[Senate Hearing 107-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CUBA'S PURSUIT OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS: FACT OR FICTION?
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE,
PEACE CORPS AND NARCOTICS AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 5, 2002
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland JESSE HELMS, North Carolina
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA BOXER, California LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia
BILL NELSON, Florida SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
Virginia
Antony J. Blinken, Staff Director
Patricia A. McNerney, Republican Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE, PEACE
CORPS AND NARCOTICS AFFAIRS
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut, Chairman
BILL NELSON, Florida LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts JESSE HELMS, North Carolina
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Allen, Hon. George, U.S. Senator from Virginia, submissions for
the record:
Cuba's Biological Weapons Program: A Brief History of
Concerns, Questions and Suspicions......................... 17
Does Havana Have a Biological Weapons Program? Excerpts from
``Biohazard'' by Ken Alibek................................ 19
Does Cuba Have Biochemical Weapons? Article by Maria C.
Werlau..................................................... 20
Ford, Hon. Carl W., Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for
Intelligence and Research, Department of State, Washington, DC. 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
(iii)
CUBA'S PURSUIT OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS: FACT OR FICTION?
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere,
Peace Corps, and Narcotics Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Christopher
J. Dodd (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.
Present: Senators Dodd, Bill Nelson, Chafee, and Allen.
Also present: Senator Levin.
Senator Dodd. The committee will come to order. Good
morning. I want to welcome all of you here this morning to the
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Narcotics
Affairs. We convene this morning in order to review certain
public statements made by members of the Bush administration in
recent months concerning the topic of Cuban biological weapons
[BW] capabilities and the sale of dual-use technology to so-
called rogue states.
The issue of biological weapons is obviously a very serious
matter and we in the U.S. Senate would refrain from the
temptation to play politics with it. So too should the Bush
administration in my view.
John Bolton, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control
and International Security, received a great deal of attention
when he spoke on this topic on May 6 at the Heritage Foundation
here in Washington. The Heritage Foundation, as I am sure
everyone in this room knows, is a conservative think tank
located in this city.
Secretary of State Powell attempted to downplay the
significance of Mr. Bolton's statement when he was questioned
about it during a subsequent television appearance. Secretary
Powell at that time said, and I quote him: ``As Under Secretary
Bolton said recently, we do believe that Cuba has a biological
offensive research capability. We did not say that it actually
had such weapons, but it has the capacity and the capability to
conduct such research. That is not a new statement. I think
that is a statement that has been made previously. So Under
Secretary Bolton's speech which got attention on this issue
again was not breaking new ground as far as the United States
position on this subject goes.''
The ``previous statement'' to which Secretary Powell was
referring was made by Carl Ford, our witness here this morning,
who is the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and
Research, who will be testifying briefly. It is true that Mr.
Ford touched upon this subject in March of this year in the
course of testimony before this committee on the subject of
biological weapons. Mr. Ford spent a minute or two and 4 lines
of his testimony on this matter. He said at that time, and I
quote him: ``The United States believes that Cuba has at least
a limited developmental offensive biological warfare research
and developmental effort. Cuba has provided dual-use
biotechnology to rogue states. We are concerned that such
technology could support BW programs in those states. We call
on Cuba to cease all BW-applicable cooperation with rogue
states and to fully comply with all of its obligations under
the Biological Weapons Convention.''
Mr. Ford's remarks received very little attention, either
during the hearing or subsequently. No tribute at all to your
eloquence, Carl. It just did not receive that much attention.
In contrast, Mr. Bolton spent considerably more time on the
subject in a very different setting. He also suggested in the
course of those remarks that previous U.S. intelligence
assessments on the subject of Cuba's potential threat to U.S.
security were, and I quote him, ``unbalanced and understated
that threat.''
It was in that context that he mentioned Cuba's ``limited
offensive biological warfare research and developmental
effort.'' Unlike Mr. Ford, Mr. Bolton omitted Mr. Ford's
characterization of the program as being only in the
developmental stage.
So I would respectfully disagree with Secretary Powell when
he said this was old news. Were Mr. Bolton present at this
hearing this morning, as I hoped he would be, we would have
asked him about the content, venue, and timing of his remarks.
