US Govt Revival of 'The Tale of Bolton' to Play NATO Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit US GOVT REVIVAL OF "THE TALE OF BOLTON" TO PLAY BEFORE NATO [The AP reported on June 5 that Rummy is due to repeat Bolton's lies about Cuban biotechnology for a tame NATO audience later this week. Apparently there are Senators asking why it is that immediately after Bolton spat them up the rest of the administration didn't rush to confirm them. Well, finding a liar around the administration is a tall order, since Rummy has spent much time, not unlike Lady Macbeth, protesting innocence. At the same time, Rumsfield is on record as advocating "strategic deception" or "tactical deception," so there's his out. The latest propaganda effort -- a slightly less absurd version of "The Tale of Bolton," tagging Iran as the villainous Axis of Evil nation doing CBW business with Cuba -- is now being previewed in the Miami Herald and has also been repeated in the UK Guardian of June 6 by Julian Borger, who is usually not such a willing conduit for CIA disinformation. Borger even repeats the completely fictitious quote Bolton attributed to Fidel during his visit to Iran in May, 2001, a statement Fidel never made. Perhaps Borger needs a respite from the toxic air of the Beltway.] AP via The New York Times - June 5 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Cuba.html Senators Question Bush's Cuba Policy by The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senators accused the Bush administration of giving conflicting statements on its Cuba policy even as a State Department official Wednesday sought to clarify U.S. views. Lawmakers have been concerned since Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in a speech last month that he believes Cuba is trying to develop biological weapons and is transferring its technical expertise to countries hostile to the United States. Senators complained that in the days following the speech, Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to play down Bolton's comments by saying the administration believes Cuba has the capabilities but not necessarily the weapons. President Fidel Castro denied the charges on state television and challenged U.S. officials to offer evidence. Bolton was invited to explain his comments before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee Wednesday but Powell sent another official, Assistant Secretary of State Carl Ford. Powell believed that Ford was an appropriate witness because he was able in his role as head of the State Department intelligence and research bureau to discuss the administration's evidence concerning Cuban activities, an official said. "We have never suggested we had proof positive they had a program," Ford told senators. "We feel very confident saying they are working on an effort that would give them limited capability." The comments left some lawmakers irritated. "The issue of biological weapons is a serious matter and we in the Congress should refrain from the temptation to play politics with it. So, too, should the Bush administration," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. Added Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.: "The State Department has a responsibility to have a unified position and make sure everyone is not saying one thing to one group that they're not saying to another." Administration sources said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, now traveling in Europe, was to reiterate U.S. views concerning Cuba and biological weapons during a Thursday speech before NATO allies. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Rumseld planned to raise the matter partly to erase the notion that Bolton was not speaking for the administration when he addressed the issue last month. Ford told the committee that the administration believes Cuba has "at least a limited, developmental, offensive biological warfare research and development effort." "That assessment and our concerns have not changed in the intervening two and a half months," Ford said, before speaking with lawmakers in a closed and classified session. When senators tried to question Ford about Bolton's comments, the official would only say, "What Secretary Bolton intended or meant would be best asked to Secretary Bolton." * The Guardian - June 6, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk US claims proof of Cuba's germ war project Iranians have been buying its biotechnology, Senate is told by Julian Borger Washington, June 6--The state department head of intelligence said yesterday that the US had "substantial information" that Cuba was developing biological weapons and exporting dual-use technology, which could be used for germ warfare, to Iran. Carl Ford, assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, told a Senate committee that he would only provide the evidence to a closed-door session later in the day, but he insisted that it was convincing. "We feel very confident about saying that they're working on an effort that would give them a limited BW offensive capability. And that's serious enough for us to tell you," he said. "If we didn't think that it was important ... we would have looked at the evidence and said: 'This is all bogus and there's nothing here worth reporting,' " he added. His testimony marks an important step in a row that blew up on May 6, when a conservative political appointee to the state department, John Bolton, made a widely reported speech to a rightwing thinktank accusing Cuba of developing biological weapons and exporting dangerous technology to Iran. Cuba and Iran rejected the accusation. Former president Jimmy Carter, who visited Cuba a week later, questioned Mr Bolton's claim and said he had not been told of them in intelligence briefings before his visit. Democrats have accused rightwingers in the administration of using the "war on terror" to pursue their own agenda in Colombia and Cuba, and argued that Mr Bolton's claim was intended to undermine Mr Carter's Cuban visit and lay the ground for President Bush's renewal of sanctions against