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- Ten Accused of Spying for Cuba (14 September 1998)
- Cuba still no threat, Pentagon insists (7 May 1998)
- PENTAGON / CUBA - Voice of America (VOA) (6 May 1998)
- Secretary Cohen Forwards Cuban Threat Assessment (6 May 1998)
- High-Ranking Chinese Military Delegation Visits Cuba (6 May 1998)
- US report says Cuba's army "not a threat" (6 May 1998)
- Cuba no threat, Colombia war worsening-U.S. general (27 April 1998)
- Report downplaying Cuba threat back for review (8 April 1998)
- Cuban spy base can pick up Miami signals (3 April 1998)
- Cuba insists its military poses no threat abroad (2 April 1998)
- Cuban military no threat, turns to farming - U.S. (31 March 1998)
- U.S. delays report on Cuba's military capabilities (31 March 1998)
- Pentagon wants U.S. military to work with Cuba (27 March 1998)
- Cuban forces cut in half, general says (21 February 1998)
Ten Accused of Spying for Cuba
September 14, 1998
MIAMI (AP) -- Ten people were charged Monday in what prosecutors said is the largest Cuban spy ring ever uncovered in the United States since Fidel Castro came to power nearly 40 years ago.
The eight men and two women tried to penetrate U.S. military bases, infiltrate anti-Castro groups and manipulate U.S. media and political groups, federal investigators said Monday.
The FBI said one of the group's targets was the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command, which runs American military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
``In scope and in depth, this case, it is really unparalleled in recent years,'' said U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Scott. ``This spy ring was cast by the Cuban government to strike at the very heart of our national security system and our very democratic process.''
The Cuban foreign ministry in Havana had no comment.
The suspects were held without bond and face charges of espionage and acting as unregistered agents of the Cuban government. Prosecutors said the investigation is continuing, but would not say if more arrests were anticipated.
Charges against five of the suspects carry life sentences. Charges against the other five have maximum sentences of 15 years
One of the suspects, Linda Hernandez, was said to be part of a husband-wife spy team. Both she and her husband are members of the Cuban military and longtime operatives, the FBI said. Her lawyer, Vincent Farina, said his client is a housewife, not a spy.
``She had nothing to do with this whats over,'' Farina said.
According to an FBI affidavit filed in support of the arrests, surveillance dating back to 1995 indicated all 10 members operated with code names and had escape plans and alibis.
FBI agent Raul Fernandez said in the affidavit that the spy group was led by Manuel Viramontes, a Cuban military captain, and used computers with coded material on disk to communicate with each other.
Viramontes had an apartment in Miami and it was there that the disks were found, investigators said.
The disks provided a detailed overview of spy operations reminiscent of Cold War-era espionage, including references to agents as comrades.
``To say the least, folks, this operation was sophisticated,'' Scott said.
Two of those arrested were identified as U.S. citizens and one as a resident alien. The citizenship of the others was not released, but the FBI said some were agents who slipped in and out of the United States.
Congressional sources said the arrests made without incident Saturday were timed to avert an operation planned by the suspects. They provided no further details.
Part of the operation focused on infiltrating six exile groups, according to the FBI.
Among those arrested was Rene Gonzalez, who was formerly affiliated with the Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The group is known for flying mercy flights over the 90 miles of open water between Florida and Cuba, searching for rafters fleeing the communist island nation.
Gonzalez has been linked more recently to the group Democracy Movement, which sails flotillas in the Florida Straits to protest Cuba government actions.
``This is the tip of the iceberg,'' said Jose Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue.
Four Brothers fliers, including three Americans, were killed in February 1996 when their two planes were shot down by a Cuban MiG fighter jet over international waters.
Soon afterward, federal officials acknowledged they were looking into whether Cuban spies played any part in the aerial attack, which was not mentioned in the FBI affidavit.
The affidavit said two of the suspects set up a surveillance of the Southern Command, MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa and the Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West.
The two allegedly produced detailed reports, complete with photos, on the Southern Command and were assigned to report any ``unusual exercises, maneuvers, and other activity related to combat readiness at the Naval air station.''
One of the suspects was said to have reported on daily activities at Boca Chica, including types of aircraft being deployed and descriptions of a facility suspected of being prepared for top secret activity.
Although the affidavit summary said the suspects tried to manipulate the media, there was no elaboration on how that happened.
Copyright 1999 The Miami Herald / El Nuevo Herald.
Republished here with the permission of the Miami Herald. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.Published Thursday,
May 7, 1998, in the Miami HeraldCuba still no threat, Pentagon insists
But defense chief tempers reportBy CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Herald Staff WriterWASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary William Cohen on Wednesday portrayed Cuba as a neighborhood menace, even as his intelligence service concluded that Cuba ``does not pose a significant military threat to the U.S. or to other countries in the region.''
The seemingly contradictory views emerged as the Pentagon released a report to Congress outlining its assessment of the dangers posed by Cuba to U.S. interests, including by such unconventional threats as mass migration and biological weapons.
