U.S. intelligence agencies missed out on the chance to fully understand the spread of COVID-19 as a result of not quickly launching spying operations on Chinese health officials, according to a declassified report by the Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee.
The report says Chinese health officials were hiding what they knew about the spread of COVID-19, according to NBC News.
However, the report does note that the CIA and other intelligence agencies did raise the prospect of a pandemic before the March 11, 2020 declaration by the World Health Organization, the network news said. The report appears to contradict the Trump administration’s claims that the intel community did not warn of the seriousness of the virus.
The report was written by staff members for the committee’s Democrat majority and it says intelligence agencies in the U.S. have failed to address their shortcomings in the area of public health intelligence. It points out the agencies are not prepared for the next pandemic.
It further claims that many of those in the U.S. intelligence community do not see biological threats as a top national security issue even though more than a million people died in the U.S. from COVID-19.
“We would be moving heaven and earth if we lost a million people as a result of some terrorist incident,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who chairs the Intelligence Committee. He stated that intelligence agencies have not created “the culture … to recognize a biothreat as a hard threat that could kill massive numbers of our citizens the way we view terrorism and other threats.” adding, “and so that’s a cultural change that needs to take place.”
He added: “I wouldn’t characterize it as an intelligence failure, but they were very slow to pivot and use their unique assets to glean insights that were not in the public record. And that, to me, is the most fundamental missed opportunity.”
Meanwhile, a report from Republicans on the committee said COVID-19’s origins "may have been" linked to a Chinese biological weapons program, according to Fox News.
“Contrary to the implication of the [intelligence community’s] declassified report, based on our investigation involving a variety of public and non-public information, we conclude that there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to China’s biological weapons research program," a summary of the report, said. "The IC failed to adequately address this information in its classified Updated Assessment. When we attempted to raise the issues with the IC, it failed to respond.”
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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