Cuba Boosted Defenses In Fear Of US Attack In 2003

Cuba Boosted Defenses In Fear Of US Attack In 2003 -Report

HAVANA (AFP)--In mid-2003, Cuba faced the greatest risk of a U.S. attack
since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and was forced to boost its
defenses, the official Cuban daily Granma reported Friday.

President Raul Castro told the National Defense Council that in 2003
Cuban authorities believed then U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld
was planning a huge attack against the communist-run island.

"It was most dangerous moment ever to face our country since the missile
crisis of 1962," he told the council, according to Granma.

The newspaper alleged that the purported attack had been endorsed by
then Vice President Dick Cheney, and President George W. Bush.

"The situation prompted the party's central committee at a meeting on
July 15, 2003, to boost and accelerate measures to strengthen the
country's defenses," Granma wrote.

The island's defenses are still maintained in a state of readiness,
Castro said. "Let's avoid war and so win it," he added.

The discovery in October 1962 that Moscow was secretly building nuclear
missile launchpads in Cuba pushed the world close to nuclear war in a
terrifying 13-day brinkmanship between the Soviet Union and the United
States.

Cuba Boosted Defenses In Fear Of US Attack In 2003 -Report (4 July 2009)
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