1.媒体来源:
CNN
2.记者署名:
By Jeremy Herb and Natasha Bertrand, CNN
3.完整新闻标题:
US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak,
furthering US intel divide over virus origin
4.完整新闻内文:
The US Department of Energy has assessed that the Covid-19 pandemic most
likely came from a laboratory leak in China, according to a newly updated
classified intelligence report.
Two sources said that the Department of Energy assessed in the intelligence
report that it had “low confidence” the Covid-19 virus accidentally escaped
from a lab in Wuhan.
Intelligence agencies can make assessments with either low, medium or high
confidence. A low confidence assessment generally means that the information
obtained is not reliable enough or is too fragmented to make a more
definitive analytic judgment or that there is not enough information
available to draw a more robust conclusion.
The latest assessment further adds to the divide in the US government over
whether the Covid-19 pandemic began in China in 2019 as the result of a lab
leak or whether it emerged naturally. The various intelligence agencies have
been split on the matter for years. In 2021, the intelligence community
declassified a report that showed four agencies in the intelligence community
had assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to
humans naturally in the wild, while one assessed with moderate confidence
that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident.
hree other intelligence community elements were unable to coalesce around
either explanation without additional information, the report said.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the new assessment from the
Department of Energy. A senior US intelligence official told the Journal that
the update to the intelligence assessment was conducted in light of new
intelligence, further study of academic literature and in consultation with
experts outside government.
A Department of Energy spokesperson told CNN in a statement: “The Department
of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of
our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as
the President directed.”
The Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence is
one of 18 government agencies that make up the intelligence community, which
are under the umbrella of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
‘Not a definitive answer’
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union”
on Sunday that the intelligence community remains divided on the matter,
while noting that President Joe Biden has put resources into getting to the
bottom of the origin question.
Right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the
intelligence community on this question,” Sullivan told CNN’s Dana Bash. “
Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one
side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have
enough information to be sure.”
Sullivan said Biden had directed the national laboratories, which are part of
the Department of Energy, to be brought into the assessment.
In May 2020, researchers at the government-backed Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory issued a classified report that found it was possible that the
coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, which came at a time when that line
of inquiry was considered taboo.
The US began exploring the possibility that Covid-19 spread in a laboratory
as early as April 2020, though the intelligence community has noted
repeatedly that a lack of cooperation from Beijing has made it difficult to
get to the bottom of the question.
Republicans react
The latest intelligence assessment was provided to Congress as Republicans on
Capitol Hill have been pushing for further investigation into the lab leak
theory, while accusing the Biden administration of playing down its
possibility.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul said Sunday he was “pleased”
that the Department of Energy “has finally reached the same conclusion that
I had already come to.”
“I have requested a full and thorough briefing from the administration on
this report and the evidence behind it,” the Texas Republican said in a
statement.
McCaul in his statement referred to a 2021 report he had released as ranking
member of the Foreign Affairs panel, which “found a preponderance of the
evidence proved” that the pandemic originated with a leak from the Wuhan lab.
The chairman called on the Biden administration to publicly concur with that
conclusion.
“It is critical the administration also begin to work immediately with our
partners and allies around the world to both hold the (Chinese Communist
Party) accountable and to put in place updated international regulations to
ensure something like this cannot happen again,” McCaul said.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska on Sunday called for public hearings
following the disclosure of the Department of Energy assessment.
“We need to do extensive hearings. I hope our Democratic colleagues in the
Congress can support that. I know the Republicans in the House are certainly
supportive of that,” the Senate Armed Services Committee member said on NBC’
s “Meet the Press.”
“Think about what just happened over the last three years, one of the
biggest pandemics in a century. A lot of evidence that it’s coming from the
Chinese,” Sullivan said.
A spokesperson for House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky
Republican, said in a statement that the committee was “reviewing the
classified information provided” by the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence in response to a letter requesting information earlier this
month.
One of the sources said that the new assessment from the Department of Energy
is similar to information from a House Republican Intelligence Committee
report released last year on the origins of the virus.
5.完整新闻连结 (或短网址)不可用YAHOO、LINE、MSN等转载媒体:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/26/politics/covid-lab-leak-wuhan-china-intelligence/index.html
https://tinyurl.com/49926a3w
报告指出有可能来自中国实验室的泄漏
不知道为什么这份报告是由美国能源部发出来的？
里面提到这不是确定的答案就是了。