WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has called on the US intelligence community (IC) to retract a controversial 2023 report concluding that the condition known as Havana Syndrome was not caused by enemy attacks on US personnel.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) has long questioned the veracity of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), arguing that it was rife with methodological issues.
“ICAs carry a great deal of weight, particularly when declassified as part of a public messaging effort, as was done with the AHI [Anomalous Health Incidents] ICA,” Crawford posted on X Sunday. “This flawed document has caused serious harm to some of our nation’s bravest.”
Havana Syndrome symptoms vary from person to person, but typically include ear pain, memory lapses, fatigue, migraines, dizziness, cognitive problems, and hearing loss.
The condition has been found in US intelligence or diplomatic personnel working overseas. Victims often claim to have heard grating noises before exhibiting symptoms, though that hasn’t been the case for everyone.
Critics have speculated that those noises were actually crickets.
But earlier this month, bombshell reporting by independent journalist Sasha Ingber revealed that the Pentagon has been testing a device believed to be responsible for Havana Syndrome that has been in its possession for more than a year — though there is an ongoing debate about whether that device is actually the culprit, CNN reported.
Last week, President Trump hinted in an interview with The Post that US forces may have used a similar weapon in the Jan. 3 operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
“The Discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it,” said the president, who tantalizingly added that it “made [enemy] equipment not work.”
Crawford’s retraction demand followed the death of Mike Beck, a former National Security Agency counterintelligence official who was forced into retirement in 2016 after contracting a rare form of Parkinson’s disease.
Beck supplied evidence to the intelligence community that he may have been the victim of some sort of microwave weapon, a claim that has been echoed by hundreds of government personnel.
“I am deeply saddened by the news of Mike Beck’s passing,” Crawford said Sunday. “My team and I had the privilege of working with the Beck family to address some of the issues with his care.”
“It has been clear that the IC’s handling of Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) has been deeply flawed, failing the brave men and women who have served our country across the globe. We must correct the way we have treated some of our bravest.”
Following seven years of claims about Havana Syndrome, the IC released a declassified portion of a report in March 2023 that concluded there was no evidence to justify the reports.
“Most IC agencies have concluded that it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported” Havana Syndrome cases, read the assessment, led by the CIA and six other intel agencies.
However, other groups had buttressed the claims of Beck and others, with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluding in December 2020 that the symptoms were likely caused by “directed, pulsed-radio frequency energy.”
Crawford spearheaded a study by his panel’s subcommittee on the CIA, which tore into the report for lacking the “analytic integrity and thoroughness necessary to be published.”
Since then, Crawford’s team has conducted 17 major interviews or depositions, conferred with top Trump administration officials, and made a criminal referral in the matter this past September.
“We will not stop until oversight has effectively corrected all issues identified pursuant to the investigation,” Crawford vowed.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has criticized the government’s past handling of Havana Syndrome and vowed to continue investigating it.
