US agencies in turf battle over classification level of COVID-19 meetings
March 12, 2020 2 Comments
A number of United States government officials have expressed dismay about the White House’s treatment of top-level meetings about the coronavirus (COVID-19) as classified, a move described by some as “not normal”. On Wednesday the Reuters news agency cited “four Trump administration officials” in claiming that several dozen meetings to discuss COVID-19 were held in top-secret settings. This, they say, was unnecessary and posed barriers to coming up with an effective response to the contagion. Other sources, however, claim that the meetings had to be classified because they included secret information on China.
The meetings in point have been held since mid-January at a high-security conference room located at the headquarters of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) in Washington, DC. The HHS is largely in charge of the US government’s response to COVID-19, as it oversees several relevant agencies including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From the very beginning, the National Security Council —a White House decision-making body chaired by the president— ordered that the meetings be treated as classified. This meant that participants had to have top-secret security clearances in order to attend.
This decision allegedly excluded several government officials from these meetings, including leading US government biosurveillance and biosecurity experts who should have had a place at those meetings. “We had some very critical people who did not have security clearances who could not go”, one source said. Reuters quotes an unnamed “high level former official […] in the George W. Bush administration” who describes the decision to limit access to these discussions “about a response to a public health crisis” as “not normal”. But another government source told Reuters that the meetings were classified because they “had to do with China”. Yet another source said that the small number of participants was necessary to prevent potentially damaging leaks to the media.
Meanwhile, Time magazine alleged on Wednesday that a timely report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which includes a section on pandemics, has been delayed. In previous years, the report, entitled Worldwide Threat Assessment, has warned that the world is not prepared for new strains of influenza that could prompt a pandemic. The report was scheduled to be released to Congress on February 12, but it remains unaccounted for. Members of the intelligence committees in Congress told Time that they did not expect the report to be released any time soon.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 12 March 2020 | Permalink
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intelNews.org 
Bahrain accuses Iran of ‘biological aggression’ as COVID-19 stirs Gulf tensions
March 13, 2020 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment
The practice aims to shield visitors from perceived discrimination upon their return to their Sunni-majority home countries. Several Sunni Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, have either criminalized or openly discourage trips to Iran by their Shi’a citizens. The latter are often viewed as suspicious or disloyal by their own governments. However, many of them continue to travel regularly to Iran in order to visit some of Shi’a Islam’s most revered pilgrimage sites.
Thousands of Shi’a pilgrims from predominantly Sunni nations have been repatriated to their home countries following the outbreak of COVID-19, which is also known as coronavirus. Earlier this week, Bahrain announced that at least 77 of its citizens, who were recently repatriated from Iran on government-supplied airplanes, tested positive for the disease. However, many others returned home from Iran on their own and are hesitant to tell local authorities that they have traveled to Iran, fearing discrimination or —in some cases— imprisonment. Since the passports of these individuals are not stamped with Iranian entry visas, local authorities have no way of telling whether they have recently traveled to Iran.
On Thursday, Bahrain’s Minister of Interior, General Sheikh Rashid bin Abdulla al-Khalifa, condemned Iran on Twitter for its “behavior, [which] has allowed the disease to travel abroad and put in danger our safety and health and that of others”. General al-Khalifa added that Iran’s behavior constituted “a form of biological aggression that is criminalized under international law”. But Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded by rejecting the claim that the practice of not stamping passports was related to an intention by Tehran to spread the coronavirus to the Gulf region.
Bahrain’s accusation came less than a week after Saudi Arabia publicly chastised its citizens who have traveled to Iran and issued a reminder that traveling to Iran is considered a criminal act.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 13 March 2020 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bahrain, biosecurity, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Iran, News, Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdulla al-Khalifa