The Republican members of the United States House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) has issued a minority report “Unclassified Summary of the Second Interim Report On the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The HPCI analysis builds a case implicating China in mishandling biological weapons research resulting in the release of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the Wuhan civilian population and the rest of the world.
Considering Beijing’s behavior in blaming others for the pandemic and stonewalling any investigations into the Wuhan lab, no one should be surprised by what the HPSCI minority report claims. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is capable of pursuing bioweapons research and, as Fox News reported, “Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee are alleging in [the] newly released report that there are ‘indications’ that COVID-19 could be tied to China’s biological weapons research program.”
COVID-19 Report Finds Fault with the IC
However, particularly troublesome is the finding that the Intelligence Community (IC) has not been forthcoming with helpful information. One point made in the GOP’s assessment of whether the IC thought there was a bioweapons connection may seem arcane, but the authors of the findings thought it important enough to highlight.
“Omissions in the IC’s declassified version of its Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins were misleading on key issues…Despite the fact the IC relayed its confidence levels for nearly every other assessment in the declassified report – low confidence, moderate confidence, etc. – the IC failed to disclose to the public its confidence level regarding this bioweapons assessment.”
The confidence level assessment in intelligence analysis gives the reader a view of what the IC has found and if the information is valid and actionable. Without a confidence level associated, the IC’s account does not carry the weight of conviction, one way or the other. Consequently, the latest ODNI assessment on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is vague at best.
The authors of the HPSCI report were particularly critical of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for not providing information on the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS). The AMMS, “which China has publicly admitted conducts bioweapons research and coronavirus experiments,” the select committee’s report asserted. Yet, despite repeated requests for information on the AMMS, the Intelligence Community has refused to meet those requests.
Any link between the catastrophic coronavirus pandemic and bioweapons research by the AMMS should be setting off alarm bells within the IC. Furthermore, with China being as resistant as it is to outside scrutiny, US intelligence operations are the only resource capable of gaining insight into PRC mischief. “The IC owes the American people greater transparency on the information it already has and must be fully transparent to those in Congress with oversight responsibility,” Jordan Boyd explained in her analysis for The Federalist.
Senate COVID-19 Report Consistent with HPSCI
(Photo credit Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
An October report, An Analysis of the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Interim Report, released by the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions Minority Oversight Staff, came to similar conclusions as did the HPSCI with a recommendation the ODNI should be more forthcoming. As more and more information points to China as the culprit and source of the global coronavirus plague, the IC is in more of a pickle. The intelligence agencies could say, well, we knew that. But that would open the IC to the question, if you knew China was the origin of COVID-19 and the virus was the result of bioweapons research, why didn’t you tell somebody? But if the intel folks did tell someone that Beijing’s bioweapons research resulted in millions of deaths around the world, then American citizens, as well as others, would demand action against China.
The outrage would drive governments to be held responsible for holding the PRC leadership accountable. That would put Mr. Biden in a corner, having to do something or explain why not. The administration has not shown an appetite for going nose-to-nose with China’s President Xi Jinping. However, with the credibility of the ODNI behind the accusation with evidence of China’s bioweapons connection made public, China would be forced to explain or confess. Whether Xi’s government took responsibility or not, China’s reputation would be seriously damaged among developing nations, the current target of Beijing’s hegemonic aspirations.
The House and Senate GOP report on the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic must be taken seriously. The IC has an obligation to make available to the appropriate congressional intelligence and oversight committees what it knows, with an accompanying level of confidence.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
