A war of words between the intel agencies and Havana Syndrome victims
An updated intelligence assessment out Friday has riled up current and former spies.
The battle between the intelligence community and people reporting Havana Syndrome, or what the government calls Anomalous Health Incidents, grew deeper today.
In the spring, I outlined the rift between former and current intel officers reporting AHI and the agencies that they believed were gaslighting them. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how some are setting their hopes on the Trump administration — encouraged by a scathing, Republican-led interim report by a House Intelligence subcommittee that accused the intel community of a coverup.
On Friday, seemingly in response, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an updated assessment. “Most of the IC continues to assess that it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign adversary is responsible for the incidents,” the ODNI/National Intelligence Council assessment began. “Five IC components continue to assess it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign actor has a capability, such as a pulsed radiofrequency (RF) energy weapon or prototype device.”
But two agencies changed their judgments since the ODNI’s 2023 assessment “to indicate that foreign directed-energy research programs have been making progress.” One agency even assessed it “likely” that a foreign actor has a radiofrequency capability which can cause health effects in line with the symptoms spies have reported. Still, most agencies assess that a foreign actor would use “a mechanism based on well-established scientific principles,” instead of a novel weapon like an radiofrequency energy device.
Meanwhile, the Defense Department sought to assuage the AHI community without stepping on the ODNI’s toes. In a letter I obtained, Assistant Secretary of Defense Rebecca Zimmerman wrote, “I recognize [the assessment’s key judgments] may raise questions… I recognize that there is still much work to be done to fully understand the causes of what you experienced.”
After the ODNI’s updated assessment, a prominent national security attorney had a response at the ready. “The document reveals agencies within the Intelligence Community are in disagreement with one another,” Mark Zaid, who represents more than two dozen government employees reporting AHI, texted me. “Multiple sources have stated that CIA Director Bill Burns, a Russia expert, privately told Agency victims he thought Russia was responsible,” he added.
A CIA spokesperson told me that Burns initially believed that Russia was behind incidents. “As the Director has said, he had his own assumptions when he became Director – so much so that he even warned his Russian counterparts in late 2021. But, as he has said, our analysts’ job is not to validate his assumptions, but to ensure an intensive and professional effort to get as close to ground truth as we can.”
Mark plans to file a lawsuit in February to get the intel community to declassify the full assessment. And he has already filed a Freedom of Information Act request. He echoed a hope that the Trump administration will force the CIA to “no longer lie to the public.”
Before the intelligence assessment was published on Friday, a source contacted me to flag its release. Two former CIA officers told me that in mid-November, six former and current intel officers were invited to a meeting at the White House. They both said that members of the National Security Council were at odds with the intelligence community.
Patient zero, who goes by the name “Adam” because the CIA does not want him to use his real name, told me that staff sat him down in the chair reserved for the president in the Situation Room. “We started initially with the pleasantries and introductions,” Adam said. “They explained that the purpose of the meeting was they wanted to help develop a guiding document for the incoming administration on this issue — ‘Where are the problems that need to be addressed? What do you need help with? What should we be doing? What should we be protecting or pushing?’”
Adam said he had questions for them too. “I'm like, ‘These are going to be uncomfortable questions for you guys. Why didn't you do anything? You knew they were lying. You had the intelligence even back in 2023.’” He said that NSC senior official Maher Bitar told him, “‘The policy of the NSC is not to push back on the IC analytic line.’” Adam went on to say that no one seemed to know where the accountability lies.
Over the course of a three-hour meeting, the other former intel officer said, “Several of the NSC staff admitted not only was CIA incompetent in their investigation of the AHI issue, but also agreed with the victims’ assertion that the CIA engaged in willful malfeasance.”
The NSC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A CIA spokesperson told me the agency continues to “remain alert to any risks to the health and wellbeing of Agency officers, to ensure access to care, and to provide officers the compassion and respect they deserve.”
Adam said that the day after the intel community’s 2023 assessment was released, a senior CIA officer told him about being sent to the agency’s auditorium, known as the bubble. Director Burns, his deputy David Cohen, and another official were there. “The first thing they said out of their mouth — this is the day after the 2023 [assessment]— is, ‘OK let's talk about retention.’”