Cohen had delayed release of the report by the Defense Intelligence Agency for five weeks after Florida lawmakers, citing an advance Herald account of its conclusions, objected that it downplayed the Cuban threat.
Cohen sent the report back to its authors in the intelligence agency for a second look. They returned the report essentially unchanged.
Caught between competing views, Cohen on Wednesday appeared to split the difference, voicing a variety of personal worries about Cuba while releasing the DIA report, which minimized or largely dismissed such fears.
``While the assessment notes that the direct conventional threat by the Cuban military has decreased,'' Cohen said, ``I remain concerned about the use of Cuba as a base for intelligence activities directed against the United States, the potential threat that Cuba may pose to neighboring islands, [Cuban President Fidel] Castro's continued dictatorship that represses the Cuban people's desire for political and economic freedom, and the potential instability that could accompany the end of his regime.''
Maj. Gen. Erneido Oliva, Ret., once the highest-ranking Cuban American in the U.S. Army, applauded Cohen's remarks, saying he had correctly summed up Castro's ability to make mischief by developing unconventional weapons, disrupting U.S. communications or abetting drug smugglers. But he attacked the DIA report as naive.
``If you read the letter of the secretary of defense, I agree 100 percent with him,'' said Oliva, a Bay of Pigs veteran.
As for the report, Olivas said it``tried to portray Castro as not aggressive. They're ignoring the history of Fidel Castro.''
Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who initially requested the report, declined to comment Wednesday. Miami's two Cuban-American lawmakers criticized the report, saying it would damage their efforts to promote freedom in Cuba.
``They wrapped up the package with bows and ribbons but you can't escape their summary conclusion which says Castro does not pose a threat to the U.S.,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican.
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, also a Miami Republican, said the report gave short shrift to ``asymmetrical threats'' posed by Cuba's alleged links to drug traffickers or by its attempts to complete construction of a nuclear power plant in Cienfuegos.
``The underlying current here is that it reflects a strong support for the status quo,'' Diaz-Balart said. ``It shows there is no solidarity for the freedom of Cuba.''
Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based forum of hemispheric leaders, accused Cohen of succumbing to political pressure in an area Hakim said should be devoid of politics: the security arena.
``Clearly the way that Secretary Cohen characterizes the report reflects some political judgments about what would be palatable,'' Hakim said. ``No one that I know that has seriously looked at this -- from U.S. military officers to neighboring Caribbean countries -- thinks Cuba is a threat. It doesn't have the resources. And it doesn't have the will.''
Cohen's initial request that the report be reassessed risked alienating two top U.S. generals -- the head of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami and the recently retired chief of the Atlantic Command -- both of whom backed the finding that Cuba was not a major threat.
The DIA's seven-page unclassified report, which was prepared in consultation with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, portrays a severely diminished Cuban military that poses a ``negligible'' threat to the United States and its neighbors. The report shrugs at the risks posed by a mass outflow of refugees, internal strife on the island or the potential for attacks against U.S. protesters in international airspace or waters.
``At present, Cuba does not pose a significant military threat to the U.S. or to other countries in the region,'' the report concludes. ``Cuba has little motivation to engage in military activity beyond defense of its territory and political system. Nonetheless, Cuba has a limited capability to engage in some military and intelligence activities which would be detrimental to U.S. interests and which could pose a danger to U.S. citizens under some circumstances.''
In assessing Cuba's once potent armed forces -- the largest per capita in Latin America just one decade ago -- the report describes an army with mothballed equipment, incapable of mounting effective operations above the battalion level; a navy with no functioning submarines; an air force with fewer than two dozen operation MiG fighter jets.
The report says that Cuba has the facilities and expertise to develop biological weapons but did not assert that it had done so. It assesses as ``low'' the threat of another mass migration or the potential for a popular uprising.
``There is undoubtedly widespread desire for greater economic and political freedom and weariness with continuing hardship, deprivation and repression,'' the report says. ``Nonetheless, relatively few Cubans now appear willing to risk the consequences of pressing for sweeping political changes.''
Copyright 1998 The Miami Herald / El Nuevo Herald .
Republished here with the permission of the Miami Herald. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.
[TOP]DATE=5/6/98
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
NUMBER=2-231827
TITLE=PENTAGON / CUBA (L)
BYLINE=JIM RANDLE
DATELINE=PENTAGON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: U-S MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS SAY CUBA NO
LONGER POSES A THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES OR CUBA'S OTHER
NEIGHBORS. THE ASSESSMENT COMES IN A LONG-DELAYED AND
CONTROVERSIAL REPORT TO CONGRESS. V-O-A'S JIM RANDLE REPORTS
FROM THE PENTAGON, THE REPORT MAY SPARK CRITICISM FROM
CUBAN-AMERICAN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.
TEXT: THE REPORT SAYS THE END OF SOVIET SUBSIDIES FORCED
HAVANA TO CUT ITS ONCE-ROBUST MILITARY BY 50 PER CENT, TO BETWEEN
50 AND 65-THOUSAND TROOPS. IT SAYS THE NAVY HAS SHRUNK TO ONLY
ONE DOZEN SHIPS, THE AIR FORCE TO TWO DOZEN COMBAT READY PLANES.
