U.S. Intelligence Community Nears Deadline To Produce ‘Wuhan Lab Leak’ Report

Aug. 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—About 75 days ago, President Biden responded to CNN’s charges that his administration had closed down Mike Pompeo’s investigation into the “Wuhan Lab Leak” hypothesis, by invoking a 90-day deadline for a report from the intelligence community (IC). As that report comes due, CNN appears to request more time. Evidently, the supercomputers of the nation’s labs, such as Los Alamos National Lab, have been commandeered to break the Chinese coverup, but there are problems.

The CNN report is the product of three authors, notorious for their public relations work for IC narratives: Natasha Bertrand (the infamous Steele dossier), Zachary Cohen (Russian bounties paid to the Taliban), and Katie Bo Williams (Russian microwave superweapons making U.S. diplomats ill).

The article has anonymous sources that explain:

“Scientists are scouring data from a Chinese lab, including genetic blueprints drawn from virus samples, in order to suss out the pandemic’s origins.... Intel agencies scour reams of genetic data from Wuhan lab.... U.S. intelligence agencies are digging through a treasure trove of genetic data that could be key to uncovering the origins of the coronavirus.”

It is “unclear exactly how or when U.S. intelligence agencies gained access to the information,” as the computers holding such data “are typically connected to external cloud-based servers.” That is, CNN, and presumably the IC, want to suggest that they have hacked into the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) computers and it is only a matter of time before they can round up the criminals.

However, 75 days later, no smoking guns have been produced. The IC needs the public to understand that they may need extra time as it is hard to get scientists “skilled enough to interpret complex genetic sequencing data,” who also speak Mandarin and have security clearances. (That is, we can find clever Chinese scientists, but they tend to be the same people that we won’t trust with security clearances.)

From China, a Global Times story suggests another possible reason for the reported use of supercomputers. Their anonymous source says that U.S. intelligence officials are trying to find some witnesses or insiders during the initial stage of the Wuhan epidemic for juicy stories. Since it is not clear that they can gather more information on Chinese citizens than the Chinese government does, they may end up with narratives of the quality of “Xinjiang survivors.”

Otherwise, the Global Times complains that the U.S. shows much talent for public relations and narratives, but it is pathetic in holding public officials accountable in their management of public health and epidemic response. In an article, “China Penalizes 70 Derelict Officials amid Delta Resurgence,” whose kicker reads, “Strict Party discipline improves officials’ risk management skills, better than U.S.’ two-party system,” they describe the actions of the Communist Party in holding officials to a standard higher than the law requires, when necessary. Hence they cover 70 cases of discipline—firings or notices on their work record—for poor performance, not fulfilling their duty, and excessive bureaucracy. Xie Maosong, senior research fellow at China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy, is cited, comparing the positive effect on all the other officials, and the negative effect in the U.S., when there is no punishment for officials who fail to carry out their responsibilities in epidemic prevention and control, making for a lack of high standards, costing lives and risking a crisis of humanity.