The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), and Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, wrote to national security advisor Jake Sullivan on Tuesday calling for an urgent briefing on the administration’s response to so-called Havana Syndrome. The Washington Examiner is first to report on the letter.

Referred to as “anomalous health incidents,” or AHIs, Havana Syndrome has afflicted more than 100 American diplomats, intelligence officers, military personnel, and other officials since at least 2016. Unexplained AHIs have been reported globally from Austria to Cuba to Australia and many other locales. Some AHIs are a result of otherwise undiagnosed ailments.

But as the Washington Examiner has documented, there is a wide range of compelling human, technical, and signals intelligence evidence to suggest that Russian intelligence officers are responsible for a significant portion of AHIs. More specifically, that a small, highly compartmented group of Russian intelligence officers are employing nanopulsed radio frequency/microwave, or RF/MW, devices to attack the nervous systems of their targets. Such attacks would be exceptionally difficult to detect even if in progress.

While multiple sources have told me that the CIA has endeavored to secure a device that might be responsible for these attacks, those same sources say that those tasked with this mission have been restricted from using more robust measures to intercept Russian intelligence officers who may possess such a device. This reflects a general sense among the CIA and U.S. military’s special operations cadres that the government has a willful disinterest in challenging Russia in relation to this concern.

In their letter, the chairmen observe that classified and unclassified testimony has led them to believe that “these incidents are an assault on our nation’s sovereignty. We implore the administration to take decisive action to investigate the causation and attribution of AHIs, disrupt and deter the operation of any foreign entities conducting these attacks, and send a clear message to the world that these actions will not be tolerated.” The chairmen underline that even though AHIs have “taken place within the United States … it remains unclear how the Biden-Harris administration is working to address AHIs.”

Robust congressional scrutiny is long overdue here. Pfluger and Green deserve significant credit for it.

By its own admission, Russia has engaged in decades of research into the employment of RF/MW weapons. The CIA and other intelligence agencies have rebutted the suggestion that some AHIs are a result of foreign hostile activity, but their denials have led to growing congressional scrutiny of these investigations. Pfluger supervised a compelling hearing in May that drew attention to new reporting by the Insider on the Russian GRU military intelligence service’s apparent links to AHI, for example. As reported by the Washington Examiner, there are also circumstantial indications that then-President George W. Bush, first lady Laura Bush, and others may have been AHI victims at the 2007 G7 summit in Germany.

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The evidence of Russian culpability goes beyond the technical. Those Americans targeted by AHI incidents bear an outsize professional focus on Russia issues. This is further underlined by the outsize representation of CIA and military officers among AHI victims. Some of the targeting here is worrisome in and of itself, indicating an adversary has gained access to highly classified information concerning the identity and missions of officers. There has also been a saturation of incidents in locales such as Austria and Serbia where the Russian intelligence services are known to be able to act with extensive latitude from host nation security services.

In sum, the U.S. government needs to take this concern far more seriously. Pfluger and Green are right to demand that it do so.