House Intelligence leader calls latest Havana syndrome assessment a ‘cover-up’

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The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), accused the intelligence community of “a cover-up,” following the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s latest evaluation of “Havana syndrome.”

Havana syndrome is the mysterious illness that a small group of U.S. diplomats and spies overseas have reported since 2016. Who or what causes these symptoms is disputed, but there are undetermined allegations that a foreign adversary could be responsible for these illnesses.

The ODNI released its most recent assessment on Friday, which looked at whether a foreign power is responsible for causing these illnesses. The report largely confirmed previous investigations from the intelligence community, which does not believe its likely that a foreign adversary has created and deployed a weapon targeting these U.S. diplomats and spies abroad.

“This updated assessment by ODNI concerning new intelligence on Anomalous Health Incidents, also known as ‘Havana Syndrome,’ continues the Biden Administration’s cover-up. This new intelligence, I believe, should completely change the assessment of our adversaries’ capabilities and the risks to our personnel. This will not age well for the Biden Administration,” Turner said.

CIA subcommittee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR) accused the Biden administration of having “doubled down on misleading the American people.”

Crawford’s subcommittee released an unclassified interim report about this subject in December. The interim report determined that it is “increasingly likely” that a foreign adversary is responsible for the attacks, contradicting multiple reports from the intelligence community, including Friday’s from the ODNI.

Five of the seven government agencies that participated in the report, “continue to assess that it is very unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible for the events reported as possible,” according to an ODNI official. Of those five, “two of them still have moderate to high confidence, and three still have moderate confidence in the product being released.”

Of the remaining two agencies, one found “roughly even chance a foreign actor has used a novel weapon or prototype device to harm a small undetermined subset of the US government personnel.”

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The other agency determined that there is “roughly even chance a foreign actor has developed a novel weapon or prototype device that could have harmed a small, undetermined subset of the US personnel,” but they continue “to assess it is unlikely a foreign actor has deployed such a weapon in any of the events.”

The ODNI did not specify which agencies were involved in the report.

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Source link : https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense/3283535/house-intelligence-leader-calls-latest-havana-syndrome-assessment-cover-up/ Author : Publish date : 2025-01-10 10:26:00 Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source .