Correspondent in Washington,
The US Department of Energy believes the Covid-19 pandemic was “
most likely”
caused by a lab leak, according to a classified National Intelligence Directorate report recently provided to the White House and senior members of the Congress.
Revealed on Sunday by the
Wall Street Journal
, this information, if confirmed, would have been added to a previous report dating from 2021, in which the Department of Energy then declared itself rather uncertain about the origins of Covid.
The ministry now joins the FBI, which had concluded as early as 2021 that the pandemic was probably the result of an accidental leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, without however being categorical.
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According to sources familiar with the new version of the report, signed by National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, the Department of Energy would have new elements: "new
information, a more in-depth study of academic work and consultation with 'experts outside the government'
, according to a member of US intelligence quoted by the
Wall Street Journal.
Divergent analyzes
But the contents of the report remain classified.
The American authorities declined to give details of this new information and analyzes which led to this change of position.
The document also recalls that the various American intelligence agencies continue to have different opinions on the origin of the pandemic, and are still trying to unravel the enigma of the appearance of the virus.
The Department of Energy, however, has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of US National Laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.
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The FBI also employs scientists and relies on the laboratories of the National Center for Bio-Legal Analysis in Fort Detrick, Maryland, where biological threats are analyzed.
According to the report, while the Department of Energy and the FBI both say an inadvertent leak from the lab is most likely, they arrived at those conclusions by different paths.
On the other hand, other American intelligence agencies remain less convinced.
The National Intelligence Council, which conducts long-term strategic analysis, and four other agencies, which officials would not identify, still believe they have '
low confidence'
in the likelihood that the virus emerged by natural transmission from an infected animal, without however considering that it is certain that the laboratory escape hypothesis is the correct one.
The CIA and another unnamed agency remain undecided between the two theories.
Covid-19 not from a biological weapons program
But despite these divergent analyses, the new updated report affirms their consensus that Covid-19 is not the result of a Chinese biological weapons program.
Republican lawmakers in Congress, who have launched parliamentary inquiries into the origins of the pandemic, are pressing the Biden administration and the intelligence community for more information.
The laboratory leak thesis is defended by some Republicans, who want to demonstrate that it would be the result of research funded by the American taxpayer to study coronaviruses in Chinese laboratories.
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National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan reacted to the new developments on Sunday, saying there is
“no definitive answer”
on the matter.
"President Biden has repeatedly called on all components of our intelligence to expend the effort and resources necessary to answer this question,"
Sullivan said on CNN's
State of the Union
.
“If we get any further information, we will share it with Congress and with the American people.
But for now, the intelligence community has not given a definitive answer to this question,”
he added.