US Intel Agencies Played Unsettling Role in Classified and "9/11-like"
Coronavirus Response Plan
As coronavirus panic grips the world, concern over government overreach is
growing given the involvement of US intelligence agencies in classified
meetings for planning the U.S.' coronavirus response.
by Whitney Webb
March 13th, 2020
By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb
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As the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis comes to dominate headlines, little media
attention has been given to the federal government's decision to classify
top-level meetings on domestic coronavirus response and lean heavily "behind
the scenes" on U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon in planning for an
allegedly imminent explosion of cases.
The classification of coronavirus planning meetings was first covered by
Reuters, which noted that the decision to classify was "an unusual step that
has restricted information and hampered the U.S. government's response to
the contagion." Reuters further noted that the Secretary of the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS), Alex Azar, and his chief of staff had
"resisted" the classification order, which was made in mid-January by the
National Security Council (NSC), led by Robert O'Brien - a longtime friend
and colleague of his predecessor John Bolton.
Following this order, HHS officials with the appropriate security clearances
held meetings on coronavirus response at the department's Sensitive
Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF), which are facilities "usually
reserved for intelligence and military operations" and - in HHS' case - for
responses to "biowarfare or chemical attacks." Several officials who spoke
to Reuters noted that the classification decision prevented key experts from
participating in meetings and slowed down the ability of HHS and the
agencies it oversees, including the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), to respond to the crisis by limiting participation and
information sharing.
It has since been speculated that the decision was made to prevent potential
leaks of information by stifling participation and that aspects of the
planned response would cause controversy if made public, especially given
that the decision to classify government meetings on coronavirus response
negatively impacted HHS' ability to respond to the crisis.
After the classification decision was made public, a subsequent report in
Politico revealed that not only is the National Security Council managing
the federal government's overall response but that they are doing so in
close coordination with the U.S. intelligence community and the U.S.
military. It states specifically that "NSC officials have been coordinating
behind the scenes with the intelligence and defense communities to gauge the
threat and prepare for the possibility that the U.S. government will have to
respond to much bigger numbers-and soon."
Little attention was given to the fact that the response to this apparently
imminent jump in cases was being coordinated largely between elements of the
national security state (i.e. the NSC, Pentagon, and intelligence), as
opposed to civilian agencies or those focused on public health issues, and
in a classified manner.
The Politico article also noted that the intelligence community is set to
play a "key role" in a pandemic situation, but did not specify what the role
would specifically entail. However, it did note that intelligence agencies
would "almost certainly see an opportunity to exploit the crisis" given that
international "epicenters of coronavirus [are] in high-priority
counterintelligence targets like China and Iran." It further added, citing
former intelligence officials, that efforts would be made to recruit new
human sources in those countries.
Politico cited the official explanation for intelligence's interest in
"exploiting the crisis" as merely being aimed at determining accurate
statistics of coronavirus cases in "closed societies," i.e. nations that do
not readily cooperate or share intelligence with the U.S. government. Yet,
Politico fails to note that Iran has long been targeted for CIA-driven U.S.
regime change, specifically under the Trump administration, and that China
had been fingered as the top threat to U.S. global hegemony by military
officials well before the coronavirus outbreak.
A potential "9/11-like" response
The decision to classify government coronavirus preparations in mid-January,
followed by the decision to coordinate the domestic response with the
military and with intelligence deserves considerable scrutiny, particularly
given that at least one federal agency, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP),
will be given broad, sweeping powers and will work closely with unspecified
intelligence "partners" as part of its response to a pandemics like
COVID-19.
The CBP's pandemic response document, obtained by The Nation, reveals that
the CBP's pandemic directive "allows the agency to actively surveil and
detain individuals suspected of carrying the illness indefinitely." The
Nation further notes that the plan was drafted during the George W. Bush
administration, but is the agency's most recent pandemic response plan and
remains in effect.
Though only CBP's pandemic response plan has now been made public, those of
other agencies are likely to be similar, particularly on their emphasis on
surveillance, given past precedent following the September 11 attacks and
other times of national panic. Notably, several recent media reports have
likened coronavirus to 9/11 and broached the possibility of a "9/11-like"
response to coronavirus, suggestions that should concern critics of the
post-9/11 "Patriot Act" and other controversial laws, executive orders and
policies that followed.
While the plans of the federal government remain classified, recent reports
have revealed that the military and intelligence communities - now working
with the NSC to develop the government's coronavirus response - have
anticipated a massive explosion in cases for weeks. U.S. military
intelligence came to the conclusion over a month ago that coronavirus cases
would reach "pandemic proportions" domestically by the end of March. That
military intelligence agency, known as the National Center for Medical
Intelligence (NCMI), coordinates closely with the National Security Agency
(NSA) to conduct "medical SIGINT [signals intelligence]."
The coming government response, the agencies largely responsible for
crafting it and its classified nature deserve public scrutiny now,
particularly given the federal government's tendency to not let "a serious
crisis to go to waste," as former President Obama's then-chief of staff Rahm
Emanuel infamously said during the 2008 financial crisis. Indeed, during a
time of panic - over a pandemic and over a simultaneous major economic
downturn - concern over government overreach is warranted, particularly now
given the involvement of intelligence agencies and the classification of
planning for an explosion of domestic cases that the government believes is
only weeks away.