THE REPORT SAYS TRAINING FOR PILOTS AND OTHERS IS BARELY ADEQUATE
TO MAINTAIN PROFICIENCY.
HOWEVER, THE REPORT ALSO CONCLUDED THAT DESPITE THESE
WEAKNESSES, CUBA'S FORCES HAVE ENOUGH "RESIDUAL STRENGTH" TO MAKE
AN INVASION VERY COSTLY, AND THAT CUBAN MILITARY LEADERS ARE
"COMBAT-EXPERIENCED AND DISCIPLINED."
//OPT// THE HEAD OF A PRIVATE GROUP THAT STUDIES LATIN AMERICAN
ISSUES, SAYS PRIOR PENTAGON REPORTS OVERSTATED THE CUBAN THREAT
TO HELP JUSTIFY LARGE U-S MILITARY BUDGETS. BUT THE DIRECTOR OF
THE COUNCIL ON HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS, LARRY BIRNS, SAYS THIS LATEST
ASSESSMENT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT TO HIM.
/// BIRNS ACT ///
CLEARLY THE CUBAN THREAT NO LONGER EXISTS. THESE
SOLDIERS, THAT CUBA HAS TODAY, AND IT'S MENTIONED IN THE
REPORT, ARE LARGELY FARMERS AND NOT SOLDIERS. THE CUBAN
ECONOMY IS IN SUCH REDUCED STATES THAT THE ARMY, HAS TO
MAINTAIN ITSELF THROUGH GROWING CROPS AND ENGAGING IN
VARIOUS KINDS OF BUSINESS ACTIVITIES.
/// END ACT & OPT ///
WHEN WORD OF THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT LEAKED TO THE PRESS
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO, TWO CUBAN-AMERICAN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
DENOUNCED ITS CONCLUSIONS. THEY URGED THE PENTAGON TO PAINT A
MORE THREATENING, AND THEY SAID MORE ACCURATE PICTURE OF CUBA --
NOTING THAT, AMONG OTHER THINGS, CUBA'S NUCLEAR REACTOR PROGRAM
COULD BE USED FOR MILITARY PURPOSES.
IN A LETTER TO CONGRESS ACCOMPANYING THE REPORT, DEFENSE
SECRETARY WILLIAM COHEN SAYS INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES IN CUBA ARE
STILL A CONCERN FOR THE UNITED STATES. HE ALSO EXPRESSED CONCERN
THAT ACCIDENTS AT A CUBAN NUCLEAR PLANT MIGHT RELEASE RADIATION,
OR THAT CUBAN BIOTECHNOLOGY SKILLS MIGHT PRODUCE BIOLOGICAL
WEAPONS.
MR. COHEN ALSO SAYS HE LOOKED OVER U-S MILITARY CONTINGENCY PLANS
FOR DEALING WITH CUBA, AND SAYS THEY ARE APPROPRIATE FOR THE
LEVEL AND NATURE OF THE THREAT TO U-S SECURITY. (SIGNED)
NEB/JR/WFR
06-May-98 6:47 PM EDT (2247 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
NEWS RELEASE
May 6 1998
Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
SECRETARY COHEN FORWARDS CUBAN THREAT ASSESSMENT TO CONGRESS
Secretary of Defense William Cohen today sent Congress an intelligence assessment of the threat that Cuba poses to U.S. national security.
In letters transmitting the report, Secretary Cohen said: "While the assessment notes that the direct conventional threat by the Cuban military has decreased, I remain concerned about the use of Cuba as a base for intelligence activities directed against the United States, the potential threat that Cuba may pose to neighboring islands, Castro's continued dictatorship that represses the Cuban people's desire for political and economic freedom, and the potential instability that could accompany the end of his regime."
Cohen also said that he is concerned about Cuba's potential to develop and produce biological agents and the environmental health risks posed to the United States by potential accidents at the Juragua nuclear power facility.
The assessment was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency to meet a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998. The DIA, working with the Central Intelligence Agency and other elements of the intelligence community, analyzed Cuba's military capabilities and the threat it presents to the United States.
The assessment addresses unconventional threats, such as the potential for encouraging mass migration and attacks on U.S. citizens engaged in peaceful protests in international waters or airspace. The intelligence community also looked at the potential for Cuban development of chemical and biological weapons and reviewed the potential for internal strife in Cuba that could involve citizens or residents of the United States or the U.S. armed forces.
In his letter to Congress, Secretary Cohen said that "the Defense Department remains vigilant to the concerns posed by Castro's Cuba. I have reviewed our contingency plans, and they are appropriate for the level and nature of the Cuban threat to U.S. national security."
[TOP]Wednesday, May 6, 1998
HIGH-RANKING CHINESE MILITARY DELEGATION VISITS CUBAHavana, May 6 (RHC)-- A high-ranking Chinese military delegation visited the Armed Forces Ministry in Havana on Tuesday. The delegation was received by Political Bureau member RamonBalaguer and Cuban military officials.
