Cuba hit out at the US on Thursday in a “we told you so” manner, blasting the country for dragging its feet for too long in recognizing the absurdity of its initial accusation regarding the Havana syndrome.
The US government, under the administration of former President Donald Trump, used the psychogenic illness as an excuse to expel 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington while withdrawing nonessential personnel from the embassy.
"This conclusion... confirms what we already knew," Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told US media on Thursday. "The unfortunate thing is, the US government leveraged (Havana Syndrome) to derail bilateral relations... and discredit Cuba."
At the height of the dispute, the US government issued an advisory to Americans to not travel to Cuba due to the so-called “attacks.” In response, the Cuban government had blasted the move as “hasty” as the then US administration used the incident to freeze relations with the island nation.
The latest US report on the psychogenic incidences saw five US intelligence agencies conclude it was “very unlikely” the Havana syndrome was the result of targeted attacks by foreign adversaries. No agency dissented from the finding that a foreign actor did not cause the symptoms, US media reported.
The Wednesday-released findings from the US on the Havana syndrome not only involved hundreds of US intelligence officers, outsourced experts, and looked at more than 90 countries, but it also questioned the involvement of the Russian government.
To make matters even more far-reaching, the probe said they had also “considered extraterrestrials.”
“I want to be absolutely clear: these findings do not call into question the experiences and real health issues that US government personnel and their family members — including CIA’s own officers — have reported while serving our country,” CIA Director William J. Burns said after the report's release.
“We will continue to remain alert to any risks to the health and wellbeing of agency officers, to ensure access to care, and to provide officers the compassion and respect they deserve.”
A senior official assured personnel that the Biden administration would continue to ensure that personnel receive medical care, and would compensate government employees who had experienced symptoms and may have had to stop working because of their illnesses. Some of those payments may reportedly be about six-figures.