement the CIA pulled off here, but it’s still morally wrong to fail to follow through on the vaccinations. If they needed more nurses to do the job, they should have hired them.
Meanwhile, relations with Pakistan have deteriorated to the point that the administration has rescinded $800 million in military aid.
