Southcom general Cuba policy needs fresh look

Posted on Fri, May. 26, 2006

CUBA
Southcom general: Cuba policy needs fresh look
Southcom chief Gen. Bantz Craddock says a major review of U.S. Cuba
policy may be in order.
BY PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON - In unusually frank criticism of U.S. policy on Cuba by a
top military officer, the outgoing head of the Miami-based Southern
Command said Thursday he favors a top-to-bottom review of the policies,
including a long-standing ban on most contacts between the U.S. and
Cuban militaries.

The comments by Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock came just days before
President Bush is to receive a major report on U.S. policies toward the
island, coordinated by the State Department but with input from other
agencies, including the Department of Defense.

''One of the things that we as a government probably don't do well is to
review our policies and our laws routinely, based upon the conditions in
the world changing,'' Craddock said in response to a question about Cuba
during a briefing for a small group of reporters.

''My judgment is we need to relook laws, policies more often to ensure
that they still make sense, given the changing conditions in the
world,'' he said, adding, ``I don't want to make a judgment on whether
or not to change [the Cuba policy], but I think it needs to be re-looked.''

Craddock added that it's time to review the laws ''stem to stern'' and
not just the long-standing ban on military-to-military contacts beyond
the regular talks on purely local issues between U.S. and Cuban military
officers along the fence surrounding the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo.

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Proponents of the broader contacts have argued that the U.S. military
should have regular contacts with Cuban officers to allow for reliable
communications in case of instability on the island and because the
Cuban military is seen as the only institution that can maintain order
in a post-Castro Cuba.

Opponents of the military-to-military contacts say they would do more
harm than good. The Cuban military would likely continue the communist
system on the island, and meetings would expose U.S. officers to Cuban
intelligence penetration.

''We have nothing to gain in such an encounter,'' said Roger Noriega, a
former assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere in the
Bush administration. ``Unfortunately, the record is that the U.S.
military is manipulated by the Cubans. The Cubans put up their most
disciplined, ideological people on that account.''

HEADED TO NATO

Craddock is expected to become NATO commander at Supreme Headquarters
Allied Powers Europe this summer. Navy Vice Adm. James Stavridis, a
close aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has been nominated to
replace Craddock.

Other Southcom commanders have questioned the lack of contacts with the
Cuban military, but only after retiring. Gen. Charles Wilhelm, a
predecessor of Craddock, said in September 2002 that Cuba was a
``47,000-square-mile blind spot in [our] rearview mirror.''

''Sounds like [Craddock] is stepping in the policy realm pretty
heavily,'' said Glenn Baker, director of the U.S.-Cuba Cooperative
Security Project at the World Security Institute, a nonprofit group that
promotes research on defense issues and has arranged trips to Cuba by
retired U.S. officers.

U.S.-Cuba exchanges usually take place through diplomats posted in the
Interest Sections, the quasi-embassies in each other's capitals. The two
sides have had no formal talks since June 2003, when they discussed
migration.

Eric Watnik, a State Department spokesman, declined to comment on
Craddock's remarks. Army Col. Bill Costello, Southcom's chief public
affairs officer, said Craddock's comments reflected the views of the
command but not necessarily those of the Defense Department.

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