We might have inquired why Mr. Bolton never included Cuba in
his remarks last November, only 6 months earlier, when he
testified in Geneva at the Conference on Compliance with the
1972 Biological Weapons Convention, where he publicly named the
states of concern on BW issues.
We would have also inquired whether President Carter's
impending visit to Cuba about a week after the Heritage
Foundation speech, the first by any American President or
former President since Castro assumed power, had anything to do
with the timing of the speech, or why no one in the State
Department or elsewhere in the intelligence community sought to
inform President Carter about this matter in the course of
intelligence briefings of the former President in preparation
of his trip to Cuba, if this was a matter of such deep concern
to the Department.
Unfortunately, Secretary Powell has refused to allow Mr.
Bolton to testify on this matter today because he did not
believe he is the appropriate official to answer questions
about this matter. That puzzles me as chairman of this
subcommittee since he was clearly the appropriate official to
attend the Heritage Foundation event on this subject. I believe
that the Secretary's decision is the wrong decision. Moreover,
I do not know how the Secretary can justify making Mr. Bolton
available to a nongovernmental entity to speak publicly about a
serious matter such as this, yet deny the U.S. Senate and this
subcommittee of jurisdiction access to Mr. Bolton to discuss a
terribly important subject matter.
I am extremely disappointed with the Department's
unwillingness to cooperate on this matter and I intend to
accord matters before the Senate of interest to the Department
with an equivalent level of cooperation until this matter is
resolved.
Having made these preliminary remarks, let me turn now to
the witness that the Department has made available to the
committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and
Research Carl Ford. Carl, I thank you for being here this
morning. And for the record, let me state Carl Ford and I have
known each other for more than 20 years. We have spent it seems
like 8 months during 1 month traveling to China together back
in 1983, I believe it was, almost 20 years ago.
Let me indicate how I intend to proceed this morning, if I
could. Mr. Ford has a few opening remarks which we will hear in
open session. I then have a number of questions which I will
ask Mr. Ford which are not of a classified nature. I am sure my
colleague from Virginia who has joined us here and other
members who show up will have some additional questions of a
nonclassified nature to address to you. Other members will be
joining us as they can this morning.
We will proceed in open session as long as we can without
getting into classified matters, at which point I will go into
executive session.
So Mr. Ford, I would like you to stand, if you would, this
morning, to raise your right hand so I can administer the oath.
Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
Mr. Ford. Yes, sir, I do.
Senator Dodd. Welcome to the committee. Please be seated,
and let me turn to my colleague Mr. Allen, to see if he has any
opening comments he would like to make.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
make some opening remarks. First, insofar as Mr. Ford being
here, I am glad you are here and I look forward to questioning
you. I do not know how much of this as far as your intelligence
capabilities, which I know are extensive, can actually be on
the open record. So we will try to cover as much as we can that
is not classified. We did have a briefing yesterday prior to
this hearing with the chairman.
As far as Secretary Powell and so forth, as I understand it
Under Secretary Bolton is willing to appear at a separate
hearing dealing with policy. Mr. Ford's capabilities are in
intelligence and indeed I think that was the purpose of this,
whether Cuba's pursuit of biological weapons, whether that is
true or false or fact or fiction. And indeed, the statements of
Mr. Bolton at the Heritage Foundation and the statement of Mr.
Ford before this committee a few months earlier are, from what
I can see or determine, identical.
We have Mr. Ford here so we can question him. I guess we
could have another hearing with Mr. Bolton as far as what
policy should be taken. I think the facts are important in
determining our policy, but let us get the facts straight. I
think that we are all too aware of how important the threat is
of chemical or biological weapons in the hands of rogue states
or terrorist organizations and what that could pose as a threat
to the United States.
The anthrax attacks in these buildings right here last fall
underscored the dangers of such weapons to our country. We do
not know whether that is external or internal yet, but
understand the impact it could have. Looking back on those
events, it shows the need for us to be vigilant in uncovering
and dismantling any facilities that could produce such weapons
if mass destruction were the desire, or mass disruption were
the desire of malicious states or terrorist organizations.
