據有關秘密報告的四個消息人士透露，早在11月底，美國情報官員就警告說，疫情正在席捲中國武漢地區，改變了生活和商業模式，對民眾構成威脅。
據兩位熟悉有關文件內容的官員稱，軍方的國家醫學情報中心（NCMI）11月的一份情報報告詳細闡述了人們對目前已知新型冠狀病毒大流行的擔憂。
該報告是基於電纜和計算機攔截以及衛星圖像進行分析得出的結果。該報告發出警報是因為如果疾病失控將對駐亞洲的依賴NCMI情報工作的美軍構成嚴重威脅。該報告描繪了一幅國政府本可以更早地加大緩解和遏制力度併為解除危機做好準備的景象。
"分析家斷定這可能是一個災難性事件，"一位消息人士在談到NCMI的報告時說。"NCMI此後多次向國防情報局、五角大樓聯合參謀部和白宮進行通報。"
消息人士從去年11月的警告開始直到12月都在向聯邦政府決策者和決定者以及白宮國家安全委員會反覆進行通報。消息人士說，所有這一切最終都以1月初《總統每日簡報》上關於情報問題的詳細解釋而告終。據曾在共和黨和民主黨政府中工作過的總統簡報的人士透露，如果某種事情出現在總統簡報，事先將不得不經過數週的審查和分析。
"這方面的情報時間表可能比我們討論的要早，"這位消息人士在談到來自武漢的初步報告時說。"但肯定是從11月底開始，因為這是軍方需要採取的做法。"
Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources
As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.
Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.
The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.
"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of the sources said of the NCMI’s report. "It was then briefed multiple times to" the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House.
From that warning in November, the sources described repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House. All of that culminated with a detailed explanation of the problem that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January, the sources said. For something to have appeared in the PDB, it would have had to go through weeks of vetting and analysis, according to people who have worked on presidential briefings in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
"The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing," the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan. "But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on."
閱讀更多 老韓說英語 的文章