Cuban Division General Alvaro Lopez Miera thanked the Chinese delegation on behalf the armed forces and the Cuban people, and stressed that their visit will strengthen bilateral relations between the armies of both nations.
©1998 Radio Havana Cuba
[TOP]Wednesday, May 6, 1998 Published at 22:06 GMT 23:06 UK
World: Americas
US report says Cuba's army "not a threat"
A report released by the Pentagon in Washington says that Cuba's armed forces no longer pose a significant threat to the United States or countries in the region.
The report ,whose contents had been widely leaked, says that since the collapse of the Soviet Union in1989,Cuba has cut the size and budget of the military by half, reducing what was once one of Latin America's largest armies to a force of about sixty-thousand.
However, the US defence secretary, William Cohen, in a letter to Congress accompanying the report, has expressed concern about Cuba's use as a base for intelligence activities and its potential to make biological weapons.
©1998 BBC From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
[TOP]April 28, 1998
Cuba no threat, Colombia war worsening-U.S. general
By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI, April 27 (Reuters) -Cuba is no longer a military threat and worsening conflict in Colombia isthmus serious challenge facing the U.S. military in Latin American and the Caribbean, the general heading operations in the region said on Monday.
The Cuban military -- long seen by Washington as a source of mischief-making from Latin America to Africa -- was a shadow of its former self, Marine General Charles Wilhelm, commander-in-chief of Southern Command, said in an interview.
But the performance of the Colombian armed forces, battling a loose alliance of leftist guerrillas, drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitaries, was not encouraging, he said.
"Colombia is the most threatened country in our area of responsibility ... the problems are complex," he said.
The US military and others fighting the illegal drugs trade say the armed groups are working together,usingdrugs money either for their own enrichment or to further their political cause.
"Taken together they are a very stressing challenge to Colombia and to a greater or lesser extent are affecting each of the five countries with which Colombia has a common border," said Wilhelm, a veteran of trouble spots from Vietnam to Somalia who took over at SOUTHCOM's helm when it moved to Miami from Panama in September.
The largest leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), is thought to control about 40 percent of rural Colombia. In March the FARC handed the Colombian army its biggest defeat in three decades of war, killing 83 soldiers of a crack counter-insurgency brigade in southern Caqueta province and taking more than 43 prisoner.
"If you examine the outcome of tactical encounters over the last three years the trend is not encouraging and does indicate the Colombian Armed Forces have not been equal to the task in confronting major formations, of the FARC particularly, when they have been challenged in the field," Wilhelm said.
While U.S. officials and politicians have spoken of stepping up military aid to Colombia, the general dismissed speculation that the U.S. military could get sucked into a deeper role in Colombia such as sending in advisers -- still an emotive issue among Americans who recall the Vietnam War.
The rebel commander who led the Caqueta battle recently accused U.S. advisers of heading counter-insurgency efforts and threatened to target them.
"We do not have advisers in Colombia," stressed Wilhelm, who as a young officer was an adviser to South Vietnam forces.
But U.S. military personnel, both Colombia-based and rotating through, were training Colombian police and troops in counter-narcotics measures, he said, as well as manning two radar posts designed to interdict narcotics flight.
This deployment was in line with Southern Command's stated mission of combating the drugs trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, Wilhelm said.
"The lines occasionally will become blurred because inevitably when the Colombian armed forces or police engage in counter-narcotics operations there may well be some kind of contact with the insurgents simply because they are mixed," he said.
He also addressed concerns expressed by human rights groups over alleged atrocities and abuses by the Colombian army, saying human rights training was a key part of the U.S. military mission in Latin America.
"Anytime you have armed conflict you have non-combatants on the margins and one of our goals is to limit collateral casualties," he said.
With regard to Cuba - a U.S. foe since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution in the island just 90 miles (140 km) from the Florida coast -- Wilhelm said its armed forces were no longer capable of threatening the United States or its neighbors.
"From a very large and very robust armed force numbering over 130,000 with a large reserve the current Cuban military is a shadow of that force," he said, sitting in his office in front of maps signaling Cuba as the only no democratic nation in the hemisphere after 20 years of often turbulent change.
He estimated the strength of the armed forces at about 50,000 to 65,000, adding that they spent much of their time engaged in agriculture or other production tasks.
Old Soviet-supplied equipment was in disrepair and short of fuel. With the collapse of its main backer, Cuba's military could not project itself beyond its borders. Nor were there any signs that Havana was fomenting unrest elsewhere, he said.
The Pentagon's new assessment of Cuba first emerged from a report leaked to newspapers that is still being reviewed by the Defense Department. The report annoyed hardliner Cuban exiles in Miami and their U.S. political supporters who saw it as part of a tentative softening of U.S. policy toward the island.
Asked about the possibility of military contacts between the two countries, Wilhelm said other typesofcontacts would have to come first.
"We do have shared problems-- one that comes to my mind is counter-narcotics. Right now we do not have the ability to work with the Cubans on counter-narcotics. Could we pursue some desirable ends? I'm not certain right now. But there is definitely possibility that we could," he said.