Now, that is why I stand behind Under Secretary Bolton's
remarks, which are consistent with Mr. Ford's, which says that
Cuba ``has at least a limited offensive biological research and
development effort,'' and furthermore ``that Cuba has provided
dual-use biotechnology to rogue states.'' So it is certainly a
fact, not fiction, that Cuba has a capability to pursue
biological weapons.
Now, Under Secretary Bolton is not the first government
official to have spoken publicly on this issue. On March 19,
2002, in testimony before this very Foreign Relations Committee
at a hearing addressing the threat of chemical and biological
weapons, our witness here, Assistant Secretary Ford, stated the
United States believed that Cuba has at least a limited
developmental offensive biological warfare research and
development effort.
In fact, it was Assistant Secretary Ford's words that Under
Secretary Bolton precisely echoed verbatim 2 months later at
the Heritage Foundation, and these statements are clearly
supported by intelligence reporting that I have personally
reviewed.
Now, throughout the past decade we have seen numerous
reports addressing Cuba's bioweapons capability. It is a well
known fact that Cuba has one of the most advanced biotechnology
and pharmaceutical industries in the world, ranking near the
top of the World Health Organization's list of countries with
the most developed biological industries, lagging only behind
the G-7.
The well-respected former Deputy Director of Biopreparat,
Ken Alibek, the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, has
acknowledged that his institute trained Cubans in developing
biological weapons and agents. In his 1998 book ``Biohazard,''
Alibek recounts how his boss Major General Yuri Kalinin, head
of the Soviet bioweapons program, made several trips to Cuba to
consult on various biotechnology programs.
That in itself does not prove it, but you see there is a
cause for concern, and that is of public record. Moreover, in
the October issue of ``Nature Biotechnology Journal'' Jose de
la Fuente, the former Director of Research and Development at
Cuba's premier Center for Genetic Engineering and
Biotechnology, reported that Cuba sold technology to Iran that
could--could--be used to produce biological weapons.
Now, Fidel Castro has himself very recently proclaimed, for
example, that Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other,
could bring America to its knees in asserting that we had weak
leadership in this country.
I am deeply troubled by the fact that several rogue states
have received technical assistance from Cuba, potentially--
again potentially--acquiring the technology and expertise to
build biological weapons. Cuba must adhere to its commitment
under the Biological Weapons Convention. Moreover, it must halt
the transfer of sensitive dual-use items and materials that
might be flowing to many countries and potentially into the
hands of terrorist groups that of course we consider as a
direct threat to our allies or to our own national security.
And we must not attempt to whitewash Fidel Castro's record
and the resulting impoverishment of opportunities for those who
cannot leave Cuba. Whether it is human rights abuses on a
national scale, whether it is violating international accords
such as the Biological Weapons Convention, or developing
weapons that could be used against the United States, national
security and American values must prevail over partisan
politics.
Mr. Carter, former President Carter, in his recent trip to
Cuba, made several statements relating to the legitimacy of
Cuba's biotechnology industry, dismissing verified concerns
about Cuba's biotechnology efforts, capabilities, and
transfers. The fact of the matter remains, Cuba possesses, and
I quote, ``at least a limited biological weapons research and
development effort,'' and I believe that at a minimum we ought
to work to prevent it from being proliferated either to rogue
states or to terrorist groups.
I look forward to this hearing and thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for calling it.
Senator Dodd. Thank you.
Senator Chafee, any opening comments you would like to
make?
Senator Chafee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling the
hearing. I was fortunate enough to go to Havana in January and
did get a tour of one of the pharmaceutical plants. So I do not
think there is any doubt, as Senator Allen said, that Cuba is a
leader in this area and probably has the capacity to produce
these types of weapons.
I do think that since the dawn of time, when cavemen
sharpened sticks, it has been human nature to pursue weapons.
Whether that is good or bad, I just think it is true. The more
important point is whether there is an intent and where the
animosity might be directed if Cuba is following this path. I
think really that is the more important point.
Certainly they have the capacity from what I saw. At that
pharmaceutical plant, they were developing meningitis vaccines
that we use in Rhode Island. We had an outbreak of meningitis
and used the Cuban vaccine.
So I look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Ford. Thank you.
