More interaction with Cuba denied

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Thu, May. 17, 2007
More interaction with Cuba denied
A Pentagon request for more contacts with Cuba has been denied as Cuba and Venezuela intelligence operation languishes for lack of staff and money, a former official said.
BY PABLO BACHELET
[e-mail]

WASHINGTON -- A recent Pentagon request for more military-to-military contacts with Cuba was denied and a special intelligence office created to closely monitor Cuba and Venezuela has ''practically disappeared,'' due to staff and budget cuts, the office's former head said Wednesday.

Norman Bailey, who until March was mission manager for Cuba and Venezuela at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said the State Department recently blocked the Pentagon request to allow its military attachés abroad to contact their Cuban counterparts.
(snip)

Only a Coast Guard representative at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana is allowed to talk to Cuban government officials on matters like migration and drug trafficking. The U.S. commander at the Guantánamo Naval Base also holds periodic talks with Cuban military officers to avert tensions.

But further contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military have long been resisted by the U.S. government in part because of fears that Cuban intelligence officers would take advantage of U.S. military officers, said Roger Noriega.


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/109389.html

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Why do Cuban military officers want to take advantage of our helpless, innocent, unsuspecting U.S. military officers? Thank god Roger Noriega is protecting them!



Roger Noriega

[roody]

1. k

[Mika]

2. And we all know that lil ol' USofA would NEVER take advantage of Cubans.

I mean, if relations w/Cuba were ever normalized it would destroy the political careers of so many Florida politicians and destroy the taxpayer funding of so many foundations and study groups.

C'mon. S Florida really can't afford to take such risks.

[Billy Burnett]

3. Good! The less that Americans know about Cuba the better.

Americans have nothing to learn from the Cubans in Cuba.

:sarcasm:

[damntexdem]

4. Expanded U.S. military links with Cuba are denied because ...

the U.S. wants to keep Cuba behind its ghetto walls. Any idiocy will be accepted in order to maintain those ghetto walls.