Havana security keeps U.S. in the dark

Posted on Fri, Aug. 04, 2006

FIDEL CASTRO
Havana security keeps U.S. in the dark

BY LESLEY CLARK AND PABLO BACHELET
pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON - At a time when Fidel Castro is ill and his
brother-successor is mysteriously missing from public view, the Bush
administration is admitting that it's in the dark on what's really going
on in the island 90 miles from Key West.

''Our insight into the decision-making process of . . . this particular
dictatorship isn't that great,'' State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said Thursday, three days after Castro ceded power to his
brother following what was described as complicated surgery to stem
gastrointestinal bleeding.

''I don't think there are too many people outside that small core group
of people who run Cuba who really know what is going on. I don't have an
assessment for you on Fidel Castro's health,'' McCormack said.

President Bush issued a statement later saying the U.S. government is
''actively monitoring the situation in Cuba'' following Castro's
temporary transfer of his powers to Defense Minister Raúl Castro, who
has yet to make a public appearance.

But U.S. officials have confessed ignorance on events in Cuba in private
encounters with lawmakers and other Cuba watchers, people in contact
with administration officials say.

White House spokesman Tony Snow has attributed the lack of information
to Cuba's status as a ''closed society'' -- a government controlled
media and a long tradition of secrecy because of fears of U.S. attacks.

Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, a Cuba native who has met with President
Bush and other high-ranking administration officials in recent days,
acknowledged Thursday that ``sometimes people in Miami know more than
what the government knows.''

''I've asked and we don't have any more information than what the Cuban
government has released,'' Martinez said.

LIPS SEALED

The Bush administration is not alone in being mystified by events in Havana.

A diplomat with the Organization of American States, who asked for
anonymity so as not to affect his country's relations with Havana, said
the Cuban government has been ''pretty hermetically sealed'' since
Monday. His embassy in Havana had no information on recent events, he
said. The United States was ''blind down there,'' he said, because U.S.
diplomats are confined to Havana and under heavy vigilance.

Another European diplomat who attended an encounter to discuss Cuba at
the State Department said the administration ``was as confused as we are.''

DOUBLE AGENTS

Cuba's highly regarded intelligence services also have been effective in
denying the island's secrets to Washington. U.S. intelligence officials
have acknowledged that nearly 20 U.S. ''spies'' in Cuba later turned out
to have been double agents working for Havana.

Nearly 20 Cuban spies have been nabbed in the United States, including
Ana Belén Montes, a top Cuba analyst with the Defense Intelligence
Agency in Washington who was convicted of spying for Havana and is now
serving a 25-year sentence.

When asked about what is happening in Cuba these days, officials repeat
what has already been announced in Havana.

''What we hear, it appears that this is a . . . temporary handing off of
power as Fidel Castro undergoes surgery,'' said Commerce Secretary
Carlos Gutierrez. He and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice co-chaired
the multi-agency Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, which spent
nearly six months drafting a 95-page report on what the United States
should do to help bring democracy to Cuba.

''They've said very little. It's not as though it is an open free press
whereby things are known on a timely basis,'' Gutierrez, a Cuban
American, told The Miami Herald Wednesday.

SUSPICIONS

Asked if the entire event was actually a staged dress rehearsal for a
future transition, Gutierrez said, ''I don't know'' but suspected darker
motives. ``There is plenty of experience . . . to suggest that things
are never as they appear and that there is usually a hidden agenda
behind just about everything that comes out of Cuba. What that agenda
is, I don't know.''

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, a member of the House International
Relations Committee, said she wasn't surprised the administration didn't
have any solid intelligence on Cuba because most people in Cuba itself
don't know much about what happens in the top levels of their government.

''I don't think anyone but maybe two or three people in that regime know
what's going on,'' she said. ``It's so tightly controlled and people
know better than to leak, or they pay for it with their lives.''

`NOT WORTH IT'

She suggested it was too risky for the U.S. government to post agents on
the island.

''And it's not been worth it,'' she said. ``Because Castro's days are
numbered one way or the other.''

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