Senator Dodd. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ford, thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF HON. CARL W. FORD, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH, DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, first let me simply state that my
presence here alone is not to suggest to you or the committee
that the Department is not prepared to answer any policy
implications that might come from my presentation. The
Secretary is planning to be here this afternoon, as I think you
know. He will take any questions that you may have directly
about his views on the subject or the Heritage speech or what
Mr. Bolton said.
If that does not answer all the committee's questions, then
he is prepared to have Mr. Bolton come up at a time of your
convenience to answer any other questions that you may have. Or
other officials from the Department.
Senator Dodd. I appreciate that, Carl. I certainly am going
to talk to the Secretary about it this afternoon. It is an
awful long way to get around to it. Someone obviously gave him
permission to testify before the Heritage Foundation. I am just
very disappointed that a coequal branch of government, when the
statements are made in a public forum as they were, provoking
as much discussion as it did, that asking that official to
appear before this committee to explain how it was that he
managed to make those remarks, whether or not they were based
on the kind of intelligence we have gathered, I find it
disappointing that I have got to go through the Secretary of
State, go through you, be turned down as not the right
official, and then maybe down the road he can come and testify.
If he can show up at the Heritage Foundation, he can show
up at the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Ford. Well, the only thing I can say is that it was
certainly not the Department's intention to deny you or the
committee access to our policy officials. What the Secretary
feels strongly about, and I agree with, is that there should be
a clear separation in our Department from intelligence and
policymakers. I do not tell them what to say and they better
not tell me what I say. That is the way we operate. That's the
way we think it is best done. So that by having us both appear,
the Secretary believes it puts the policy and intelligence too
close together.
But on his part there is no intention not to come to you
directly or send Secretary Bolton or anyone else that you might
like to talk about this subject.
But when it is intelligence, you get me. When you want to
talk policy, you get him or one of the other policy officials.
That is simply the way that we have decided that we should
operate when it comes to intelligence and policy.
But I have a brief statement if I might present. It is my
pleasure to come before the subcommittee today to discuss the
issue of what we in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research
[INR] assess to be Cuba's efforts to date in the area of
biological warfare. My remarks in this open forum will
necessarily be limited owing to the need to protect sensitive
intelligence information. But I would welcome the opportunity
and am prepared to give classified remarks in a closed session.
On March 19, as you indicated, in my statement in front of
the full committee, I stated INR's judgment that the United
States believes that Cuba has at least a limited developmental
offensive biological warfare research and development effort.
Cuba has provided dual-use technology to rogue states. We are
concerned that such technology could support BW programs in
those states.
That assessment and our concerns have not changed in the
intervening 2\1/2\ months. Among the various weapons of mass
destruction [WMD], biological warfare is perhaps the most
difficult to clearly identify, absent unambiguous, reliable
intelligence information, owing to the dual-use nature of the
technology and materials used to support a BW program. In
today's world many nations, including Cuba, have in place
robust biotechnology infrastructures, as some of the world's
best scientific talent has turned to this avenue of modern
science to promote medical and agricultural advances in their
countries.
Distinguishing legitimate biotech work from work that is
pursued to support either offensive or defensive BW efforts or
programs continues to be a difficult intelligence challenge. In
a nutshell, since basic BW production does not require large,
sophisticated programs or facilities, it makes the intelligence
assessment function more complicated.
Cuba has several facilities involved in biologically
related efforts in agriculture, medicine, and veterinary
science which, as in any country, could be used for illicit
purposes. This dual-use problem presents all who are committed
to combating the BW threat with the dilemma of how best to
assess the capabilities of any given facility against the
intent to develop biological weapons.
What then can I say about the evidence for our assessment?
The nature of biological weapons makes it difficult to procure
clear, incontrovertible proof that a country is engaged in
illicit biological weapons research, production, weaponization,
and stockpiling. Cuba's sophisticated denial and deception
practices make our task even more difficult.
That said, we have a sound basis for our judgment that Cuba
has at least a limited developmental offensive biological
warfare research and development effort. I am prepared to
discuss the evidence we do have in a closed session or leave
behind a classified statement for the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Carl W. Ford, Jr., Assistant Secretary of
State for Intelligence and Research
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
It is my pleasure to come before the Subcommittee today to discuss
the issue of what we in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research assess
to be Cuba's efforts to date in the area of biological warfare. My
remarks in this open forum will necessarily be limited owing to the
need to protect sensitive intelligence information, but I would welcome
the opportunity and am prepared to give classified remarks in a closed
session.
