“We’re in a live exercise here”: 20 March 2020 - Redux
It wasn't only the Secretary of State who alluded to the COVID-19 military exercise
20 March 2025* (the date in the US at time of posting) is the fifth anniversary of the extensively-dissected “live exercise” comment by Mike Pompeo during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press conference.
But in retrospect, the then Secretary of State wasn’t the only Washington insider to drop this hint. This post will look at two other references to the COVID-19 “exercise”.
[*Post-publication correction: 20 March 2025 - not 2020 - is the fifth anniversary!]
“We're in a live exercise here… to get this right.”
Here’s the replay, four days into President Trump’s 15 Days to Slow the Spread.
(< 20 sec - with transcript)
This is not about retribution. This matters going forward.
We're in a live exercise here… to get this right.
[Trump: Should’ve let us know.]
We need to make sure that even today the data sets that are available to every country, including data sets that are available to the Chinese Communist Party, are made available to the whole world.
Pompeo’s choice of phrase “… to get this right” would appear to support the notion of an “exercise”.
Side note: Trump’s much-debated “should’ve let us know” utterance is not the focus of this post, particularly in view of the President’s…
18 March 2020 comments about the timeline of accelerated vaccine development (ie. starting in mid January 2020), and his…
19 March 2020 reference to an “order” for Homeland Security (via FEMA) to run the national coronavirus emergency response
The ‘countermeasures’ came before the ‘crisis’
Before reviewing other references to the COVID-19 “exercise” in context…
Recall that the US-led ‘vaccine solution’ kicked off before the first purported US ‘case’.
And to set the scene for the “exercise”, here’s a further reminder of the sequence of events - ie. countermeasures-then-crisis - thanks to Dr Robert Kadlec and Dr Jason Roos.
First…
On 24 January 2020 (just days after the first US ‘case’ was announced)…
In an amazing coincidence, Jason Roos (representing the US Army’s JPEO-CBRND agency for the development and acquisition of medical countermeasures ie. fast-tracked tests and vaccines) outlined the defense-led “rapid response” goal to deploy drugs to defend against ‘biothreats’ in just days! - “from information to injection” - in his key note address to an audience of 800 at a joint Defense and Homeland Security Industry day.
Note: Dr Roos wore a military grade gas mask and hazmat suit - for laughs - but made no mention of the ‘Wuhan outbreak’ and Wuhan ‘lockdown’ - nor the first US ‘case’.
(< 45 sec - transcript excerpts)
Right now if we want to develop a medical countermeasure, it's you're talking years to decades is the track record. […]
Let's get down to months and eventually work towards that target of weeks to days.
… And in this construct we have a lot of capabilities already developed throughout the federal government with industry.
Dr Jason Roos - 24 January 2020
(For more details see - DoD: “from information to injection”… in days!)
And on 18 February 2020 (three weeks before the WHO declaration)…
In another case of advance notice, Robert Kadlec (in his role as HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response - ASPR) discussed the fast-tracked ‘platform’ vaccines that were already in the pipeline, and pre-announced the COVID ‘pandemic’ (and the ‘next pandemic’!) at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations… alongside Dr Anthony Fauci.
(< 45 sec - transcript excerpts)
But it's got to be fast, right? […]
And again, platforms are very significant advantage that we can take to, because not only do they allow you to rapidly insert and test something, but also allows for the regulatory pathway.
If the FDA is familiar with these things, there's a broad science behind it. You have data in the safety and efficacy of these products.
So it's complicated for sure, but the answer is that's what we need to do and we're doing it and we need to do it really fast for this one.
Dr Robert Kadlec - 18 February 2020
(For more details see - Kadlec declared the ‘pandemic’)
Now let’s look at references to the COVID-19 “exercise” by these same two characters - Kadlec and Roos.
“Though we have practiced activating this structure under previous exercises, we’re doing it for real now…”
On 5 March 2020, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Robert Kadlec testified regarding the activation [on March 2nd] of the National Response Framework:
(< 40 sec - with transcript)
Shifting to our overall response structure, since repatriation efforts began, we've been working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to put in place an active incident management network that is based on the National Response Framework.
This is the first time we have formally implemented this structure. Though we have practiced activating this structure during previous exercises, we're doing it for real now and it means that we can leverage the capacities of FEMA and all the Emergency Support Functions that may be necessary to deploy responders to assist states and local authorities in responding to the coronavirus outbreak if and when asked.
So, “previous exercises”… versus the “real” one!
Reminder: The activation of the National Response Framework fits with the Chem-Bio ‘incident response’ aspect of COVID - ie. the ‘crisis’ generated in mid March 2020 to justify the ‘vaccine solution’ that had been underway for two months.
“[We] never imagined that we’d be living that national exercise day in and day out…”
On 3 February 2021, at a “Meet Your Army” event on “How does the Department of Defense prepare and react to a biothreat”, Jason Roos commented on the so-called ‘Rapid Response’ framework for pandemic public private partnerships and the DoD’s lead role in Operation Warp Speed.
(60 sec - with transcript)
Dr Roos: The irony of this is - about a month before COVID really hit in full effect just before the new year, last year - we were having a discussion with some of our inter agency partners and some other folks about…
“Hey, we really need to do a national level exercise on the Rapid Response and where are the gaps and seams in our ability to rapidly respond to an unanticipated unknown threat” - and never imagined that we would be living that national exercise day in and day out.
So I think we are learning some of the seams and gaps that are coming out in this as well, is an area where we're targeting and looking to put investment and doing that together with our partners.
Colonel Eckmeier: And we've also talked about gap fillers for those seams and gaps that we've identified that could happen with any biological warfare agent or any kind of pathogen, whether it be viral or bacterial, that would show up. So I think that's obviously, yes sir.
So, a “national level exercise” that assisted “learning”… in-real-life!
Reminder: In another prescient prelude to Operation Warp Speed, a June 2019 video outlining DoD-led “Rapid Response” public private partnerships and “regulatory advances” for fast-tracked tests and vaccines to counter ostensible ‘biothreats’ was uploaded by the JPEO-CBRN-Defense agency.
(< 3 min - youtube link here.)
A “live exercise”… versus a real emergency
The definition of a “military exercise” according to experts in the field on one website is as follows:
A military exercise, training exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations.
Specifically…
A Live Exercise (LIVEX) is a military exercise in which actual forces participate.
This is interesting given that the history of regular ‘pandemic tabletop exercises’ which feature boots-on-the-ground to deal with ‘biothreats’- such as Dark Winter, Clade X and Pacific Eclipse - suggests that a ‘live exercise’ was the next iteration of this plan.
“Behind the Warfighter, Ahead of the Threat”
Now consider this Hollywood-style DoD propaganda promotional video about the United States “Chem-Bio Defense Enterprise” dated 1 September 2020.
The clip lists COVID-19 (and nerve agents and opioids) in the opening moments, and highlights the importance of US defense alliances and international public private partnerships that make up the military-pharmaceutical racket ‘response’ to countering these ‘unthinkable threats’.
Don’t miss the NATO flag at 1:54!
In retrospect, this looks like further evidence of the Pentagon-led countermeasures coup and the manufactured ‘CBRN’ crisis that underpinned the so-called COVID-19 “live exercise”.
The unanswered question - posed by Australia’s Senator Malcolm Roberts in mid 2023 - remains:
Did anyone in this country accept orders from the United States military…?
For further background, see posts on…
The US CBR Defense-led ‘International Medical Countermeasures Consortium’…
The US Department of Defense framework for ‘CBRN Response’…
