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NEWS
U.S. Accuses
Cuba of Germ Weapons Program
Thu October 2, 2003 07:26 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States, yet to find evidence to back
its charge that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, issued a new
accusation on Thursday that Cuba had a "limited" biological arms
program.
Cuba has previously denied the accusation, repeated on Thursday by
Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Roger Noriega at
a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Cuba.
Noriega was responding to a question from Sen. Christopher Dodd, a
Democrat from Connecticut, who asked why Washington continued to enforce
a four-decade sanctions regime against Havana.
Dodd quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell as having said Cuba did not
constitute a military threat to the United States and asked: "If it is
no longer a threat, why would we maintain those restrictions?"
"We continue ... to believe that Cuba has at least a limited,
developmental, offensive biological weapons research and development
effort and is providing dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states,"
said Noriega, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America.
"There are various aspects of the sort of threat that Cuba might
represent," he said, adding that this position was not inconsistent with
Powell's statement.
The United States, which lists Cuba as a state that sponsors terrorism,
accused President Fidel Castro's government of running a germ weapons
program twice last year.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque called the charges a
"bald-faced lie" and challenged the United States to supply proof.
President Bush accused Saddam Hussein of stockpiling chemical and
biological weapons before invading Iraq in March. No sign of such
weapons has yet been found in Iraq.
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