Cuba: Threat From the South

Jan. 6, 2003

Cuba’s pattern of aggressive spying in the U.S., concerns over the island nation’s development of biological weapons, and its aid to terrorists are all contributing to a post 9-11 reappraisal of the communist nation’s threat to American national security, says a report in the New York Times.

Since 1998 in Florida, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has uncovered 16 suspected or convicted Cuban spies.

"These [spying] activities and others prove that they are a hostile country," said Otto J. Reich, the Bush administration's special envoy for the Western Hemisphere.

Included in the Bureau’s more recent round-ups: a Cuban spy operation that penetrated the Pentagon's intelligence agency. Last September, a federal judge imposed a 25-year prison term on the Pentagon's former senior intelligence analyst on Cuba, Ana B. Montes, who confessed to spying for Cuba.

According to some Bush administration officials, the Montes case and other examples of Cuban subversion within the American intelligence community may be the real reason behind the hopeful views on Cuba that marked the Clinton administration.

"A major reason [for the Clinton views on Cuba]," said John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, "is Cuba's aggressive intelligence operations against the United States."

Pointedly, Bolton noted that one of the drafters of a key Pentagon report on Cuba was, indeed, Montes. However, while Montes certainly gave up defense information about Cuba, there is no hard evidence yet that she was specifically instructed from Cuba to lighten up on the dangers of Cuba in any intelligence reports produced during the course of her duties, according to the Times.

But the proof may be in the pudding. The 1998 major Defense Department report to Congress (drafted in its early stages by Montes) concluded among other things that the island's Communist government posed "a negligible threat to the U.S. or surrounding countries."

All during the 1990s such soft-on-Cuba sentiments fanned the ire of Cuban-American leaders that wanted nothing to take away from spotlight on such issues as Cuba’s open and notorious alliances with Libya and Iran, and its covert development of cyber-warfare capabilities designed to cripple U.S. communications.

'Active Measures'

And there are fears that some of the potential threats from the south are not all unconventional. With officials admitting that Castro may yet have hundreds of agents operating in the United States, there is some speculation that some “active measures” may be in the offing. Cuban spies are known to have discussed mail bombs and secretly piloting boats with explosives into Florida.

Meanwhile, Cuban spy business-as-usual includes infiltrating Cuban exile groups and getting inside American military installations. "They are one of the most aggressive intelligence services there is," Hector M. Pesquera, the head of the F.B.I.'s Miami office, told the Times. "They made some mistakes and we were able to capitalize on them, but they are still very good. They are very determined and they work the numbers. They know we can't cover everything."

All this is taking place against a backdrop of Bush administration officials who want to maintain a hard line against Castro and some increasingly visible Congressional leaders who want to throttle back trade and commerce restrictions on Cuba.

At the apparent epicenter of the disagreement is the recent attempted reassignment of a senior intelligence analyst on Latin America, Fulton T. Armstrong, who reportedly has been soft on Cuba’s danger to national security.

According to the Times report, Armstrong is considered down on Cuba's importance as a military threat, has written skeptically about its reputed offensive biological weapons, and has even suggested that Castro’s island be dropped from the annual State Department roster of countries that sponsor terrorism.

The Armstrong camp counters, saying the outspoken figure has earned respect as an analyst and is trusted by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/5/163348.shtml