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The Five Eyes foreign ministers deliberately discussed highly classified intelligence about their investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic on an unsecured line in a bid to gauge the reaction of Chinese authorities intercepting the call.
Mike Pompeo, then US secretary of state, hosted the call in early January with his Five Eyes partners including Foreign Minister Marise Payne and then British foreign secretary Dominic Raab to discuss intelligence that Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists had been infected with Covid-19 in November 2019, the suspected first cluster.
In a sophisticated intelligence operation, the Five Eyes call was classified but it was deliberately held on an open line in the knowledge the Chinese would be likely tapping the call, according to What Really Happened in Wuhan, a new book about the origins of the pandemic.
Mike Pompeo. Picture: AFP
Mike Pompeo. Picture: AFP
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“Let them hear you and then listen to their reaction. Let them know you know and see what reverberates back through the system,” a senior source said.
A second source said: “Anyone who had the ability to collect any communications probably knew that it was happening, especially the Chinese.”
The intelligence that formed the subject of the Five Eyes call also included information that tied the Chinese military to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and even indicated the laboratory had been undertaking secret military projects.
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Five Eyes is the intelligence-sharing agreement between the US, Australia, the UK, New Zealand and Canada. While the intelligence had already been shared among them, the call’s purpose was to discuss making it public.
During the call, Mr Raab was profusely thankful to Mr Pompeo for releasing this information. Senator Payne also supported declassification, advocating transparency over secrecy.
“The free world expects the US to lead and not kowtow,” a senior source familiar with the call said.
While the foreign ministers agreed with the decision to declassify the intelligence, there was serious pushback among some senior figures in the intelligence community who rejected the idea that the information should be thrust into the public domain.
“That decision by Pompeo to declassify the intelligence was contested, and parts of (the) US intelligence community didn’t agree,” a Five Eyes source said.
America’s top diplomat in the Asia Pacific, David Stilwell, said this was an obstacle they needed to work through. “We had to get the intel community to sign off on a level of detail in the statement that would convince people the lab leak theory had merit, without jeopardising intel sources and methods,” he said.
The intelligence was declassified just under two weeks after the call, on January 15, 2021.
It is significant because it leads the trail of the origins of the virus directly to the Wuhan Institute.
Mr Pompeo firmly believes these workers were the first cluster of the global pandemic and he said they exhibited “the very symptoms” that have become synonymous with Covid-19.
“Based on everything I’ve seen, this is the first cluster,” he said. “I’ve seen no evidence that there’s a cluster that began any place but this. I’m all ears to see if any evidence that presents something … to the contrary.”
The ministers expected declassifying the intelligence would have the dramatic effect of changing the narrative about the source of the pandemic and pointing to the Wuhan Institute as the possible, or even likely, source of the outbreak. They were expecting a major reaction from this rare and explosive move of making top-secret information public relating to the laboratory in the heart of Wuhan that houses the world’s largest collection of coronavirus.
The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP
The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP
There was a general sense of disappointment among senior members of the Five Eyes network when the intelligence was eventually released with very little media attention paid to it.
It was largely overshadowed by the events unfolding in the US – the Capitol Hill riots and former president Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud.
The Australian first reported details about this intelligence that had not been declassified, including that the Wuhan Institute scientists who fell sick were so unwell they were hospitalised.
The Australian reported that this occurred in November 2019.
Former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe said they actually fell sick a month before, in October 2019.
Public reporting of the intelligence was a key catalyst in Joe Biden announcing a new probe into the matter in May this year.
That inquiry found both a lab leak and human contact with an infected animal were plausible explanations for the start of the pandemic, and that the intelligence community remained divided and had low confidence in its assessments.
What Really Happened In Wuhan by Sharri Markson is available on Booktopia or Amazon.
