War on terror may extend to Cuba
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 7, 2002
The Guardian
The US threatened to extend its war on terror to Cuba
yesterday, accusing Fidel Castro's regime of developing
biological weapons and sharing its expertise with Washington's
enemies.
In a speech called Beyond the Axis of Evil, the undersecretary
of state John Bolton presented no evidence for his claims,
pointing only to Cuba's advanced biomedical industry and Mr
Castro's visits last year to three "rogue states" accused by the
the US state department of sponsoring terrorism: Iraq, Syria and
Libya.
"States that renounce terror and abandon WMD [weapons of
mass destruction] can become part of our effort," Mr Bolton
said. "But those that do not can expect to become our targets."
Critics of the Bush administration's policies in Latin America
described the accusation as an attempt to exploit popular
support for the war on terror to pursue a rightwing political
agenda.
The administration has also accused Farc rebels in Colombia of
supporting anti-US terrorism, while calling for increased military
aid to Bogota.
Larry Birns, head of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs
thinktank in Washington, said yesterday: "What is dangerous
now is that the anti-terrorist war has no standards and no
criteria. It is whatever the Bush administration says it is at any
given moment."
Mr Bolton, a rightwinger appointed against the wishes of the
moderate secretary of state, Colin Powell, told the conservative
Heritage Foundation: "For four decades Cuba has maintained a
well-developed and sophisticated biomedical industry, supported
until 1990 by the Soviet Union.
"This industry is one of the most advanced in Latin America, and
leads in the production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are
sold worldwide. Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast
suspicion on the activities conducted in these biomedical
facilities."
A 1998 US government re port concluded that Cuba represented
no significant threat to the US, but Mr Bolton said its menace
had been underestimated by the Clinton administration, because
of to the malign influence of Cuban agents.
He pointed to the example of Ana Belen Montes, a senior Cuba
analyst at the defence intelligence agency who was discovered
to be a Cuban spy. She pleaded guilty to espionage in March.
"Montes not only had a hand in drafting the 1998 Cuba report
but also passed some of our most sensitive information about
Cuba back to Havana," he said.
· Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, provided a bleak
assessment yesterday of the country's chances of averting war
with America. He was speaking the day after Colin Powell
indicated that the US might take action even if Baghdad allowed
UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq.
In a rare interview, Mr Aziz questioned whether the US was
simply looking for a pretext to attack his country.
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