The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said in an unclassified report released Thursday that it “appears increasingly likely that a foreign adversary is behind some cases of so-called “abnormal health events” – mysterious illnesses afflicting U.S. security officials.

The House Intelligence Committee concluded in the report that there was an intelligence community assessment of anomalous health incidents (AHI), commonly called, from 2023 Havana syndrome“It lacked analytical integrity and the wording was extremely irregular.”

This 2023 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated that “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was behind the mysterious breaches, but acknowledged that some intelligence agencies had only “low” or “moderate” confidence in that conclusion. To date, this has been the government’s most important assessment of what is behind Havana Syndrome.

Thursday’s report also accused the intelligence community of interfering with the House Intelligence Committee’s ongoing investigation.

“Unfortunately, the (intelligence community) actively sought to obstruct our investigation, but we were still able to collect significant evidence, and I have reason to believe that their claims about environmental or social factors explaining AHIs are false,” said Rep. Rick Crawford, chairman of the Central Intelligence Agency subcommittee that led the investigation.

What is Havana Syndrome?

According to Thursday’s report, a total of 334 American officials have qualified for AHI care in the military health system as of January 2024. They exhibit symptoms that scientists say could be caused by a microwave beam or acoustic ultrasound. White House staff, CIA officials, FBI agents and military officers and their families say they were injured by a secret weapon.

A March 31 60 Minutes report on Havana Syndrome, based on a five-year investigationrevealed new evidence of potential Russian Nexus linked to mysterious illnesses afflicting US security officials.

Calls for a new assessment of the intelligence community

After the 60 Minutes report in March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to President Biden calling for a “reassessment by the U.S. government” of what officials called “anomalous health events.”

In the unclassified report released Thursday, House officials called on the intelligence community to release a new report on unusual health events.

“The Subcommittee is aware that the IC (intelligence community) continues to withhold valuable information from the Subcommittee,” House leaders wrote. “For this reason, a final, unclassified report cannot be issued at this time. In addition, the subcommittee plans to release a classified report explaining why the subcommittee considers the ICA (Intelligence Community Assessment) conclusions to be dubious at best and misleading at worst.”

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence investigation

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said it conducted 48 interviews with current and former members of the CIA, FBI, ODNI, Defense Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military, as well as interviews with non-government officials. Committee members reviewed more than 7,500 pages of official records and more than 3,400 pages of whistleblower records.

Based on their review, committee members said they were convinced that the intelligence community had engaged in “blocking, slow-moving and cherry-picking of information” in the Havana Syndrome investigation.

“The Biden Administration and the IC (Intelligence Community) leadership attempted to obstruct the Subcommittee’s investigation into AHIs in order to hide the truth about AHIs from Congress and, by extension, from the American public,” committee members wrote in Thursday’s report . “This is unacceptable.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it disagreed with many of the committee’s interim findings. An ODNI spokeswoman said: “Most IC authorities consider it very unlikely that a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs and the assertion we are withholding information that contradicts this analysis or otherwise sheds light on this complex issue would be unfounded.”

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA operations officer who was injured in Moscow in December 2017, commented on Thursday’s report.

“The report shows me that there was not only incompetence on the part of the CIA, but also intentional misconduct,” Polymeropoulos said.

He was the first CIA officer to make his experiences public.

“They failed to properly investigate the attacks, then analytically falsified the books, while simultaneously launching a campaign to also disparage the victims and deny them medical care. Overall, this is ultimately a shocking betrayal of the CIA’s own people. This is very hard to take from an organization to which I have dedicated my life. This report appears to open the door for Congress to investigate a truly historic scandal at the CIA. I’m both angry and vindicated. “It’s been a very long seven-year battle,” Polymeropoulos told 60 Minutes.

The 60 Minute Havana Syndrome Examination

Greg Edgreen, a now-retired Army lieutenant colonel who led the Pentagon investigation into unusual health incidents, previously told 60 Minutes that the bar for evidence was set incredibly high. He said the amount was set so high because the country does not want to confront hard truths, such as the existence of possible failures to protect Americans.

After speaking to 60 Minutes, Edgreen testified before the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement and Intelligence.