Cuba last month. The Connecticut Democrat senator Chris Dodd, who chaired yesterday's hearing, said he was concerned that the administration was "raising spectres" which could divert resources from defending the US from more substantial terrorist threats. But Mr Ford largely supported Mr Bolton's claim. He repeatedly distinguished between a biological warfare "effort", involving research into different kinds of germ agents, and a fully fledged "programme", which would involve adapting germs for warheads, putting them into shells and missiles, and stockpiling those munitions. "We never tried to suggest that we have the evidence, the smoking gun, proof positive, that [the Cubans] have a pro gramme," he said. But he added: "Although we make a distinction between a programme and an effort, its not to say an effort can't hurt you. "The fact is with BW you don't have to put it in a 130mm howitzer shell or deliver it by rocket for it to be dangerous. "Unfortunately it's the sort of thing that can be carried by individuals and brought here in an unconventional way." He said that Iran had bought dual-use equipment from Cuba, which has a sophisticated biomedical industry specialising in vaccines and cancer therapies, in part because of European and US restrictions on exports. But he agreed under questioning by Democratic senators that other countries, including Nato allies, had also sold equipment to Iran which could be used for BW purposes. Jose de la Fuente, a Cuban scientist who once ran Cuba's biotechnology centre in Havana, and who defected to the United States in 1999, has insisted that that he had neither seen nor heard of any Cuban attempts to develop biological weapons. But he did express concern about Havana's technology transfers to Tehran. "No one believes that Iran is interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting all the children in the Middle East from hepatitis," he wrote in the journal Nature Biotechnology last year. The US was alarmed by a speech made by Fidel Castro last year on strengthening ties between Havana and Tehranin which he said: "Iran and Cuba ... can bring America to its knees. The US regime is very weak and we are witnessing this weakness from close up." (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 * The Miami Herald - June 6, 2002 http://www.miami.com/ Cuban biological weapons called deterrent, not threat by Tim Johnson WASHINGTON - Backpedaling from recent pronouncements, a Bush administration official said Wednesday that Cuba's biological weapons research is an "effort" and not a full-fledged weapons "program." Cuba has experimented with biological agents to harm humans, livestock and crops, but Cuban officials view the research on the biological weapons more as a deterrent against a U.S. attack than for first-strike use, said Carl Ford Jr., the State Department's assistant secretary for intelligence and research. "Do I go home every night and worry about it before I go to sleep? No." FIRST EXPLANATION Ford's remarks were the first real attempt by the Bush administration to explain a surprising speech May 6 by a more senior State Department official, John Bolton, that amounted to a five-star alarm over what he called Cuba's "limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort." The speech, which seemed to signal a stark reassessment of Cuba's hostile potential toward the United States, brought headlines. In a prepared statement, Ford told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere that the U.S. government has "a sound basis" for making the assertion. Responding to senators' questions afterward, Ford said that the assessment that Cuba can "build the bug" is based on "substantial information" but noted that "our information is indirect." Saying he had been briefed by other officials in the intelligence community, Ford explained: "The research and capabilities of Cuba include work on areas -- biological agents, pathogens -- that could be effective against people, livestock and crops." "I didn't ask them which crops," he told Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who pressed for details. "I'm assuming that they're talking about those close by. As you know well, both the cattle industry and the fruits and vegetables in Florida would be clearly at least on my list of things to be worried about." A CAUTION But Ford cautioned against undue concern. "I don't want to give you the impression that we are suggesting . . . that there is a person with a satchel on his way to Dade County or St. Pete with a bag of biological weapons," he said. "Indeed, if you want to talk about intentions, it has to do with their fear of the United States and wanting to have a deterrent, wanting to have something in their capability that they could strike back at us." Ford said Cuba was far from the No. 1 concern of U.S. policymakers keeping tabs on hostile biological weapons programs around the globe. Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, said he was "terribly disappointed" at Secretary of State Colin Powell's decision to block Bolton, the department's undersecretary for weapons proliferation, from appearing at the Senate hearing. Visibly peeved, Dodd said he would provide Powell's department "with an equivalent level of cooperation" until the matter is cleared up. Dodd asked whether Bolton's speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation was timed to undercut a May 12-17 trip by former President Jimmy Carter to Havana. SEEKING DETAILS Dodd said he was seeking details of Cuba's biological weapons capability to ensure that U.S. defenses against terrorism are properly managed. "If we're off chasing an issue here that is not substantiated by facts, then we are misallocating resources," he said. In a speech May 11, Cuban leader Fidel Castro called Bolton's assertions "heinous slander" and "a string of Olympic-size lies." He said Washington might be trying to sandbag efforts by Cuba to market its bio-engineered medicines around the world. (c) 2001 miami and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-06.06.02-14:14:25-22140