The ‘Not a Consensus’ Wuhan Covid Dodge The White House tries to downplay the news of ‘new’ virus information.
White House spokespersons played the press corps like a Stradivarius on Monday as they ducked questions about Sunday’s report that the Energy Department has concluded the Covid virus probably originated in a Chinese laboratory.
“There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how Covid started,” said John Kirby, the White House national-security spokesman. “There is just not an intelligence community consensus.”
So what? When was the last time there was an intelligence community consensus on anything? No reporter asked Mr. Kirby that question, but we don’t mind doing so.
By its very nature, intelligence is usually murky and open to different interpretations. That’s why agencies attach terms like “low confidence” or “moderate confidence” to their judgments. A difference in agency views can be useful because it means there is less chance of groupthink influencing policy choices.
The crucial point in Sunday’s report is that DOE reached its conclusion based on “new” intelligence. It would be nice to know what intel finally tipped the scales. The DOE judgment is all the more notable because the agency is responsible for the national laboratories, some of which conduct biological research. The CIA or the National Security Agency have other areas of expertise, mainly human or signals intelligence.
A reasonable concern is that the White House wants to put the coronavirus origin story back into an intelligence black box and hope everyone forgets about it. That would make President Biden’s job easier in dealing with China. But it wouldn’t serve the U.S. or the world, which have suffered greatly from the Covid plague and deserve to know what the preponderance of evidence says about its origin.
Part of being better prepared for the next pandemic is knowing if humans played any role in creating this one.
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