21:03 04-27-98
[TOP]Published Wednesday,
April 8, 1998, in the Miami HeraldReport downplaying Cuba threat back for review
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Herald Staff WriterWASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary William Cohen has ordered a ``ground-up review'' of a Pentagon report that said Cuba poses no major security threat to the United States, after strong complaints from Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who requested it, a top Graham aide said.
Cohen has asked defense intelligence officers to reconsider the still unreleased report in light
of Graham's specifications that it focus on Cuba's capabilities -- and not the likelihood -- of its staging no conventional attacks, said Bob Filippone, Graham's national security aide.``It's gone back for a ground-up review,''Filippone said. ``They're taking a fresh look at it.''
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Campbell said only that the report, which was due to be handed to Congress by March31, ``is still in the review process.'' He declined to say whether Cohenhadsent it back to its authors for changes.
``Beyond that, there's not much I can tell you about the report,'' Campbell said. ``We expect it shortly.''
Shift of position
If Cohen demands major revisions to the report, he would be opting against the Defense Intelligence Agency and senior Pentagon officers responsible for the region, in favor of a politically potent constituency in Florida and elsewhere that identifies Cuba as a regional menace years after it lost its Soviet patronage and its economy imploded.
Cohen said March 30 that he expected the report on his desk that afternoon and would comment on it ``within the next several days.'' The report was to be classified, with an annex available to the public.
But a Herald article March 29 about the report's conclusions stirred an outcry among Cuban-American lawmakers and Graham, a longtime critic of Cuban President Fidel Castro, who found himself scrambling to explain why a report he had sought downplayed the threat posed by Castro.
``It was my intention that this report would force the Defense Department to assess Cuban capabilities to threaten the United States and, since Castro has a long record of using his capability against the United States, prepare contingency plans to respond to any threat from Cuba,'' Graham told the Senate last week.
Graham voiced concerns about Cuba's ability to produce biological weapons; its reported training of commandos in Vietnam and western Cuba; its support of a Soviet spy station capable of eavesdropping on U.S. communications, and its longstanding use of ``mass migration as a policy tool.''
Military concerns
The senator also warned that base closure and realignment decisions, especially affecting Homestead Air Reserve Base and Key West Naval Air Station, have ``eroded'' the U.S. ability to respond to Cuban attacks.
``Cuba, under Fidel Castro's dictatorial regime, has a well-documented history of threatening the national security of the United States,'' Graham said. ``From the Cuban missile crisis, to the Mariel boatlift, to the Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down, the pattern of provocation and threat to the well-being of Americans is clear. Unfortunately, what is also clear is a pattern of unpreparedness on the part of the United States to respond to Cuban provocations.''
In recent remarks to The Herald, Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm, the head of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami and an important contributor to the report, said the Cuban military ``has no capability whatsoever to project itself beyond the borders of Cuba.''
Marine Gen. John Sheehan, Ret., who last month became the highest ranking U.S. officer to visit Cuba since the 1959 revolution, described the Cuban military's ``defensive'' posture and conveyed Castro's own vow to do nothing to embarrass President Clinton.
Copyright 1998 The Miami Herald / El Nuevo Herald.
Republished here with the permission of the Miami Herald. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.
[TOP]Published Friday,
April 3, 1998, in the Miami HeraldCuban spy base can pick up Miami signals
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff WriterCopyright 1998 The Miami Herald / El Nuevo Herald.
Republished here with the permission of the Miami Herald. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.
[TOP]Cuba insists its military poses no threat abroad
HAVANA, April 2 (Reuters) - Cuba agreed on Thursday with U.S. assessments that its armed forces are not a threat abroad,butrefused to comment on reports its military capacity has waned in recent years.
"The Revolutionary Armed Forces (of Cuba) have never been of an offensive nature, rather a defensive one,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez told reporters.
Some U.S. media have reported in recent days that the Pentagon believes Cuba's military threat is severely diminished, due largely to shortages of fuel and spare parts since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
And Gen. Charles Wilhelm, commander of thus. Southern Command based in Miami, told a congressional hearing earlier this week the communist-ruled island's active military forces were half the size they were at the start of the decade.
Gonzalez, speaking at a weekly news briefing, said Cuban authorities had seen the press reports but "it would be irresponsible to react.''
He added, however, that Cuba does not represent a military threat "either to the United States or to other countries.''
Cuba's armed forces have suffered from shortages since their Soviet supply-line was disrupted, but generals insist they have maintained combat readiness by conserving weapons and drawing up defensive strategies based on guerrilla warfare techniques.
In the years immediately after its 1959 revolution, Cuba was the target of various U.S.-backed invasion plots to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Cuba takes pride in its rapid defeat of a CIA-sponsored invasion force which landed at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
REUTERS
13:04 04-02-98
[TOP]Cuban military no threat, turns to farming - U.S.
