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U.S. softens weapons charge against Cuba
By WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
08/31/05 "Kansas
City Star" -- -- WASHINGTON — The Bush administration backed away Tuesday from claims that Cuba has an offensive biological weapons effort.
There is a “split view” among intelligence analysts on the question, the administration acknowledges in a report to Congress.
The report says that Cuba has the “technical capability” to pursue biological weapons research and development because of its advanced pharmaceutical industry. But it left open the critical question of whether Cuba has done so.
The State Department report apparently marks the first time that the U.S. government has publicly softened its earlier charge, which has been controversial from the outset.
Then-Undersecretary of State John Bolton had tried to reassign two intelligence analysts at the State Department and National Intelligence Council who had challenged Bolton’s view that Cuba had bio-war capabilities, according to testimony at Bolton’s nomination hearing to become United Nations ambassador.
Democrats prevented a full Senate vote on Bolton’s nomination. President Bush circumvented lawmakers with a recess appointment Aug. 1.
The State Department report, mandated by Congress, assesses other nations’ compliance with their arms-control obligations.
It repeats U.S. charges that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon in violation of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The new finding on Cuba is based on a U.S. intelligence-community-wide assessment, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, completed last year.
In that estimate, which is classified, “the Intelligence Community unanimously held that it was unclear whether Cuba has an active biological weapons effort now, or even had one in the past,” the State Department report said.
Cuba has denied any biological weapons work.
Copyright: Kansas City Star
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