Dodd Would End Cuba Embargo if Elected

[Karmadillo]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gCEp7iOFVLh21xrekjorNcPKq9QQ

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Democrat Christopher Dodd pledged Saturday that as president he would end a decades-old trade embargo with Cuba and lift travel restrictions to the communist island.

The Connecticut senator also said he would open an embassy in Havana and shut down the 17-year-old TV Marti, a U.S. government-run station that broadcasts to Cuba.

"Other than the war in Iraq, no other American policy is more broadly unpopular internationally," Dodd said of American policy toward Cuba.

Dodd called the policy an "abject failure." As president, he said he would seek a repeal of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which strengthened the U.S. embargo against Cuba. He also said taxpayers should not spend millions of dollars annually on TV Marti, which virtually no one in Cuba sees, and that he would reform its companion, Radio Marti.

The senator, who trails better known rivals in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he would work to establish U.S. mail service to Cuba. He added he would make staying in touch with family on the island easier for Cuban-Americans, by allowing U.S. companies to lower prices for phone calls there.

Dodd answered several questions in the Spanish, a language he honed while serving in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. He said he has faith in the Cuban community, and in their willingness to take a look at his policy, though Cuban-Americans generally oppose any lifting of the trade embargo.

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[indepat]

1. Boy, will Dodd be painted soft on communism with the broadest 'puke brush

[Flabbergasted]

2. I'm glad he said it.