By Anthony Boadle
March 31 (Reuters) - Cuba's armed forces are no longer a threat beyond the Caribbean island's shores and have turned to agriculture to survive, a top U.S. general said on Tuesday.Gen. Charles Wilhelm, commander of the U.S. Southern Command based in Miami, told a congressional hearing that Communist-ruled Cuba's active military forces were half the size they were before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"I do not consider the current Cuban armed forces to be a threat to the United States," Wilhelm said.
"It is a force that can no longer project itself beyond the boundaries of Cuba," he said when asked about a Pentagon report requested by Congress on the military threat posed by Cuba.
Wilhelm said the quality and character of the Cuban armed forces had changed significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"We have convincing evidence that as much as 70 percent of the effort of the existing force is being expended on agricultural and other self-sustaining activities," he said.
Wilhelm said the United States had no indications that Cuba was fomenting instability in the Western hemisphere.
"It is a force that maintains internal order. It is no longer an offensive force," he said during a hearing on U.S. anti-drug policies in Colombia.
Asked if Cuba had the capability to make biological or chemical weapons, Wilhelm said: "The indications that we have received are that they do have the capability to produce those kinds of substances, but they have not weaponized them."
Pressed on the issue by Cuban-American Rep. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, Wilhelm added: "Any nation witha pharmaceutical industry, and Cuba certainly has that, has the capability to produce biological agents."
The Miami Herald reported on Sunday that the Pentagon had concluded the military threat posed by Cuba was "severely diminished" and downplayed the risk of chemical or biological warfare.
The classified report also suggested that the U.S. and Cuban armed forces should begin working together to reduce tensions in the region, the Herald said.
The report on Cuba was due to be handed onTuesday to members of Congress who requested it last year.
But the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Pentagon had delayed its release because defense officials mayconsider revisions to bring it more in line with tough U.S. policies againstCuba.
The report said severe shortages of fuel and spare parts had reduced Cuba's Soviet-built MIG jet fighter force to two squadrons flown only intermittently, the Post said, citing people who had seen or been briefed on the assessment.
Sections dealing with Cuba's capacity to produce biological weapons were among those considered for tougher language ata review session involving administration and defense officials on Monday, the Post reported.
22:16 03-31-98
[TOP]U.S. delays report on Cuba's military capabilities
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department has delayed the release of a report discounting any residual threat to the United States from Communist-ruled Cuba, an irritant of every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower, the Washington Post reported onTuesday.
The classified report had been scheduled to be released later in the day to members of Congress who requested it last year, the Post said.
But Defense Secretary William Cohen and other officials have decided to consider possible revisions that would bring it more squarely in line with tough U.S. policies against Cuba, the newspaper said.
It said the report concluded in part that the Cuban armed forces had been significantly diminished and that its military was geared toward defending Cuba rather than making offensive moves.
In addition the report concluded that severe shortages of fuel and spare parts had reduced Cuba's Soviet-built MiG jet fighter force to two squadrons flown only intermittently, the Post said, citing people who had seen or been briefed on the assessment.
Sections dealing with Cuba's capacity to produce biological weapons were among those considered for tougher language ata review session involving administration and defense officials Monday,the Post reported.
Administration officials were not available to comment.
REUTERS
00:41 03-31-98
[TOP]Posted at
6:53 p.m. EST Friday,March 27, 1998 Pentagon wants U.S. military to work withCuba
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
Herald Staff WriterWASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has concluded that Cuba poses no significant threat to U.S. national security, and senior defense officials increasingly favor engaging their island counterparts to reduce existing tensions.
In a classified report due to Congress by Tuesday, Secretary of Defense William Cohen plans to portray Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces as a severely diminished military and to downplay the risks posed by chemical or biological weapons, according to people briefed onthe findings. It also says the chances of another mass exodus from the island are reduced.
At the same time, Marine Gen. John Sheehan, Ret., has just returned from a weeklong tour of the island - the highest-ranking U.S. officer to visit Cuba since the 1959 revolution -- and is urging the Clinton administration to ''regularize contacts'' between Cuban and American military chiefs.
Sheehan, who spent several days in the company of Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro, and dined with President Fidel Castro, continues: ''The question is how do we institutionalize this? It doesn't mean diplomatic recognition in the near term.''
The dovish assessment expected from the Defense Department has already drawn cries of dismay from some exile leaders and lawmakers, including the three Cuban American members of Congress.
Advocates of a maintaining a more guarded position on Cuba cite a historical record that includes Castro's recommendation that the Soviet Union launch a nuclear strike against the United States during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuban defectors'accounts in the last decade that Havana's contingency bombing targets included a South Florida nuclear reactor, and the 1996 shootdown of two exile planes over international waters.
''We are appalled by current attempts to downplay the Castro threat,'' the Cuban American lawmakers and six House colleagues wrote in a March 19 letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
''There is a pathologically unstable tyrant in the final years of his dictatorship just 90 miles from our shores. His four-decade record of brutality, rabid hostility toward the Cuban exilecommunity, anti-Americanism, support for international terrorism, and proximityto the United States is an ominous combination.''
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, said inan interview that the Pentagon report is part of a broader administrationstrategy to normalize relations with Cuba. The report, mandated last yearin an amendment introduced by Florida Sen. Bob Graham, emerges just daysafter the president restored direct flights and exile remittances to Cubaand vowed to get more medical and food aid to the island.
