U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
More interaction with Cuba denied
A Pentagon request for more contacts with Cuba has been denied as a Cuba
and Venezuela intelligence operation languishes for lack of staff and
money, a former official said.
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON --
A recent Pentagon request for more military-to-military contacts with
Cuba was denied and a special intelligence office created to closely
monitor Cuba and Venezuela has ''practically disappeared,'' due to staff
and budget cuts, the office's former head said Wednesday.
Norman Bailey, who until March was mission manager for Cuba and
Venezuela at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI),
said the State Department recently blocked the Pentagon request to allow
its military attachés abroad to contact their Cuban counterparts.
The Venezuela and Cuba mission manager post was established last year by
John Negroponte, then ODNI's chief. He acted on instructions from
President Bush amid concerns over the threat to U.S. interests posed by
Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chávez and the consequences of
Fidel Castro's illness.
After three months on the job, Bailey, an economic consultant and Cold
War expert, was fired by Mike McConnell, who replaced Negroponte in the
job of coordinating the work of 16 government intelligence agencies and
programs.
Bailey said he was initially told the position was being eliminated, but
McConnell denied this in a March 14 letter to House members. He wrote
that he was looking for a replacement and that the position ``has not
been diminished in any way.''
OFFICE `DISAPPEARED'
But at a gathering at the conservative American Enterprise Institute
think tank to discuss the impact on the U.S. military of Ana Belén
Montes, a Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba analyst convicted of spying
for Havana, Bailey painted a different picture.
''The fact is that office has practically disappeared,'' he said, noting
that with his dismissal and one resignation its staff has dropped to one
full timer and one half-timer.
ODNI spokesman Ross Feinstein declined to comment on personnel matters
but said that a replacement search was under way and that Patrick Maher,
a 33-year CIA veteran who specializes on Latin American issues, is the
acting mission manager for Cuba and Venezuela.
Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said she has voiced her
''great regret'' on the administration's failure so far to replace
Bailey. She added that at a classified hearing next week with ODNI
officials on the damages caused by Montes' spying, she will press for a
replacement ``who will ensure that we have the information necessary to
address the Castro and Chávez threats.''
The State Department and the Defense Department declined to discuss
Bailey's comment on the State Department's rejection of the Pentagon
request, but other U.S. government officials confirmed the request.
In the past, U.S. military attachés abroad were reprimanded even if they
entered into casual conversations with their Cuban counterparts.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Only a Coast Guard representative at the U.S. diplomatic mission in
Havana is allowed to talk to Cuban government officials on matters like
migration and drug trafficking. The U.S. commander at the Guantánamo
Naval Base also holds periodic talks with Cuban military officers to
avert tensions.
But further contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military have long been
resisted by the U.S. government in part because of fears that Cuban
intelligence officers would take advantage of U.S. military officers,
said Roger Noriega.
Noriega, who until 2005 was assistant secretary of state for the Western
Hemisphere, said at the conference he had ``killed that idea more than
once.''
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