the CIA's Pakistan's Vaccination program draws ire.
The news last week that the CIA held a fake polio clinic in Pakistan to get bin Laden's children's DNA has sparked something of an outcry among some journalists. Matthew Steinglass is the latest to pile on, calling the program "despicable and stupid." The basic contention is that there's a lot of ignorance and paranoia in Pakistan, and in the region generally, about vaccinations, and therefore the CIA should have let this ignorance and conspiratorial paranoia guide its attempts to verify bin Laden's identity.
While I'm sympathetic to the argument that the U.S. frequently leaps before it looks when it comes to foreign policy, much of the case against this CIA program hinges on hindsight. Steinglass arguess that: "If the fake vaccination campaign was a necessary part of the operation to "take out" Osama bin Laden, it would have been better to leave Mr bin Laden in. One more ailing ex-terrorist holed up in a ratty house in remote Pakistan, watching old videos of himself; this was not worth jeopardising global vaccination campaigns."
But of course, no one knew he was holed up in a (not at all remote) house watching videos of himself before he was killed. Still, maybe the CIA did over-reach here. What do you think?
(AP Photo)