''These Pentagon types are very politicized,'' she said. ''They get their instructions very directly from the White House.''
But interviews with current and former Pentagon officials counter that it is the politicians who have misrepresented the security threat posed by Cuba, particularly since the Castro government lost its Soviet patron in the early 1990s. Exile leaders are determinedto maintain maximum U.S. pressure on Castro, even after he has been revealed as a toothless tiger, they say.
''We really don't have much of a rational dialogue on this,'' said Alberto R. Coll, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Bush administration, who echoed Sheehan's views. ''Anybody who admits there's a problem with existing policy is branded a pro-Castro apologist.''
A senior Pentagon official appointed by President Reagan and who considers himself an ''anti-Communist hardliner,'' said the context of relations has changed so completely it is time to engage Cubans at all levels, even trade with them.
''It's very difficult for exile groups,'' said the official, who asked not to be named for fear of offending friends. ''They're always the last ones to dismount from the horses they're riding.''
In recent years, a chasm has grown betweenexile leaders and important political allies, such as Sens. Graham and RobertTorricelli, D-New Jersey, and U.S. officials charged with assessing therisks posed by Cuba.
The staunchest Castro foes accept as a given that Cuba is a haven for drug traffickers and abets and trains anti-American terrorists. Administration officials maintain they have no evidence of such activity.
As the chief of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm has responsibility for Cuba and gaveimportant input for Cohen's report.
In a recent interview with the Herald, Wilhelm described a ''dramatically'' weakened Cuban military -- one he said hasbeen cut in half from its peak of 130,000 active forces a decade ago. Healsonoted that much of Cuba's military equipment is unusable, particularlytactical aircraft such as Soviet MiGs.
Before the Soviet collapse, the Cuban military was one of Latin America's most disciplined, best-armed forces, and became an important tool of Castro's efforts to expand Marxism in South America, Angola, Central America and the Caribbean.
Today, Wilhelm said, ''That armed force has no capability whatsoever to project itself beyond the borders of Cuba, so it's really no threat to anyone around it. As much as 70 percent of thearmed forces' effort is involved in their own self-sustainment, in thingslike agricultural pursuits. ... It doesn't even begin to resemble the Cubanarmed forces that we contemplated in the '80s.''
But Maj. Gen. Erneido Oliva -- a Bay of Pigs veteran who was the highest ranking Cuban American officer in the U.S. army before his 1967 retirement -- argues that the United States should not measure Castro's threat in conventional terms.
''Cuba is a threat and will be a threat tothe U.S. as long as Fidel Castro and Raul are in power,'' said Oliva, whonow heads the Cuban-American Military Council. ''You have to look at history and at what this individual [Fidel Castro] has done, and how they have trained their armed forces.''
Oliva ticked off a list of risky behavior he ascribed to the Castro brothers, including: allowing a Russian eavesdropping base at Lourdes outside Havana; assisting drug traffickers; cooperatingwith other U.S.-designated terrorist nations such as Iraq and Iran; cultivating anthrax and other biological weapons; trying to complete construction of an ''unsafe'' nuclear plant at Juragua.
Current and former Pentagon officials largely downplay such concerns, though they offer little specific information, claiming a need to protect U.S. intelligence:
They say they have no evidence of high-level Cuban complicity in drug-running to the United States; they do not think Cuba has ''weaponized'' biological agents against the United States; and they say that the best way to ensure that the Juragua plant is safe -- if Cuba ever obtains financing to complete it --is to provide cooperation and scrutiny under the International Atomic Energy Agency.
There were reports last month that Russia had extended a $350 million line of credit for investors to complete Juragua. However, construction has not resumed, according to sources monitoring the plant closely.
Even the Russian-staffed electronic listening post at Lourdes, which officials say is capable of intercepting U.S. commercial and military transmissions across the eastern United States, merits a collective shrug. Officials say the Russians run the facility independently of Havana, and add that Washington has entered a post-Cold War modus vivendi with Moscow in which the Russians have not demanded the dismantling ofU.S. posts in Japan or Turkey.
This arrangement has some strong critics, who point to the Lourdes facility as a menace.
''During the Gulf War, the Lourdes facility intercepted the details of our battle plan. The Soviets were going to give it to the Iraqis, except for the personal intervention of [Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev],'' said Bob Filippone, Sen. Graham's aide on national security affairs.
But exclusively in terms of U.S.-Cuban relations, a Pentagon consensus is emerging:
Castro is viewed as a rational player who does not want to provoke the United States, because he knows it would invitehis own annihilation. U.S. contingency plans do allow for a ''Gotterdammerung scenario,'' in which the dictator, under siege at home, lashes out at the United States; but military planners say U.S. defenses would be on a high state of alert in such circumstances and effectively repel any Cuban attack on South Florida or elsewhere.
