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Yahoo! May 22, 2002.
Former President Carter discusses Cuba with Bush
Tue May 21,10:20 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Former President Carter, just back from a high-profile visit to
Cuba, met Tuesday night with President Bush (news - web sites) to discuss the
communist-governed island, White House officials said.
There was no announcement of what the White House called a private meeting.
No details of their conversation were released.
"President Carter asked for it and he wanted to share his reflections
on Cuba," White House spokeswoman Jeanne Mamo said.
Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo said National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice arranged the meeting when Carter informed her that he would be
in Washington on Tuesday.
Congileo said Carter had already sent a report about the Cuba trip to the
Bush administration.
Carter rankled the Bush administration with his pronouncements during his
visit last week suggesting that the Bush administration should ease the
4-decade-old trade embargo against President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s
government and lift the ban on travel to Cuba by most Americans.
Bush traveled to Miami and reaffirmed Tuesday to Cuban-Americans that he
would not lift the embargo unless Cuba would enact sweeping economic and
political changes.
Carter also briefed several members of Congress. That session also was
closed to reporters.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., who sat in on the
session, said 40 to 50 members attended, mostly Democrats.
The former president "didn't really get into" his views on Bush's
policy, Dodd said.
Bush's Cuba policy is driven by domestic politics - Analysis
Wed May 22, 3:27 Am Et . By George Gedda, Associated Press
Writer
WASHINGTON - The United States and Cuba have not had normal relations in 41
years. Judging by the demands President George W. Bush (news - web sites) has
set forth, it's not going to happen any time soon.
"Full normalization of relations with Cuba — diplomatic
recognition, open trade and a robust aid program — will only be possible
when Cuba has a new government that is fully democratic, when the rule of law is
respected, and when the human rights of all Cubans are fully protected,"
Bush said.
No other country is asked to meet that standard, and it's doubtful any
could. Certainly China couldn't, nor Vietnam nor a host of Arab and African
countries with which the United States maintains fully normal relations without
strings.
Last January, the Bush administration tripled U.S. assistance to Uzbekistan
just two days after President Islam Karimov conducted a referendum widely
criticized as fraudulent. As a neighbor of Afghanistan (news - web sites),
Uzbekistan is considered by the administration as a key player in the war on
terrorism. It gets plenty of slack from Washington.
Bush outlined his demands about Cuba in two speeches Monday — one a
sober address in the White House, the second a stem-winder in Miami that kept
the thousands of Cuban-Americans present on their feet, arms thrust upward.
Countries tend to reach out to ideologically opposite regimes at times of
national peril. The U.S.-Soviet alliance forged during World War II contributed
greatly to Nazi Germany's defeat, and spared the lives of countless American
soldiers.
Years later, President Richard M. Nixon sought detente with China's
repressive regime, seeing Beijing as a valuable ally against the Soviet Union.
His initiative was well received.
There are no such compelling national security reasons for seeking
accommodation with Cuba. Indeed, there are strong domestic political reasons for
not doing so, says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center
for Politics.
Sabato says Cuban-Americans have an influence far in excess of their numbers
because they are concentrated in a state with a large number of electoral votes
and which is evenly split, as the 2000 presidential election showed.
There also is what Sabato calls "the double Bush factor." The
president not only helps himself in Florida by bashing Cuba's communist
president, Fidel Castro (news - web sites), but also helps Bush's younger
brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, who happens to be up for re-election in November.
The United States often sees merit in trying to engage unfriendly states.
Two of the three members of Bush's "axis of evil" — North Korea
(news - web sites) and Iran — fall into this category. Neither is told that
democratic reforms are the price for normal relations. But without contact,
Washington has no way of influencing them to halt their military buildups.
Double standards tend to be a normal part of statecraft. Castro, for
example, has ranted for years about his "imperialist" neighbor to the
north. But he applauded the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and
remained largely silent when Moscow invaded Afghanistan 11 years later.
For all of Bush's anti-Castro fervor, a new alliance is developing between
Cuba and U.S. lawmakers from farm states, which have benefited from a sudden
surge of exports — more than dlrs 90 million — to the island over the
past few months.
They see 40 years of economic embargo against Cuba as a failure and see no
reason why Americans should not be able to travel freely to Cuba. Bush has vowed
to veto any bill that eases restrictions in either area.
It's hard to remember a time when forces opposed to the embargo have been
stronger.
Sabato believes that if Cuba's market were the same as China's (it's about
100 times smaller), Bush would not be making the kind of speeches that he made
on Monday. If that were the case, Sabato says, pro-democracy sentiments would
fade, and Castro would be seen as a man Americans could do business with.
"My guess is we would make the pragmatic choice," he says.
EDITOR'S NOTE — George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The
Associated Press since 1968.
Iran's ambassador denies Cuba transfers technology to his country for
use in germ warfare
Tue May 21, 5:34 PM ET By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press
Writer
HAVANA - Iran's ambassador to Cuba on Tuesday denied U.S. allegations that
the Caribbean nation transfers technology to countries such as his for germ
warfare, insisting that Havana's scientific agreements with Tehran are purely
for lifesaving technology.
Ambassador Seyed D. Salehi told a news conference that under a 1998
agreement, Cuba has provided technology allowing Iran to vaccinate a large
percentage of its children for hepatitis B. That agreement also calls for Cuba
to transfer interferon to Iran for treatment of hepatitis, AIDS (news - web
sites) and cancer, as well as other medicines for heart attacks, blood
circulation and kidney ailments, he said.
"I fully reject the allegations made by State Undersecretary John
Bolton," Salehi said, referring to the U.S. official's claim earlier this
month that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and
development effort and was sharing its technology with other "rogue states."
Salehi's news conference, scheduled days in advance, fell on the same day
that the U.S. State Department released its annual report on state sponsors of
terrorism. The report named Iran the world's most active sponsors of terrorist
acts.
Salehi said his country did not belong on the list.
"We are the victims of terrorism," the ambassador said. "During
eight years of war, it was the Western countries that used chemical weapons our
soldiers."
Cuba was also on the U.S. list, along with Iraq, Libya, North Korea (news -
web sites), Sudan and Syria. The report said at least 20 Basque militants and
several other terror suspects are given haven in Cuba.
Castro insists he opposes terrorism of all kinds and officials here made a
point of ensuring they had signed all 12 U.N. counter-terror conventions after
the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. | 
