Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe will testify with other top intelligence community officials before the House and Senate’s respective intelligence committees on Tuesday and Wednesday. The war in Iran will obviously be a major focus for questions. But members of Congress must also prioritize asking harder questions about the IC’s handling of the so-called “Havana Syndrome” issue.
What the government refers to as “Anomalous Health Incidents,” as the Washington Examiner noted last December, “Havana Syndrome rose to prominence in 2016, following reports of unexplained nervous system ailments suffered by U.S. diplomats and CIA officers at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba. Hundreds of subsequent incidents have been reported globally by American diplomats, intelligence officers, and military personnel. AHI symptoms include dizziness, auditory disruption, traumatic brain injury, and loss of gait. Some victims have suffered serious disabilities and premature death.”
As the Washington Examiner added, an array of compelling evidence (read to the end of the article here), “suggests that compartmented units of the Russian intelligence services, likely at least previously supervised by former national security adviser Nikolai Patrushev, are using novel pulsed microwave weapons of different sizes and capacities to attack U.S. personnel. Russia has previously claimed possession of just such weapons, directed energy being an enduring priority focus for Russian military-intelligence research and development.”
Not so says all but two elements of the IC behemoth, the National Security Agency and U.S. Army’s Intelligence Command. The remainder of the IC continues to insist that “it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign adversary is responsible for the events reported as possible anomalous health incidents.” That’s a quote from the intelligence community’s most recent assessment on AHIs, released in December 2024.
Absurdly, however, we now know that this assessment followed the U.S. government’s coming into possession of a pulsed microwave device. As first reported by independent journalist Sasha Ingber and CNN, that device has subsequently undergone testing. The Washington Examiner understands from multiple sources that these tests indicate the device can indeed produce the biological effects medically observed in many AHI victims. A big question follows.
Why hasn’t the IC’s 2024 assessment been retracted? And as long as that assessment remains in place, how can policymakers trust what the IC is telling them?
Gabbard has shown rare courage in taking a fresh look at this issue with her review of the IC’s investigation of AHIs. But it’s time to ask her why that report remains hidden behind classified doors. Release of a redacted version of her report is long overdue.
It’s time to ask Ratcliffe harder questions. After all, as the Washington Examiner has previously reported and The Insider’s Michael Weiss has now extensively documented, the CIA’s AHI investigative efforts reek of a systemic cover-up.
Members of Congress from both parties are increasingly frustrated. Take House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.). Echoing his comments to the Washington Examiner in December 2024, Crawford told the New York Post last week, “I definitely think there has been a cover-up.”
TOM ROGAN: US PREPARING FOR ISLAND GROUND OPERATIONS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ BATTLE
The war in Iran may understandably dominate the hearings this week.
Still, it’s long past time for members of Congress to turn up the heat. They must ask intelligence community leaders why their assessments continue to fly in the face of so much contravening evidence. In so doing, they can prove that on matters of the most urgent public interest, bipartisan oversight remains alive and well.