Photo: IC and AFP

Bloomberg published an article on Wednesday saying that the US intelligence community concluded in a "classified report" to the White House that China has "concealed" the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak, "under-reporting" the confirmed cases and deaths of the virus. Two US officials who asked not to be identified said the report concludes that "China's numbers are fake."

The US has failed to whitewash its incompetence in fighting the epidemic on its home soil, so the US intelligence agencies are dispatched to do the dirty jobs. They have been forging and disseminating false information just to save face. They have no reputation at all. The CIA is completely a shame of intelligence.

Do US intelligence agencies have enough evidence to prove more people have died from COVID-19 in China? It seems that for the intelligence agency of the most developed country, lying and smearing are the only things that the CIA is capable of. It first released a so-called classified report and then refused to disclose more information, saying it's "confidential." This is political hooliganism.

The CIA, the so-called professional intelligence agency of the US, has many scandals. It is accustomed to forgery, monitoring and lying. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo once said: "I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole…We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment." That was one of the few times when he was telling the truth.

The timing of the release of Bloomberg's report is noteworthy. Both the number of confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19 are rising rapidly every day worldwide, including the US. Over 210,000 confirmed cases have been reported in the US as of press time. On Tuesday, the number of COVID-19 deaths of the US surpassed that of China. Precisely on the second day, many Western media started to question whether China's data was trustworthy. Now, US intelligence agencies have come out to further blacken China. Isn't their intention much too obvious?

All of these explain one fact: US politicians cannot accept that China has had a better control of the COVID-19 epidemic than the US does. After seeing that the US' death toll of the virus has surpassed that of China, their last psychological defense has collapsed.

According to Bloomberg, in addition to China, Western officials also pointed to Iran, Russia, Indonesia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, saying that these countries may also be "playing down their numbers" as well. None of these countries is a typical "Western country," and thus have been regarded as "exotic" countries. The US believes that ideology is much more important than the reality and fact. We can imagine that no matter how many deaths China reported, US intelligence agencies will not accept the data, unless the number meets the standards they have had in their mind.

Thus, the CIA is not a so-called independent agency of the US federal government at all. It only acts as a pawn of the US government, chasing and attacking those it regards as rivals, with its eyes blinded by an ideological frenzy.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn