Biosecurity

Coronavirus may force the U.S. intelligence community to rethink how it does its job

Coronavirus is shaping up to be a watershed for the American intelligence community.

In the two decades after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the CIA and other spy agencies made terrorism their top priority, with the goal of preventing another 9/11. For the most part, they succeeded.

Now a pandemic has killed more Americans in four months than died in all the wars in the last half-century — 35 9/11's and counting — while inflicting trillions of dollars in economic damage.

It's a disaster that is already changing how the intelligence community views health threats — and how it defines national security.

"COVID-19 is a wake-up call," said Denis Kaufman, a former senior official at the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) at the Defense Intelligence Agency.