Bush minaccia di estendere la guerra anche a Cuba

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

War on terror may extend to Cuba
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 7, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk

The US threatened to extend its war on terror to Cuba yesterday, accusing
Fidel Castro's regime of developing biological weapons and sharing its
expertise with Washington's enemies.
In a speech called Beyond the Axis of Evil, the undersecretary of state John
Bolton presented no evidence for his claims, pointing only to Cuba's
advanced biomedical industry and Mr Castro's visits last year to three
"rogue states" accused by the the US state department of sponsoring
terrorism: Iraq, Syria and Libya.
"States that renounce terror and abandon WMD [weapons of mass destruction]
can become part of our effort," Mr Bolton said. "But those that do not can
expect to become our targets."
Critics of the Bush administration's policies in Latin America described the
accusation as an attempt to exploit popular support for the war on terror to
pursue a rightwing political agenda.
The administration has also accused Farc rebels in Colombia of supporting
anti-US terrorism, while calling for increased military aid to Bogota.
Larry Birns, head of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs thinktank in
Washington, said yesterday: "What is dangerous now is that the
anti-terrorist war has no standards and no criteria. It is whatever the Bush
administration says it is at any given moment."
Mr Bolton, a rightwinger appointed against the wishes of the moderate
secretary of state, Colin Powell, told the conservative Heritage Foundation:
"For four decades Cuba has maintained a well-developed and sophisticated
biomedical industry, supported until 1990 by the Soviet Union.
"This industry is one of the most advanced in Latin America, and leads in
the production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are sold worldwide.
Analysts and Cuban defectors have long cast suspicion on the activities
conducted in these biomedical facilities."
A 1998 US government re port concluded that Cuba represented no significant
threat to the US, but Mr Bolton said its menace had been underestimated by
the Clinton administration, because of to the malign influence of Cuban
agents.
He pointed to the example of Ana Belen Montes, a senior Cuba analyst at the
defence intelligence agency who was discovered to be a Cuban spy. She
pleaded guilty to espionage in March.
"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.
· Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, provided a bleak assessment
yesterday of the country's chances of averting war with America. He was
speaking the day after Colin Powell indicated that the US might take action
even if Baghdad allowed UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq.
In a rare interview, Mr Aziz questioned whether the US was simply looking
for a pretext to attack his country.



Nello

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