Cuba and Bioweapons

Obviously not having learned from questionable claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Bush administration is recycling the charge uttered by the very definition of a loose cannon, John Bolton earlier this year that Cuba was developing dual use bioweapons technology and selling it to rogue states.

Here's what a Bush administration official said last year to the Washington Post on this subject:

A Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Cuba has "a number of projects that are what could be dual-use things, but they're probably not. . . . It's a question more of them exciting suspicions by not being open. I don't know of any tangible stuff that shows yes, they are making anthrax [or anything else]. There is stuff we don't know about."

Here's what Assistant Secretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs said to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday:

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.

If you read this blog regularly, you'll agree that my position regarding Cuba is clear and unambiguous: pro-democracy, pro-human rights, anti-Castro.

That being said, this really strikes me as silly. While I certainly wouldn't have put it past them when Cuba was a Soviet client state, it's worth noting the last paragraph in this story published today:

Washington, which lists Cuba along with North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and Sudan as states that sponsor terrorism, twice accused Castro's government last year of running a biological weapons program. Bush officials making the charges failed to produce any evidence. [my emphasis]

God, don't they ever learn?

Comments

[latinopundit]

As they say, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

[Nick Barnes]

don't they ever learn?

Sure they do. They learn that when they produce [fabricated] evidence, people notice.

[Michael J. Totten]

Nick,

If you were right, they would produce fabricated evidence on Cuba.

Did Bill Clinton and the European governments fabricate evidence on Iraq, too? That's a pretty big accusation and I just can't see the motivation.

[Randy Paul]

With regard to Iraq, it is worth noting what Colin Powell said here on February 24, 2001:

We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue. [my emphasis]

So, what changed in Iraq between then and March 2003?

[Michael J. Totten]

Randy,

Do you think Saddam Hussein unilaterally disarmed himself after the UN inspectors left in 1998, then chose not to tell anyone about it?

I doubt that very seriously, especially since every intelligence agency in the world knew Saddam had nasty weapons. There is just no way that the French, Russian, Israeli, and British intelligence services lied for George Bush's political gain.

Remember Occam's Razor.

[Randy Paul]

Michael,

If you’re going to invoke Occam’s Razor, then consider the possibility that the December 1998 bombing of Iraq destroyed much of the WMD’s as well as the capacity to create more WMD’s. The notion that he unilaterally disarmed is not the only other alternative. The question remains, then, where are the WMD’s?

My question in my previous comment then remains: what happened in Iraq between February 2001, when Colin Powell, undoubtedly fresh from security briefings during the Clinton-Bush transition made the statement I quoted? If something significant happened and the administration has proof of this, why not show it to the world?

Getting back to my original post, the administration is making these claims about Cuba and has been making them for nearly eighteen months without a scintilla of proof. This, in my opinion, is only to bolster their listing Cuba along with North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and Sudan as states that sponsor terrorism, and their own credibility be damned.

I’m sure you’ll agree that I hold no brief for Fidel, but the Bush administration does not help the cause for freedom in Cuba by making spurious, inflammatory claims.

[Michael J. Totten]

This, in my opinion, is only to bolster their listing Cuba along with North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and Sudan as states that sponsor terrorism, and their own credibility be damned.

Here I do agree with you. I never bought the Cuba story either. And I know you are no fan of Fidel, no worries.

[serial catowner]

I wonder if a people ever learn from their mistakes, as in "You can't fool me like that again". I don't have any examples of this kind of learning just leaping off the top of my brain. If you think about Vietnam, remember that we didn't need to learn the "not again" lesson, the military made sure it didn't happen again regardless of what we thought. Just a thot...

[Randy Paul]

Michael,

The Cuba claims issue does underscore the administration's tendency to play fast and loose with accusations that are not based on available evidence. I think that should worry us all.