Is a dark episode of intelligence history repeating? The Trump administration zeal to blame a Chinese government laboratory in Wuhan for the Covid-19 pandemic – together with the insinuation, fuelled by sympathetic media reporting, that secret assessments support such claims ­– has prompted comparisons to the scandal of pre-war intelligence about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. Back then, shoddy analytic tradecraft and pressure from political leaders resulted in a spectacular intelligence failure.