U.S. diplomats face a “much broader” threat of suffering brain injury while deployed than was previously understood, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Senate panel Thursday, after a U.S. official in China fell ill and showed similar symptoms to U.S. officials in Cuba who fell victim to a “sonic attack.”
“We had an officer who suffered a medical incident that is consistent with what happened to American officers that were serving in Havana,” Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It’s gone from a localized incident to one that is much, much broader, and now the question is where, ‘where all might we see this?’”
More than two dozen American officials suffered various kinds of brain injuries while deployed to Cuba last year, inflicted by mysterious attacks that led to a cratering of U.S.-Cuba relations. The prevailing theory was that some sort of “sonic attack” led to those illnesses, but no final explanation was ever given.
The State Department announced Wednesday that a U.S. official working in China had also been targeted and show similar symptoms.
“We informed the Chinese government about that,” Pompeo said. “They said all the right things and have demonstrated their willingness to help us identify the vector which led to this medical incident.”
The sincerity of China’s support could come into question, if the mystery persists as it did in Cuba. The Castro regime denied responsibility for the attack, but also failed to identify the perpetrator.
“There’s such an awareness of Cuba’s awareness of all that happens on that island,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said in October. “They own the island. They know what’s going on there.”
There was speculation at the time that the Castro regime had either carried out the attacks or allowed another country, such as Russia, to target Americans. But the China incident raises new fears that it might be broader than that.
“The ability to inflict damage upon U.S. personnel who are out patriotically serving their country in a way that is sort of hard to attribute and hard to measure should really, really scare us,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told Pompeo. “And, again, happening in one country leads to a set of hypotheses you’ve got to run down, but now happening in a second country really raises the stakes, I think, in terms of trying to get to the bottom of it.”
Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan is leading a “soup to nuts” review of all the known information about the attacks, Pompeo said, even as medical teams dispatch to China.
“We have all the appropriate folks heading to help all of the officers, American officers serving there in China, and doing the things we can to mitigate the risk that we have another incident like this there,” he said. “Or frankly, for that matter, any place else in the world.”
