There is literally no reason to believe public communications from a spy agency against their enemies (note: that does not mean that they can't be true, it just means that the truth of them is never the reason why the communication is put out).
What reason would the USIC have for lying about this? It seems unlikely that we would ever retaliate in kind, especially not after bringing attention to these incidents.
The good part about releasing information about exploits and such is that they can be easily verified to exist, so there is no need to trust the spy agency. Any claims they make about the source of those exploits is not easily verifiable, and since you can't trust them, should be ignored.
What's the significance of attribution of exploit source?
You claim this based on what? Kaspersky has recently found what they claim is (another) massively complex US malware in the wild.
> What's the significance of attribution of exploit source?
As in my example above, people always look for the source of an exploit and claim various actors created them. This creates certain reputations for these actors, just as in the claim from Kaspersky above (which may or may not itself be true - Kaspersky is a private company, but it is also known to work with the Russian government, which is clearly antagonistic to the US).
Noone can bullsht too often; attribution for hacks/tools as disinfo has limited utility value. And, again, attributing brain injuries to REW's as disinfo wouldn't help and they know that.
I still don't believe the US would decide to lie about this matter.
There's an entire industry revolving around blaming geopolitical enemies of wrongdoing without evidence, where the intelligence community plays a key part. This is done in order to control the narrative, steer the public perception and to keep a semblance of adherence to international law, in order to justify unilateral political, economic or military hostility. The reality is always more nuanced, and it's definitely a safe bet to not believe whatever empty accusations they come out with.
Controlling the narrative like they do, the cumulative effect of it is that they are able to convince the public of quite crazy assertions, which would be rightly treated as conspiracy theories had they come from some other source. These crazy assertions of course requires equally crazy political reactions. E.g. people genuinely believe that most US geopolitical enemies are literally rogue, bandit states, requiring draconic policing by the US. It's a children's view of the world, leading people to look the other way when it harms innocents.
The intelligence community has a looong history of doing this. It's a central part of the playbook which is readily admitted in more casual contexts.
There have been instances of false-flag operations, most notably the Gulf of Tonkin incident which served as pretext for an escalation of the Vietnam war. But it doesn't have to be to serve its purpose.
There's definitely evidence unless the govt is completely fabricating the existence of these injuries (which is unlikely).
Evidence comes in many forms. There doesn't appear to be evidence in the form of a recovered weapon or technical recording/logging of an attack as it happened, at least nothing that has been disclosed.
However, the injuries are real and ongoing. It took a long time for consensus agreement that these events were malicious targeting by hostile govts against our diplomats, using remote energy weapons. Even just with the evidence made public, it's the most plausible explanation.
It's not the most plausible explanation, but it is the most convenient one. It shifts the blame and reinforces the narrative. They don't even have a coherent idea regarding how such a weapon would work in practice, it's pure speculation.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/us-intelligence-g...
Consider the last paraphraph of the article:
> "Most importantly, if and when more evidence is gathered, Putin, Nikolai Patrushev, and their officers must be held to account."
This is not "news", it is war propaganda. Besides, it's immensely hypocritical. When was American government and intelligence officials ever held to account for orchestrating and instigating violent aggression abroad?
Perhaps what they said happens to be absolutely true. Perhaps they have withdrawn their diplomats for fear of other attacks (e.g. poisoning, as Canadian authorities have apparently claimed). Perhaps they have withdrawn their diplomats in order to create some impression that they are in danger. Perhaps they have withdrawn their diplomats because they intend to do something that they think could put them in danger.
There are myriad possibilities, but until we get a chance to see classified reports or we get some independent reports about what is going on, we shouldn't speculate based on nothing more than the claims of spy agencies.
Edit to add: if the story would have been "Cuban intelligence agency reports how US diplomats faked symptoms to claim they were being attacked", would you believe this claim? Even as a Cuban? I for one would not - and just as I wouldn't believe this claim, I will also not believe the opposite claim from US intelligence.
In this case, their motive is obviously to create an image of Cuba as a devious enemy of the United States who is willing to hurt low level officers in chronic ways, a dishonorable enemy.
This probably comes in the context of generally improving relationships with Cuba on almost the entire American continent, while the USA is still maintaining its illegal embargoes.
Now, is it possible that they chose to use a true story to advance this narrative? Yes, it is, absolutely. But if they want to spread this message and don't have a true story they are willing to share, nothing would stop them from sharing a false one instead.