By Iain Fraser - Geopolitical Journalist via www.GEOPoliticalMatters.com
Málaga News & Media Centre
Google Indexed at 09:20 on 210720
The US State Department has released a 2018 diplomatic cables where it suggested that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had "a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory."
Contents of the 2-year-old cables, which were obtained by the Washington Post after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit went on to provide the embers that stoked the fire needed to fuel the start of President incumbent Donald Trump recent allegations that the Covid-19 Virus "may" have been leaked from the Chinese Virology Institute.
While both cables have been heavily redacted, you can always read between the lines AND in no way do they present themselves as "evidence" quoted by Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (SkyNews, 1 May 2020 - Coronavirus: Trump says he has seen EVIDENCE coronavirus came from Wuhan lab)
The January 2018 cable noted that ties between the WIV and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston could help alleviate the shortage and that, reportedly, the US-based institution was training technicians to work at the WIV.
The second cable from April 2018 about the WIV cited a French official who said that "French experts have provided guidance and biosafety training to the lab, which will continue."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was one of the most outspoken in suggesting that the deadly virus could have escaped from the WIV. (Wuhan Institute of Virology)
Although Pompeo still keeps the rhetoric meter at high against the Chinese government for its role in failing to stem the pandemic outbreak and a lack of transparency, the secretary recently seemed to back away from the theory the virus originated in a lab. In an interview in mid-May, he conceded, "We know it began in Wuhan, but we don't know from where or from whom, and those are important things."
However, the independent assessments by scientists and those circulated among US intelligence-sharing allies have concluded that it is "highly unlikely" the virus originated in a lab. The US intelligence community has said it is looking into both possibilities.
