Did A US Ambassador Impede the Search for Bin Laden?

Richard Miniter writing for the NY Daily Sun thinks so. The story he reports is quite compelling.

A lone U.S. ambassador compromised America’s hunt for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan for more than two years,The New York Sun has learned.

Ambassador Nancy Powell, America’s representative in Pakistan, refused to allow the distribution in Pakistan of wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items advertising America’s $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

Instead, thousands of matchbooks, posters, and other material — printed at taxpayer expense and translated into Urdu, Pashto, and other local languages — remained “impounded” on American Embassy grounds from 2002 to 2004, according to Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois.

While the American government was engaged in a number of “black” or covert intelligence activities to locate Al Qaeda leaders, Mr. Kirk said, the “white” or public efforts — which have succeeded in the past in leading to the capture of wanted terrorists — were effectively shut down in the months following the September 11 attacks.

It's in the details of the story that it gets even more believable. Read the whole thing...

3/29 Update

In the comments section, TigerHawk links to his more skeptical analysis of the Miniter piece. I'm all for skepticism! Miniter's work has been really good, but TigerHawk asks the right questions. My response to TigerHawk though is simply this: shouldn't we be doing everything we can to catch bin Laden, historiacally effective or otherwise?