On March 19, in my statement in front of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, I stated INR's judgment that:
The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited,
developmental, offensive biological warfare research and
development effort. Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to
rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could
support BW programs in those states.
That assessment and our concerns have not changed in the
intervening 2\1/2\ months.
Among the various weapons of mass destruction (WMD) disciplines,
biological warfare (BW) is perhaps the most difficult to clearly
identify, absent unambiguous reliable intelligence information, owing
to the dual-use nature of the technology and materials used to support
a BW program. In today's world, many nations, including Cuba, have in
place robust biotechnology infrastructures, as some of the world's best
scientific talent has turned to this avenue of modern science to
promote medical and agricultural advances in their countries.
Distinguishing legitimate biotech work from work that is pursued to
support either offensive or defensive BW efforts or programs continues
to be a difficult intelligence challenge. In a nutshell, since basic BW
production does not require large, sophisticated programs or facilities
it makes the intelligence assessment function more complicated.
Cuba has several facilities involved in biological-related efforts
in agriculture, medicine and veterinary science, which, as in any
country, could be used for illicit purposes. This dual-use problem
presents all who are committed to combating the BW threat with the
dilemma of how best to assess the capabilities of any given facility
against the intent to develop biological weapons.
What then can I say about the evidence for our assessment? The
nature of biological weapons makes it difficult to procure clear,
incontrovertible proof that a country is engaged in illicit biological
weapons research, production, weaponization and stockpiling. Cuba's
sophisticated denial and deception practices make our task even more
difficult. That said we have a sound basis for our judgment that Cuba
has at least a limited, developmental, offensive biological warfare
research and development effort. I am prepared to discuss the evidence
we do have in a closed session or leave behind a classified statement
for the record.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Senator Dodd. Thank you. Let me just say regarding this, my
concern and I think the concern of many of us is obviously, as
a result of September 11 and events even before that, a high
degree of interest in terrorism and the fact that we have now
been victimized very directly by it here. How we allocate our
resources, how we allocate our attention, is going to be
critically important.
In fact, if Cuba poses a direct threat to the United States
and our allies, then we need to respond to that. If they do not
in that assessment--and that is why the intelligence assessment
is so critically important, that if we are off chasing an issue
here that is not substantiated by facts, then we are
misallocating resources, time and attention where it could be
spent in other places.
So the issue becomes very, very important and therefore the
background of how this assessment is made is going to be also
very worthwhile.
I am going to put a clock on each one of us here for 10
minutes in the first go-around and we will see how that works
in terms of questions. Let me begin by a series of questions if
I can, Mr. Ford, for you. One, has the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research which you head recently changed its assessment
with respect to Cuba's potential biological weapons capability
and programs?
Mr. Ford. No.
Senator Dodd. It's been the same assessment?
Mr. Ford. The last time that the intelligence community did
a National Intelligence Estimate was in 1999 and we have
refined and we know a little bit more than we did then, so that
there has been some modification, improvement of our analysis,
but no major radical or even minor change. It's basically the
same judgment we made in 1999.
Senator Dodd. So the assessment by Mr. Bolton that it's
unbalanced, an unbalanced assessment, in his speech that he
gave before the Heritage Foundation?
Mr. Ford. The history of the words on BW in that speech
were, as I understand it, Secretary Bolton invited the
intelligence community [IC] to provide him with some words that
he could use in a speech on BW. He was very careful, I think,
not to suggest words to the community for clearance. He asked
them: What do you think, what do you say?
So that they came up with the lines in the speech and
presented those to INR to take back to Secretary Bolton for his
use. As I understand it, his speech was postponed. I wasn't
aware of this. I had a requirement on short notice to come up
and brief the committee on chemical weapons [CW] and biological
weapons worldwide. Apparently those words that had been
approved for Mr. Bolton were picked by my staff to insert in my
presentation to the full committee, and so that I then
presented that information that had been cleared by the IC.
