WASHINGTON — Housed in a secret office, a little-known team of government scientists began investigating al-Qaeda and the option of a biological weapons attack after terrorists revealed a “gaping hole” in national security on Sept. 11, 2001.
Known simply as “Z-Division,” the team created within the U. S. Department of Energy. The U. S. government is to help intelligence agencies perceive the importance of Soviet nuclear weapons testing. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would replace their mission.
Two decades later, the Z-Division finds itself in the middle of a typhoon as it tries to answer the question scientists, doctors and Americans are asking about the roots of the COVID-19 pandemic: How did it happen?
A new classified intelligence report ready through experts at the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory Complex, which added scientists from Division Z, concluded that the pandemic likely began with an unintentional lab leak in Wuhan, China. The findings were sent to the White House and key members. of Congress, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
The report sparked a backlash against Biden’s handling by members of the clinical network who argue that the maximum maximum virus likely originated through herbal means, such as animal-to-human transmission.
The White House did not back the Energy Department’s findings, noting that there is still a war of words within the administration over the origins of the virus.
Four agencies within the intelligence network concluded with “low confidence” that the virus was first transmitted from an animal to a human, according to an October 2021 report by the Director of National Intelligence. A fifth intelligence firm believed with “moderate” confidence that the first human infection was connected to a laboratory.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that the bureau, one of several U. S. intelligence agencies, has been the bureau. The U. S. government involved in investigating the pandemic outbreak had assessed the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic as “most likely a possible laboratory incident” in Wuhan. Wray said Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview continuing the FBI’s investigation into the origin of the pandemic, but many important points related to the investigation remain classified.
Now, the Energy Department’s new assessment, based on new and unspecified information, reflects a brain shift for the agency.
The ministry had previously said it was not sure how the virus was transmitted. But even their new conclusions were made with “low confidence,” meaning that the data on which the assessment was based is not reliable enough or that there is not enough knowledge to succeed. in a conclusion.
The Department of Energy is one of 18 agencies and organizations that make up the U. S. intelligence community. UU. La branch has a branch specializing in biological weapons.
The White House did not respond to questions about the intelligence assessment. But the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reported that the investigation was conducted through experts from the U. S. National Laboratory complex. Although first of all I am unsure about the origins of COVID-19, the new evaluation of the data led Energy Ministry officials to conclude that the spread of the virus was likely the result of a laboratory leak.
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Division Z is located in the Department of Energy’s nuclear complex, that of a 1965 agreement between the CIA and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Under the agreement, scientists and laboratory engineers who helped intelligence agencies perceive the importance of Soviet nuclear weapons were grouped into a special projects branch. They analyzed radiological samples from nuclear tests conducted by the Soviets and then by the Chinese. In the mid-1970s Division Z introduced a nuclear proliferation tracking program that tested the nuclear weapons efforts of India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa and other countries.
“At its peak, it was indeed a position rich in history, especially for understanding foreign nuclear weapons programs,” said Matthew Bunn, a former adviser to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy who now directs the nuclear proliferation program. at Harvard University. Kennedy School of Government.
“I would say they are one of the crown jewels of U. S. nuclear intelligence. “
Bunn described Division Z as “more or less” the intelligence arm of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, as it was charged with not only having in-depth knowledge of nuclear weapons generation and other threats, but also top-secret points about the policy and organizational facets of foreign weapons systems and the leaders who oversee them.
“So when I had a new ambassador going to a foreign country with nuclear weapons, I would send him to Division Z to get information about that program,” Bunn told USA TODAY.
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After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D. C. , the Z-Division project was dramatically projected along with the rest of the Lawrence Livermore lab, the Department of Energy and the intelligence community at large, according to Department of Energy documents.
On Sept. 11, Susan Allen, a molecular biologist and Z-Division intelligence analyst, gave a briefing in central Washington when she learned that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers, according to a 2021 Lawrence Livermore lab report.
Allen said he passed by the Pentagon and saw “the huge gap caused by the crash of American Airlines Flight 77. “option of a bioterrorist attack. “
After working with the Z Division Biological Weapons Team for several weeks, she was sent to Washington for the U. S. intelligence community. U. S.
On the day Allen arrived, news broke of the first reported death after letters containing anthrax were sent to elected officials and prominent members of the media. He spent the next few weeks rushing 15 hours a day to the source of the letters, advising the government and inspecting mail processing services and operations, according to the lab report.
“You worked as hard as you could all day and into the night, and then you went to the hotel and collapsed and they gave up the next day and you started over,” Allen said. “It was satisfying in the feeling that you felt like you were doing something valuable and that it had an impact on your country. “
In June 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that Division Z researchers helped prepare a report on the origins of COVID-19 that concluded that the theory that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab in Wuhan was credible and deserving further investigation, bringing up “people familiar with the classified document.
The Journal said the study was ready in May 2020 through Lawrence Livermore Lab’s Division Z and used by the State Department when it conducted research into the origins of the pandemic in the final months of the Trump administration.
The Journal said Lawrence Livermore’s lab has abundant experience in biological weapons and its evaluation was based on genomic research of the SARS-COV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.
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Nearly a portion of Americans from the COVID-19 pandemic was due to a lab leak in China, according to a Morning Consult ballot released Tuesday.
44% of U. S. adults surveyed said they knew the virus had spread from a virology lab in Wuhan, while only 26% thought the virus had naturally moved from animals to humans. June 2021, the pollster said.
Follow Michael Collins on Twitter @mcollinsNEWS and Josh Meyer @JoshMeyerDC
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