''I can tell you Fidel Castro is not a madman,'' said Coll, the Bush appointee. ''He wants to stay in power. ... If out of the blue tomorrow, he decided to attack our reactors at Turkey Point, that would be the end of him. He knows that he has to behave very well. It'sone thing to repress your people at home. But it's another to engage ininternational adventurism.''
The most immediate risk to U.S. interests is posed by unchecked emigration from Cuba, say Pentagon officials who point to the rafter exodus of 1994, in which tens of thousands of balseros set out across the Florida Straits.
Despite recent spates of new rafters, U.S.-Cuban migration accords signed in 1994 and 1995 have somewhat checked a new tide of exiles.
Sheehan, who spoke with Castro at length about the issue, said the Cuban leader is determined to protect the accords, which call for the repatration of Cubans intercepted by U.S. vessels at sea and allow for the orderly migration of at least 20,000 Cubans a year to theUnited States.
''He went to great lengths to say 'I don'twant to do anything to embarrass President Clinton,''' Sheehan said of Castro. ''He holds [Clinton] in high regard.''
The Defense Department has no stomach for being drawn into a Cuban civil war or an eventual occupation of the island.
For that reason, U.S. military officials are reflexively uncomfortable with a U.S. policy that some say is predicated on provoking a popular uprising or an economic ruin.
''I believe the U.S. military is concernedthat were the situation in Cuba to deteriorate, and widespread unrest weretobreak out, there would be considerable pressure on the U.S. to intervenemilitarily,'' said Ed Gonzalez, a Cuba expert at the Rand Corporation, aSanta Monica-based think tank with Pentagon contracts.
''In that event, they probably would fear becoming involved in a terrible mess on the island and becoming a virtual army of occupation.''
Partly as a hedge against such an outcome,Sheehan advocates lifting the ban on U.S. food and medical sales to Cubaand urges professional contacts among senior military officers of both countries.
Sheehan, a much-decorated veteran of Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, traveled to eastern Cuba with Raul Castro during his visit. Contrary to some accounts that the younger Castro brother inspires little loyalty among the troops, Sheehan said, ''There clearly is an affection for him. ... You can see the admiration in the young kids' eyes.''
Sheehan said both Castro brothers appear to be in good health, ''clearly are more comfortable talking to a militaryofficer than they are to some politicians,'' and preside over a militarywith a wholly ''defensive'' mission.
He said that Cuba is plainly in transition and it behooves the United States to ensure that it remains peaceful.
''There is a consensus being developed on both sides of the aisle saying, 'Wait a minute, we're working in a differentworld. How are we going to move toward conflict control?' '' he said. ''You'renever going to solve the ideological problem.''
Copyright 199 8 The Miami Herald / El Nuevo Herald.
Republished here with the permission of the Miami Herald. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.
[TOP]Published Saturday,
February 21, 1998, in the Miami HeraldCuban forces cut in half, general says
By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
Herald Staff WriterThe top U.S. military commander for Latin America and the Caribbean, recently transferred from Panama to his new headquarters in Miami, says Cuba's armed forces are a shadow of their former self and pose no threat to anyone in the region.
But Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm, head of the U.S. Southern Command, refused to answer questions about whether Cuba has developed biological weapons, a claim that has been made by several defectors and exiles over the years.
In an hourlong interview at Southern Command headquarters near Miami International Airport, Wil
helm said the Cuban armed forces have been ``dramatically'' reduced since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, dropping from more than 130,000 well-trained active forces a decade ago to about half that size today.The number of reserve troops also has beencut significantly, most of the armed forces' equipment is unusable, andthe number of airworthy tactical aircraft ``is very small, significantlyless than it used to be,'' he said.
``That armed force has no capability whatsoever to project itself beyond the borders of Cuba, so it's really no threat to anyone around it,'' Wilhelm said. ``As much as 70 percent of the armed forces' effort is involved in their own self-sustainment, in things like agricultural pursuits. . . . It doesn't even begin to resemble the Cuban armed forces that we contemplated in the '80s.''
Wilhelm will oversee Cuban and Caribbean affairs, which until last year were the responsibility of the Atlantic Command based in Norfolk, Va.
Asked whether there are any indications that Cuba may have biological weapons, Wilhelm said, ``None that I'm free todiscuss with you.'' He added, ``I can't get into specifics, because thesources of the information I get are just obviously not appropriate to discusswiththe media.''
On whether he is concerned about the issue, he said, ``No more than with other nations.''
Wilhelm said he has no evidence that President Fidel Castro's government tolerates drug smuggling through the island.
``That's not to say that there's not a problem with Cuba being used as a point of [drug] overflights -- there isn't a capability in Cuba to adequately survey or protect its airspace. . . . [But] nothing has been brought to my attention that would indicate that the Cuban government is complicitous or encouraging drug trafficking.''
Asked whether Cuban Army Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa and three other senior officials executed on drug charges in 1989 couldhave carried out widespread drug trafficking without Castro's knowledge,Wilhelm said, ``I have no idea. It was certainly a decisive action [takenby Castro] when confronted with the problem.''
Copyright 1998 The Miami Herald / El Nuevo Herald.
Republished here with the permission of the Miami Herald. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written approval of The Miami Herald.
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