CIA offers Viagra for information on Taliban militants

27 December 2008
CIA offers Viagra for information on Taliban militants

Drugstores Online

CIA agents are offering the potency drug Viagra and other gifts to win over Afghan warlords in the US-led war against Taliban insurgents, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

Paying for information is nothing new for the Central Intelligence Agency, but officers have started employing unusual incentives to persuade Afghan local leaders to share intelligence about the Taliban’s movements, the paper wrote, citing unnamed sources in the agency.

"Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people — whether it’s building a school or handing out Viagra," one CIA operative who has worked in Afghanistan was quoted as saying.

As well as the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra CIA agents have offered Afghan chieftains dental work, pocket knives and tools, toys and school equipment, travel visas and medical services including surgeries, the paper said.

The aging chieftains often have up to four wives and are open to the Viagra pill as a way to "put them back in an authoritative position," said another official.

More customary bribes such as cash and weapons can create problems, because guns fan fall into the wrong hands and a sudden influx of cash can draw too much attention, agents told the paper.

The newspaper said the use of Viagra had to be treated with sensitivity as the drug was not always known about in rural areas.

A retired agent was quoted in the report as saying: "You didn’t hand it out to younger guys, but it could be a silver bullet to make connections to the older ones."

Four Viagra pills transformed the attitude of one influential 60-year- old warlord who had been wary of the United States.

Four days later he revealed details of Taliban movements in return for more.

"He came up to us beaming," one official told the Post. "He said, ‘You are a great man’.

"And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area."