Posted on Wed, Sep. 13, 2006
POST-CASTRO CUBA
U.S. creates five groups to monitor Cuba
The Bush administration mobilized five new government groups to track
events in Cuba after leader Fidel Castro's ceding of power on July 31.
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com
PROLONGING COMMUNISM: Cuban Leader Fidel Castro speaks with Venezuela's
President Hugo Chavez in Havana,Cuba.
AP
WASHINGTON - Convinced that Fidel Castro will never regain the power he
once wielded, the Bush administration has created five interagency
working groups to monitor Cuba and carry out U.S. policies.
The groups, some of which operate in a war-room-like setting, were
quietly set up after the July 31 announcement that the ailing Cuban
leader had temporarily ceded power to a collective leadership headed by
his brother Raúl, U.S. officials have told The Miami Herald.
Their composition reflects both the administration's Cuban policy
priorities as well as the belief that the 80-year-old Castro's status as
the island's undisputed leader is finished, regardless of the nature of
his still-mysterious ailment.
Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western
Hemisphere, said last month that Castro ''does not appear'' to be in a
position to return to day-to-day management.
Eric Watnik, a State Department spokesman on Cuban issues, went further,
telling The Miami Herald that Castro ''will never come back to the
position that he previously enjoyed.'' He declined to detail any
evidence the U.S. government has for such a belief.
U.S. officials say three of the newly created groups are headed by the
State Department: diplomatic actions; strategic communications and
democratic promotion. Another that coordinated humanitarian aid to Cuba
is run by the Commerce Department, and a fifth, on migration issues, is
run jointly by the National Security Council and the Department of
Homeland Security.
Many members of the groups work out of the same State Department office
in what one person familiar with the operation described as a ``control
room.''
The State Department is reluctant to give details of the new interagency
groups, saying the focus should be on the democratic transition the
groups are trying to achieve in Cuba rather than on the U.S. government
process.
But the overall idea is to exchange views with other governments and
create a common external front as Cuba begins its post-Castro
transition, said U.S. officials who asked for anonymity because of the
sensitive nature of the issues.
Officials portrayed the working groups as logical outcomes of the
Commission on Assistance to a Free Cuba, an interagency Cabinet-level
effort that has been convened twice to draft policy recommendations. The
second commission report, co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, was issued in July, just
weeks before Castro underwent surgery for intestinal bleeding caused by
a still undisclosed ailment.
It recommended more aid to Castro opponents, a diplomatic campaign to
offset Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's alleged efforts to prolong
communism in Cuba, and stricter enforcement of existing sanctions. It
also recommended more coordination between government agencies.
The establishment of the new interagency working groups came around the
same time as the intelligence community was also bolstering its
monitoring of Cuba. Last month, U.S. Director of National Intelligence
John Negroponte appointed CIA veteran Patrick Maher as acting mission
manager for Cuba and Venezuela. Officials say the post had been planned
before the announcement of Castro's illness.
HIGH-LEVEL POST
The position is considered ''very high level,'' according to Brian
Latell, a retired CIA analyst on Cuba and author of a recent book on
Fidel and Raúl Castro, After Fidel.
Such mission managers usually oversee a staff of between four and six
people that culls intelligence information on the target countries.
Though the post is essentially one of coordination, the manager is also
expected to ''be an activist'' to stimulate better information gathering
from the different branches of the intelligence services, Latell said.
The creation of the post also underlined the national security
importance of Cuba and Venezuela. Only Iran and North Korea -- both
perceived as nuclear threats -- currently have similar U.S. mission
managers overseeing them. Three other managers oversee counterterrorism,
counterintelligence and counterproliferation.
The Bush administration's policy on Cuba has been straightforward:
pressure Havana to adopt democratic reforms through a combination of
economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
But when specific options are discussed, Cuba has often turned out to be
divisive.
The Department of Defense, for instance, has balked at acting too
aggressively for fear of igniting a crisis in the U.S. back yard at a
time when U.S. forces already are stretched thin by the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, who heads the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political
Action Committee in Washington, which lobbies Congress for tougher
sanctions on the island, says democratic change in Cuba should
''supersede perceived instability'' concerns.
He said that the State Department and the White House are committed to
''democracy above all options,'' while Homeland Security and the
Pentagon are ``ambivalent to drastic change in Cuba.''
MARTI BROADCASTS
Another example is an effort to ease the restriction requiring the U.S.
airplanes that broadcast Radio and TV Martí to Cuba to remain within
U.S. territorial airspace -- a measure that limits its ability to get
around Cuban jamming.
Some Cuban-American activists have long advocated allowing the aircraft
to wander into international airspace despite concerns about violating
international broadcasting regulations. But the Cuban government
considers all Martí broadcasts provocations that violate international law.
Miami Republican Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart told The Miami Herald in an
interview earlier this year that the aircraft ``should be able to fly
from wherever it has to fly so that the signal can't be jammed.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/15504475.htm
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