The White House National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.Ĭritics have charged the Trump administration with being flat-footed and late in its response to a pandemic that, after sweeping through Wuhan and then parts of Europe, has now killed more than 12,000 in the U.S.įor his part, President Donald Trump has alternated between taking credit for early action and claiming that the coronavirus was a surprise to him and everyone else. No such NCMI product exists," the statement said. However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. "As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters. The Pentagon did not comment Tuesday, but on Wednesday evening following the publication of this report, the Defense Department provided a statement from Col. Pressing the secretary, Stephanopoulos asked, "So, you would have known if there was briefed to the National Security Council in December, wouldn't you?"Įsper said, "Yes. So, our people who work these issues directly watch this all the time." We have the premier infectious disease research institute in America, within the United States Army. But we have many people who watch this closely.
It is a critical priority for the Pentagon to keep American service members healthy on deployments.Īsked about the November warning last Sunday on ABC’s "This Week," Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos, "I can't recall, George. military forces have the information they need to carry out their missions - both offensively and defensively. Together, the agencies’ core responsibilities are to ensure U.S. NCMI is a component of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency.
MORE: Trump abruptly removes inspector general named to oversee $2T in stimulus spending They’re taking together what those pieces of information mean and then looking at the potential for an international health crisis." So for something like this to have come out, it has been reviewed by experts in the field. "Then there’s analysis by people who know those specific areas. "Medical intelligence takes into account all source information - imagery intelligence, human intelligence, signals intelligence," said Mulroy, who hasn't seen the reporting. Mulroy, who previously served as a senior official at the CIA, said NCMI does serious work that senior government leaders do not ignore. "And it would have been something that would be followed up by literally every intelligence-collection agency." "It would be a significant alarm that would have been set off by this," former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Mick Mulroy, now an ABC News contributor, said of the NCMI report. Those analyses said China’s leadership knew the epidemic was out of control even as it kept such crucial information from foreign governments and public health agencies. Following the report’s release, other intelligence community bulletins began circulating through confidential channels across the government around Thanksgiving, the sources said. The NCMI report was made available widely to people authorized to access intelligence community alerts. Ambulance medical staff arrive at Wuhan Red Cross Hospital with an elderly woman, who recovered from COVID-19, at Wuhan in China's central Hubei province, March 30, 2020.