New State Dept Report Silent on Cuban "Bio-terror"

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"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off?"
Reich has egg on his face at congressional hearing

The Miami Herald - May 22, 2002

REPORT MUM ON BIO-THREAT: US OMITS REFERENCE TO CUBA

by Tim Johnson

WASHINGTON - In a surprising announcement in early May, the Bush
administration charged that Cuba maintains a "limited offensive"
biological warfare capability. By Tuesday, the administration seemed
to have forgotten about the matter.

A sweeping, 177-page State Department report on trends in global
terrorism summed up Cuba in 47 lines, omitting any reference to its
reported biological warfare research.

Officials seemed flustered when asked about the omission.

"It doesn't mean that it's something we're not concerned with," State
Department counterterrorism coordinator Francis X. Taylor said.

REICH QUESTIONED

On Capitol Hill, Otto Reich, the department's top diplomat to Latin
America, appeared initially confused when asked why the report made
no mention of Cuba's bio-weapons research.

"Is it an oversight?" asked Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota
Democrat.

"I do not know who publishes that particular document," Reich said
moments later when asked about the report, which Dorgan held in his
hand.

"It's your department that publishes it," Dorgan said. `This is a
State Department publication, and we just received it on Capitol
Hill."

Reich countered: `It must be incomplete."

FOCUS OF PAPER

The U.S. government considers Cuba and six other countries state
sponsors of terrorism, and they were the focus of much of the new
report, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001.

The document said Cuban leader Fidel Castro "has vacillated over the
war on terrorism," and has criticized U.S. counterterrorism actions
as `worse than the original attacks, militaristic and fascist."

Castro allows 20 Basque separatists to reside in Cuba "as privileged
guests," and offers "some degree of safe haven and support" to
Colombian rebels who engage in terrorism, it said. It noted that Cuba
hosted an Irish Republican Army explosives expert, later arrested in
Colombia, and helped protect fugitives of a Chilean extremist group,
the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front.

Also, numerous U.S. fugitives continue to live on the island, the
report says.

FEW DETAILS

In a headline-grabbing speech May 6, John Bolton, the undersecretary
of state for arms control, charged that Cuba is researching
biological warfare means and has shared such technology with `rogue
states."

He offered few details, however.

Last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell clarified that the Bush
administration doesn't believe Havana has such armaments: `We didn't
say it actually had some weapons, but it has the capacity and
capability to conduct such research."

President Bush made no mention of the bio-weapons threat Monday, a
day focused almost exclusively on his administration's Cuba policy.
Bush offered a policy speech at the White House in the morning,
reaffirming the U.S. embargo of Cuba, then cheered on Cuban Americans
at a rally in Miami in the afternoon.

In Cuba, National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón ridiculed Bush
for meeting with "terrorists" in Miami and said the U.S. president
shouldn't talk about transparent elections.

"To go to Miami to talk about clean and honest elections and speak
against what [Bush] calls electoral fraud, one has to be very brave,"
Alarcón said during a round table Monday night, referring to the 2000
election, which Bush won by a slight margin.

FORMER SENATORS

In a new sign that the White House faces significant domestic
opposition outside of Florida to its Cuba policy, a bipartisan group
of 48 former U.S. senators sent a letter to the White House calling
for normalization of relations with Cuba.

"We are the only nation in the world to have an economic embargo and
boycott of Cuba," the letter read, `and the clear lesson of recent
history is that if economic sanctions are to be successful, they must
have strong international support."

Among the signers were several former senators considered hawks on
foreign policy matters, including Republicans Malcolm Wallop and Alan
Simpson, both of Wyoming, and Jake Garn of Utah. Democrats included
Sam Nunn of Georgia and Lloyd Bentsen of Texas.


(c) 2001 miamiherald and wire service sources.  All Rights Reserved.

source - jruizmd@ix.netcom.com
 
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