After years of investigating, intelligence agencies have concluded the “Havana syndrome,” allegedly afflicting diplomatic staffers all over the world, cannot be tied to the actions of a foreign adversary.
The CIA and six other intelligence agencies reviewed approximately 1,000 cases of career diplomats and those serving in U.S. missions abroad experiencing “anomalous health incidents,” such as tinnitus, headaches, nausea, and brain injuries stemming from mysterious and painful acoustic sensations. Some attributed the alleged attacks to Russia, or other foreign adversaries, but the intelligence assessment determined that was “very unlikely," according to The Washington Post.
Five of those agencies determined it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible for the symptoms, either as the result of purposeful actions — such as a directed energy weapon — or as the byproduct of some other activity, including electronic surveillance that unintentionally could have made people sick, the officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the findings of the assessment, which had not yet been made public.
One agency, which the officials did not name, determined that it was “unlikely” that a foreign actor was at fault, a slightly less emphatic finding that did not appreciably change the consensus. One agency abstained in its conclusion regarding a foreign actor. But when asked, no agency dissented from the conclusion that a foreign actor did not cause the symptoms, one of the intelligence officials said. (WaPo)
Cases were first reported in 2016 out of the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Sometimes there were clusters of reported cases, but officials could not find any pattern to link them. Moreover, there was no forensic or geolocation evidence to suggest a foreign adversary used any type of sonic attack.
“In some cases, there was no ‘direct line of sight’ to affected personnel working at U.S. facilities, further casting doubt on the possibility that a hypothetical energy weapon could have been the culprit, one of the officials said,” the WaPo report went on to state.
This was the case even where U.S. intelligence agencies had the ability to completely monitor the environment for any type of “malicious interference.”
“There was nothing,” the official told the Post.
Despite the findings, CIA Director William Burns validated the personnels' experiences.
“I want to be absolutely clear: these findings do not call into question the experiences and real health issues that US Government personnel and their family members — including CIA’s own officers — have reported while serving our country,” Burns said. “We will continue 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.”
The report's conclusion did not come as a surprise to journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has long been calling out the Havana syndrome "fraud" and the media figures that helped perpetuate it.
Last year, we produced a comprehensive review of the Havana Syndrome fraud, which media figures played the leading role in spreading it (Bertrand, @juliaioffe, @AndreaMitchell), and how it was used to claim Trump was allowing Russia to murder diplomats:https://t.co/o3iVxKVe5w
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 1, 2023
This is yet another hoax where any ethical and actual news organization would go on air and say: "for years we told you something that turned out to be false. Here's why we did it. We apologize and retract our stories."
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 1, 2023
That they don't tells you all you need to know about them.