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The C.I.A.’s Deadly Ruse in Pakistan
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMAY 26, 2014
The use of a sham vaccination program in the government’s hunt for Osama bin Laden has produced a lethal backlash in Pakistan where dozens of public health workers have been murdered and fearful parents are shunning polio vaccine for their children.
Leaders of a dozen American schools of public health raised an alarm with the Obama administration 16 months ago and finally got a response this month when the White House promised that the C.I.A. will no longer use phony immunization programs in its spying operations.
The fakery — one of an assortment of intelligence stratagems before the successful raid that killed bin Laden — should never have been used in a world where hardworking health care agencies depend on the trust of local communities.
The C.I.A.’s ruse involved phony door-to-door solicitations by a physician promising to deliver hepatitis B immunizations; his real purpose was to confirm bin Laden’s suspected hiding place. The ploy helped fuel a militant backlash against immunization workers, and as many as 60 health workers and police officers have since been killed.
Meanwhile, polio is on the rise, with Pakistan accounting for 66 of the 82 cases reported so far this year by the World Health Organization. Last year, there were 93 cases of polio in Pakistan, where the health organization warns that the disease is endemic, as it is in Afghanistan and Nigeria.
The C.I.A. can no longer seek to “obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material” gathered this way, according to a promise from the Obama administration. That is small comfort for those suffering the aftereffects of this ruse.
Convincing wary parents to accept polio vaccination — and finding health workers willing to risk violence — has been made more difficult than ever.
Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »
====================================================
U.S. Cites End to C.I.A. Ruses Using Vaccines
By MARK MAZZETTIMAY 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — Three years after the Central Intelligence Agencyset up a phony hepatitis vaccination program in Pakistan as part of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the Obama administration told a group of American health educators last week that the agency no longer uses immunization programs as a cover for spying operations.
In a letter to leaders at a dozen schools of public health, President Obama’s senior counterterrorism adviser said the C.I.A. had banned the practice of making “operational use” of vaccination programs, adding that the agency would not seek to “obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programs.”
The letter from the adviser, Lisa O. Monaco, comes more than a year after public health officials wrote to Mr. Obama expressing anger that the United States had used immunization programs as a front for espionage. The educators were protesting the C.I.A.’s employment of a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, to set up a hepatitis B vaccination program in Abbottabad to gain access to a compound where Bin Laden was believed to be hiding.
“While political and security agendas may by necessity induce collateral damage, we as a society set boundaries on these damages, and we believe this sham vaccination campaign exceeded those damages,” the educators’ letter said.
The intelligence operation failed to determine whether Bin Laden was in the compound. The Qaeda leader was killed shortly afterward, in May 2011, in a nighttime raid carried out by Navy SEALs. Dr. Afridi was arrested days after the raid and remains in jail in Pakistan.
While in custody, Dr. Afridi told interrogators that he was introduced to C.I.A. officers in Pakistan by an employee of Save the Children. Both the C.I.A. and Save the Children have denied the aid group was used for spying, but the revelation led it to close its operations in Pakistan.
Since the C.I.A.’s vaccination program became public, dozens of public health workers in Pakistan have been killed, with militant groups sometimes announcing that the workers had been suspected of being spies.
John O. Brennan, the agency’s director, put the new policy into effect last August, an agency spokesman said. “By publicizing this policy,” said Ned Price, the spokesman, “our objective is to dispel one canard that militant groups have used as justification for cowardly attacks against vaccination providers.”
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMAY 26, 2014
The use of a sham vaccination program in the government’s hunt for Osama bin Laden has produced a lethal backlash in Pakistan where dozens of public health workers have been murdered and fearful parents are shunning polio vaccine for their children.
Leaders of a dozen American schools of public health raised an alarm with the Obama administration 16 months ago and finally got a response this month when the White House promised that the C.I.A. will no longer use phony immunization programs in its spying operations.
The fakery — one of an assortment of intelligence stratagems before the successful raid that killed bin Laden — should never have been used in a world where hardworking health care agencies depend on the trust of local communities.
The C.I.A.’s ruse involved phony door-to-door solicitations by a physician promising to deliver hepatitis B immunizations; his real purpose was to confirm bin Laden’s suspected hiding place. The ploy helped fuel a militant backlash against immunization workers, and as many as 60 health workers and police officers have since been killed.
Meanwhile, polio is on the rise, with Pakistan accounting for 66 of the 82 cases reported so far this year by the World Health Organization. Last year, there were 93 cases of polio in Pakistan, where the health organization warns that the disease is endemic, as it is in Afghanistan and Nigeria.
The C.I.A. can no longer seek to “obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material” gathered this way, according to a promise from the Obama administration. That is small comfort for those suffering the aftereffects of this ruse.
Convincing wary parents to accept polio vaccination — and finding health workers willing to risk violence — has been made more difficult than ever.
Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »
====================================================
U.S. Cites End to C.I.A. Ruses Using Vaccines
By MARK MAZZETTIMAY 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — Three years after the Central Intelligence Agencyset up a phony hepatitis vaccination program in Pakistan as part of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the Obama administration told a group of American health educators last week that the agency no longer uses immunization programs as a cover for spying operations.
In a letter to leaders at a dozen schools of public health, President Obama’s senior counterterrorism adviser said the C.I.A. had banned the practice of making “operational use” of vaccination programs, adding that the agency would not seek to “obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programs.”
The letter from the adviser, Lisa O. Monaco, comes more than a year after public health officials wrote to Mr. Obama expressing anger that the United States had used immunization programs as a front for espionage. The educators were protesting the C.I.A.’s employment of a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, to set up a hepatitis B vaccination program in Abbottabad to gain access to a compound where Bin Laden was believed to be hiding.
“While political and security agendas may by necessity induce collateral damage, we as a society set boundaries on these damages, and we believe this sham vaccination campaign exceeded those damages,” the educators’ letter said.
The intelligence operation failed to determine whether Bin Laden was in the compound. The Qaeda leader was killed shortly afterward, in May 2011, in a nighttime raid carried out by Navy SEALs. Dr. Afridi was arrested days after the raid and remains in jail in Pakistan.
While in custody, Dr. Afridi told interrogators that he was introduced to C.I.A. officers in Pakistan by an employee of Save the Children. Both the C.I.A. and Save the Children have denied the aid group was used for spying, but the revelation led it to close its operations in Pakistan.
Since the C.I.A.’s vaccination program became public, dozens of public health workers in Pakistan have been killed, with militant groups sometimes announcing that the workers had been suspected of being spies.
John O. Brennan, the agency’s director, put the new policy into effect last August, an agency spokesman said. “By publicizing this policy,” said Ned Price, the spokesman, “our objective is to dispel one canard that militant groups have used as justification for cowardly attacks against vaccination providers.”
