Intel Republicans find adversaries likely behind AHI attacks, triggering blowback

A report from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee says they are “convinced” foreign adversaries are behind anomalous health incidents (AHI), faulting the intelligence community for stonewalling their efforts to investigate the mysterious ailments.

It’s an assertion that earned swift pushback from the intelligence community, who contested that conclusion and called accusations regarding their cooperation with Congress “unfounded.”

And Democrats, who participated in the investigation but were uninvolved in drafting the document, described it as sloppy work, saying Republicans “uncovered no new evidence to support the conclusion of adversary involvement or evidence of improper analytic process.”

The interim unclassified 10-page report is the latest in the saga over a series of reports made by State Department and intelligence agents abroad, first reporting symptoms in Havana, Cuba, that range from vertigo to head and ear pressure to nausea and cognitive difficulties.

Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), who led the investigation as chair of the subcommittee overseeing the CIA, said he disagreed with the intelligence community’s assessment that a foreign power is unlikely behind the attacks, saying there are “mountains of evidence that suggest otherwise.”

“I'm convinced that there is a foreign adversary responsible for these. … Now to be clear, it doesn't mean all these incidents that have been reported are attributable to a foreign adversary. It just means that the evidence supports that in many cases,” Crawford told reporters Thursday.

“This is not speculation on my part. This is me telling you we have collected evidence that I can confidently say we can attribute many of these AHI attacks to foreign adversaries.”

Crawford said he couldn't disclose many of the details behind their conclusions because they are classified. But the panel is still working on a classified report.

An intelligence report last year found “intelligence consistently points against the involvement of U.S. adversaries” and that there was no credible intelligence that any adversary had the capability to do so.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the panel, said the search for a cause behind the AHIs has been “frustratingly inconclusive” but that he’s never seen the intelligence community do “anything to impede” the GOP investigation.

“However, the Majority CIA Subcommittee’s Interim Report has uncovered no new evidence to support the conclusion of adversary involvement or evidence of improper analytic process,” Himes said.

“What’s more, I have served on the House Intelligence Committee throughout this period and across three Administrations, and I have seen no evidence that the U.S. government was not determined to find the root cause of these incidents and to protect the men and women who go to work around the world every day to safeguard our nation.” 

The GOP likewise faults the intelligence community for its report reaching the conclusion adversaries were not likely behind the attacks, saying the review “lacked analytic integrity and was highly irregular in its formulation.”

“Some of these problems may include a rush to convey a consensus amongst elements of the IC in an effort to control the narrative with the American public, policymakers, foreign partners and adversaries, and IC employees,” the committee report stated, using an acronym for the intelligence community.

The report lays bare the tension between House Republicans on the committee and the various agencies that compose the intelligence community.

Crawford said the panel frequently received highly redacted documents and in some cases had to use subpoena power to secure information.

“It is entirely unacceptable for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to make a request for documents and then be told we're not cleared to see that document. We oversee those agencies,” he said.

But that was disputed by intelligence agencies, which noted the report points to four dozen interviews as well as 5,000 pages of documents it turned over.

“The IC has devoted significant effort to assessing potential causes of AHIs. Our investigation was among the most comprehensive in our history, bringing to bear the IC’s full operational, analytic, and technical capabilities and those of our partners,” a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement.

“Most IC agencies assess that it is very unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs, and the assertion that we are withholding information that contradicts this analysis or would otherwise illuminate this complex subject is unfounded.”

A CIA official also pushed back against the report.

“Over the last four years we have provided more than two dozen AHI-related briefings and thousands of pages of documents to HPSCI alone,” the official said, referring to the House Intelligence Committee.

“Any suggestion that we are withholding information that would shed new light on this complex and difficult issue could not be further from the truth.”

Various intelligence community assessments have cast doubt on the origins of AHIs, with a 2022 analysis suggesting “pulsed electromagnetic energy” could be a driver, a conclusion that aligned with a 2020 National Academy of Sciences report that determined that microwave “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” to be the most likely cause.

What is clear is numerous government staffers have reported mysterious ailments, igniting a push within Congress to secure medical care for those affected.

Thursday’s report details that at least 334 people have qualified for AHI care in the Military Health System as of January.

Crawford said it was the medical issues themselves that motivated the investigation.

“This transcends administrations. We're not looking for scalps. We're not looking to pin blame. We're trying to solve problems. I'm not trying to attribute this to individuals within the IC,” he said.

“What I'm trying to do, as I said, first and foremost, is protect our workforce, and in the process of our initial thrust to that goal, what we have found was an immense problem that can't be ignored.”