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CLASSIFIED intelligence on the outbreak of Covid immediately “set off alarm bells”, a former US State Department investigator said.
Arms control expert Thomas DiNanno was warned not to “open a can of worms” by probing the origins of Covid – but he says it only made him more determined to find the truth.
AP
AFPAs the pandemic spread across the world, DiNanno was leading the Weapons of Mass Destruction directorate in the State Department.
This meant that he was pouring through intel on China‘s biological weapons programmes every day.
Watch The Covid Files: Inside the Wuhan lab leak on our YouTube channel here
And the possibility of a lab leak became clear when he “began to see the classified information that told me that”, DiNanno told The Sun.
The intelligence “really set off alarm bells”, he added.
He said: “It’s not my job to have an opinion. My job is to ascertain the facts, to gather information from the intelligence community, and make a recommendation to the secretary of state.
“Reports from federal agencies very clearly questioned the origin of the virus… that opinion made others very uncomfortable.
“The science that was presented to me was from the top scientists in the United States government.
“We had it in black and white… so it was impossible to refute unless the science was wrong.”
But DiNanno – who has been nominated to serve as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security – said some US officials were “uncomfortable” with the level of questioning over the origins.
He was told that any investigation into the origins would open a “can of worms”.
“That only gave me more incentive to pursue the truth because we had begun to see evidence and classified information,” DiNanno said.
“It was the classified information that we saw that really set off alarm bells. There were incredible discrepancies and inconsistencies between what I was being told.
We had it in black and white… so it was impossible to refute unless the science was wrong
Thomas DiNanno“We wanted to drill down into those discrepancies to find out why. I think that was the ‘can of worms’ I was being warned about.
“People became very uncomfortable with the level of questioning and hesitant to share information.
“I’m guessing there are dozens like me throughout other agencies that came to the same conclusion when they look at the data.”
Five years after a pandemic was declared, the world still has no answers about the origins of the virus that has left more than seven million people dead.
Reuters
AFP
US Department of StateThe CIA, FBI and the US Department of Energy have all backed a lab leak as the most likely explanation – with many pointing the finger at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
China‘s Wuhan lab has been at the centre of the storm since Covid emerged just miles from the facility – which was famous for its research on bat coronaviruses.
Many believe Covid leaked from the US-funded lab during risky virus tests.
DiNanno joined the ranks of experts, scientists and investigators who spoke to The Sun in an exclusive documentary about the lab leak and those who might have wanted to cover up the scandal.
He said the information he saw “took a long time to come to light”.
“If it wasn’t for the Secretary of State personally intervening with the Director of National Intelligence, I don’t think it would have,” he added.
It was the classified information that we saw that really set off alarm bells. There were incredible discrepancies and inconsistencies between what I was being told
Thomas DiNannoWe now know that three lab researchers fell ill in November 2019 — a month before the first Covid cases were reported to the World Health Organisation.
Links between a British-born businessman and American funding into bat virus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology also came to light.
Zoologist Peter Daszak, an expert in how diseases jump from animals to humans, ran a virus-hunting group called the EcoHealth Alliance, which was given millions of taxpayer dollars through the US Department of Defence.
In May 2018, the company put in a grant proposal for research that would have manipulated a virus strikingly similar to the one behind Covid-19.
In January this year, EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak were banned from any federal funding for five years.
During his time in government, DiNanno said his probe led to “serious concerns about the links to the People’s Liberation Army, about gain-of-function research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology”.
He said the US should have known the consequences of working with the lab in Wuhan.
It was “incredibly stupid” to work with China, he added.
“At the core of it, China is our adversary,” DiNanno explained.
“This is not debatable. If you choose to partner with China, bad things could happen. It’s so obvious to me.
“To assume the SARS programme is not coupled with the biological weapons programme… I’m not willing to make that assumption.
“That’s a dangerous assumption. Those in the national security establishment should assume the worst.
“You have to assume that if you’re doing public health research with the Chinese, that would be coupled or shared with military weapons programmes.
“To choose them as the partner of choice seems incredibly stupid to me.”
If we have these two contingencies – lab leak and zoonosis – we should deal with them both. We can deal with both problems. But we haven’t done that. We’ve decided that we have to decide which one is right first to make smart recommendations
Thomas DiNannoDiNanno believes the world has enough “evidence” about the origins of Covid to make “smart decisions”.
“I don’t think we need a [definitive conclusion],” he said.
“We have all the information we need to make smart decisions, yet we refuse to do so.
“After 9/11, I was in the Bush White House and we went through a process and created eight scenarios that we felt we should plan against.
“There was no direct threat yet we put thousands of people, millions of dollars and a national effort to ensure that they didn’t happen.
“If we have these two contingencies – lab leak and zoonosis – we should deal with them both. We can deal with both problems.
“But we haven’t done that. We’ve decided that we have to decide which one is right first to make smart recommendations.
“If both are bad, we should do something for both scenarios.”
Congress report confirms what we suspected
By Imogen Braddick, Assistant Foreign Editor
Finally, politicians have said what many scientists and journalists have been saying for years – that Covid did leak from a dodgy lab in Wuhan.
But how has it taken five years to say what many people suspected within weeks of China admitting there was a new virus on the loose?
In a bombshell move, Congress accused governments and members of the scientific community of trying to cover-up facts about the origins of the pandemic.
And the report is an acknowledgement that the lab leak theory is not a conspiracy – after years of shaming anyone who dare question the “consensus”.
It’s a step in the right direction in the fight for justice for the millions of people who lost loved ones in the pandemic.
Many will continue to question why finding the origins of the pandemic is important.
It’s important for the families of millions who died. It’s also important if we want to stop the next pandemic.
If Covid did leak from a lab, we must have more oversight over risky lab research. If it was a natural spillover event, we must take steps to try and prevent a similar disaster.
The Congress report is a welcome victory – but it’s taken far too long for a government to take the lead on the probe into the origins.
Here, the UK government is rightly examining the response to the pandemic with the Covid-19 Inquiry.
But it should also pay more attention to where the virus came from if we want to stop another pandemic killing millions more.
There’s still much more evidence to be found, clues to be uncovered and scientists to quiz.
English (US)