WASHINGTON — Last month, well before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, a little-known unit within the Defense Intelligence Agency had already predicted that the outbre
ak would reach pandemic proportions.
In normal times, the NCMI's primary customer is the U.S. military, which uses the information to monitor potential health threats to its forces abroad. But in the midst of a pandemic, NCMI analysis is likely a fixture in the president's daily intelligence briefing, officials say.The NCMI would have been monitoring the virus' beginnings in Wuhan, China, including the Chinese government's effort to cover up what was happening, experts say.
Topics of interest included"SARS in China, cholera in Liberia, and dysentery, polio, and cholera in Iraq," according to a classified internal document leaked by Snowden.
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