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Cuba has biological weapons, U.S. says
Compiled from Times wires WASHINGTON -- A senior Bush administration official said Monday that U.S. leaders have underestimated the security threat posed by Cuba, and he issued a specific warning about the country's biological weapons program. U.S. officials believe that Cuba has "at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort," said John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. And they fear that the Cubans might be passing on their germ weapons know-how to other "rogue" states, he said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy center in Washington, D.C. Bolton said Cuba had conducted "aggressive intelligence operations against the United States" and had maintained "a well-developed and sophisticated biomedical industry" that could be a cover for military uses. The comments represent a marked toughening of the official line on Cuba. The Castro regime has long been listed by the U.S. government as a state sponsor of terrorism, and officials have said in the past that Cuba was believed to have the capability to produce germ agents. But, until now, government officials have given this danger little emphasis. And they have not indicated that Cuba might be an important source of germ-weapon knowledge for other countries. Luis Fernandez, a spokesman for the Cuban interests section in Washington, strongly denied Bolton's assertions. "What he said is a big lie and a big slander," Fernandez said. The new warnings brought charges from some analysts that the administration was trying to strengthen its political support from anti-Castro Cubans in Florida and other conservatives. Florida is important to President Bush's re-election prospects, and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is facing an election in November. Bolton's speech appeared to catch most Cuba watchers unaware, although anti-Castro groups in Miami have long argued that Cuba is a biochemical warfare threat. "They do have the facilities in Cuba which give them the potential (to produce biochemical weapons), but there has never been a smoking gun," said Edward Gonzalez, a Cuba expert at Rand, a California-based group that does federally funded research. "Unless the administration has come up with some new intelligence that throws some definitive light on the matter, then nothing has changed." If the administration does have new evidence regarding Cuba, it has yet to brief Congress, according to a spokesman for Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The spokesman added that there had been allegations that Cuba possessed a biochemical warfare capability for some time, and that Graham was "concerned" about the issue. Bolton said that the worries about Cuba arise from its "well-developed and sophisticated" biomedical industry, which until 1990 had substantial support from the Soviet Union. The equipment used to manufacture drug or biological products are considered "dual use," meaning that they can also be applied to create germ weapon agents, such as viruses and toxins. Cuba "has provided dual-use technology to other rogue states," Bolton said. "We are concerned that such technology could support biological warfare programs in those states." Bolton did not specify which nations Cuba might have aided, but he noted that Cuban President Fidel Castro visited Iran, Syria and Libya last year. Bolton said that, at Tehran University, Castro told an audience: "Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees." U.S. officials have underestimated the threat posed by Cuba in large part because of the work of Cuban spies operating in the United States, Bolton declared. He cited Ana Belen Montes, a longtime Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who pleaded guilty in March to spying for Cuba. Montes was a contributor to a key 1998 Pentagon report that reviewed Cuba's military capabilities. The report concluded that the island did not pose a substantial security threat to the United States -- although, in a forward, then-Defense Secretary William S. Cohen acknowledged he was "concerned" about the germ weapons program. The allegations about Cuba have been well documented over the years, dating back to accusations in the early 1980s. Cuba has been named in several congressional reports and books by experts on biochemical warfare. A number of former Soviet officials and Cuban deserters have also described alleged efforts by Cuba to build research facilities for biochemical weapons. Other accounts allege Cuba used chemical weapons, including sarin gas, during the war in Angola where Cuban troops fought in the 1980s. One study by a professor at Florida International University said that Iraq provided Cuba with the anthrax virus in the early 1990s. Two Cuban zoologists have also asserted that Cuban scientists at the Institute of Zoology ran a secret program that experimented with migratory birds as a means of spreading viruses and other infectious diseases. And in his 1998 book Biohazard, the former deputy director of Research and Production for the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, Ken Alibek, described Soviet suspicions that Cuba was trying to develop its own weapons program. Despite all the allegations, "it is unknown what exactly U.S. intelligence has uncovered regarding Cuba's biochemical programs," according to Maria Werlau, a Cuba expert and author of a 30-page study published late last year by the Miami-based Endowment for Cuban American Studies. Werlau said U.S. officials have consistently "discredited allegations that Cuba is manufacturing biological weapons." As recently as Oct. 23, 2001, the coordinator for Cuban Affairs at the State Department, James Carragher, told Werlau that "we are not aware of anything different" that would warrant altering the threat assessment for Cuba. Stephen Johnson, a specialist on Latin American affairs at Heritage Foundation, said U.S. officials' suspicions have been aroused by the fact that Cuba has spent millions on sophisticated biomedical gear, even though it often has shortages of basic medical products. Julia E. Sweig, deputy director for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based research center, said Bolton's remarks suggested to her that the Bush administration is looking for a way to make its Cuba policy more distinctive from the Clinton administration's. At least one critic of Cuba was quick to welcome Bolton's verbal assault. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican from South Florida, said the remarks "begin to put into the proper perspective the debate about Cuba, a terrorist state with biological weapons, 90 miles from the shores of the United States." -- Times Latin America correspondent David Adams contributed to this report, which used information from the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Dallas Morning News.
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