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TERRORISM
U.S.: Cuba Developing Biological Weapons
Monday, May 06, 2002
WASHINGTON — Cuba has developed a biological weapons program and may be
sharing it with rogue nations, a State Department official said Monday.
Undersecretary of State John Bolton said that Cuba's exceptional and
sophisticated biomedical industry, supported by the Soviet Union until
1990, has led the way for pharmaceuticals and vaccinations sold
worldwide and may also be using the industry for other purposes.
"Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast suspicion on the activities
conducted in these biomedical facilities," Bolton, the United States'
chief non-proliferation official, told audience members Monday at
Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.
Cuban President Fidel Castro visited Iraq, Syria and Libya last year,
all nations that, like Cuba, are on the State Department's list of state
sponsors of terrorism. Bolton did not say whether Cuba has transferred
biological weapons to those states but said they are all trying to
develop weapons of mass destruction and are allied with Cuba.
"We are concerned that such technology could support biological warfare
programs in those states," Bolton said.
Bolton called on Cuba to cease transfers of biological weapons
technology to "rogue states and to fully comply with all of its
obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention."
He made the demand as another State Department official said the United
States will not soften its policy toward the island nation.
Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich told the Council of Americas
that no future deals are in the works to "throw a lifeline to a regime
that is sinking under the weight of its own historic failures."
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also spoke to the Council, said the
United States is prepared to push Cuba toward rapid democratization and
free markets.
Bolton said the country's potential terrorist threat may have been
overlooked because it was not labeled a military threat during the
Clinton administration though it was known to conduct widespread and
aggressive intelligence operations in the United States. The most
notable activity was its recruitment of the Defense Intelligence
Agency's senior Cuba analyst, Ana Belen Montes, to spy for Cuba. Montes
drafted a 1998 report that said Cuba is not a threat.
"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.
Montes was arrested last fall and pleaded guilty to espionage on March
19.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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