WASHINGTON: The United States is likely riddled with Cuban spies who are
sharing their intelligence with US foes and rivals like Iran, Russia and
China, the Pentagon's top spy-catcher said on Wednesday.
Scott Carmichael, the burly head of counter-intelligence at the Defence
Intelligence Agency (DIA), was the lead investigator who exposed former
DIA analyst Ana Montes as a long-serving Cuban agent in 2001.
"The ease with which they recruited Ana Montes leads me to strongly
believe there are others," Carmichael, who has published a book about
the Montes case called "True Believer," said at the American Enterprise
Institute (AEI).
The spy-hunter said he had written the book "because I wanted to
heighten public awareness of the threat that continues to be posed to
our national security by the Cuban intelligence operations."
He said that Cuba "shares her information ... with countries like Iran,
China, Russia, other countries who have interests maybe inimical to
those of the United States." Montes is serving a 25-year jail term in
Texas after being convicted of spying for Cuba over two decades. She
could have faced the death penalty but reached a plea deal by agreeing
to cooperate with federal investigators.
After joining the DIA, the military equivalent of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), in 1985, Montes rose to become the US
intelligence community's "queen of Cuba" with an influential role in
shaping government policy.
But Carmichael said she had already been recruited by Cuban intelligence
in 1984. She "never took a dime" from her secret bosses in Havana and
was a "model employee" who for years operated with a low profile,
convinced that US policy on Fidel Castro's regime was "dead wrong."
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