When it came time for Mr. Bolton to give his speech a month
or two later, he then took the same language that had been
approved earlier by the community and stuck it into his
Heritage speech. But those words were our words, the
intelligence community's words, not his. But the speech was
his, not ours.
Senator Dodd. Well, he characterized the 1998 report as
unbalanced and underplaying the threat posed by Cuba. You tell
me there was no change at all in the assessments, my first
question to you. And his response in his speech was calling it
unbalanced and underplaying the situation, the previous
assessment. This is the same assessment.
Mr. Ford. Right. This is not to divert the question, but I
think that what Secretary Bolton intended or meant in his
speech would be best asked of Secretary Bolton. And as I said--
--
Senator Dodd. I'm just asking you on the assessment as an
intelligence assessment.
Mr. Ford. Our assessment from 1999 to 2002 has changed
little. The only thing that we would say differently is that I
don't think that we would have to footnote to emphasize that it
was an effort, not a program, which INR did in 1999. I think
the rest of the community now feels as strongly as we do that
the evidence will support that there is a BW, limited BW
offensive development program--an effort, but not a program. So
that the community's view has been refined. We would no longer
have to make a footnote to emphasize that all of us agree that
it's not a program. They would say that themselves.
Senator Dodd. I'm told by staff, your staff, that each word
is selected very carefully and debated rather extensively.
Mr. Ford. True.
Senator Dodd. Because each word is terribly important.
Mr. Ford. That's correct.
Senator Dodd. You used the word ``developmental'' in your
testimony. Mr. Bolton specifically left the word out, as well
as other language. Now, is there some--do you consider that
word important?
Mr. Ford. The word of course is important, but my
understanding was that the words were identical. But I
personally have not looked at the Heritage speech. I have just
simply taken it on face value that the words that we had
presented to Secretary Bolton were the ones used, and I've been
told that's the case.
And if that's the case, I used exactly the same words
because they were the words originally approved for Secretary
Bolton to give in the speech. I just happened to give them
first.
Senator Dodd. Was the entire interagency intelligence
community given an opportunity to review and clear your March
19 testimony?
Mr. Ford. The way we normally submit for intelligence
community clearance, we send--for example, today we sent my
testimony to the NIC, National Intelligence Council, and it's
their responsibility then to ship it around to various members
of the community and to come back with a community-approved
clearance.
But I was very careful in my testimony to say today I'm
speaking for INR, and for Carl Ford. For CIA, for DIA, those
are independent agencies, and on this important subject you
should ask them directly. Now, my sense is that they not only
cleared what I said, but they also agree with what I said. But
that's something you should test for yourself by asking the
various other members of the intelligence community their
views.
Senator Dodd. Well, was it at your initiative that the Cuba
material be included in your March 19 testimony or did that
come from some other bureau?
Mr. Ford. The requirement was to do a worldwide chemical-
biological warfare presentation at the unclassified level to
the full committee, that the chairman and others were
interested in an initiative on that subject this year on the
committee. So that we put together a worldwide brief. Cuba is
one of the topics that is in--if you ask us for a worldwide
brief on chemical-biological weapons, Cuba would routinely and
naturally appear.
Senator Dodd. Well, there was a speech given on November
19, 2001, at the Geneva meeting on specifically the subject of
biological weapons, and at that speech Mr. Bolton specifically
left Cuba out. Do you understand why, when he listed almost
every other country that posed somewhat of a threat in this
area, and yet Cuba was not mentioned at all in those comments,
at an audience gathered specifically for that subject matter?
How do you explain 6 months, at an important meeting where
one might assume that if the threat is as described that it
would be mentioned, whereas in a speech before a think tank
here in Washington we find an opposite disclosure?
Mr. Ford. Well, again, I'm not trying to evade your
question. It's obviously a logical and an important question.
But best to ask Mr. Bolton. He was the one that gave both
speeches and both presentations and he will know and can give
you right from the horse's mouth what his intentions were and
what his thoughts were at the time.
Senator Dodd. Did you or your staff at the INR have the
opportunity to review and clear Mr. Bolton's May 6 speech
before delivery?
Mr. Ford. I did not personally look at the speech. Let me
check and see.
[Pause.]
Mr. Ford. My staff tells me that we only looked at the
intel portions of the speech.
Senator Dodd. Did your staff or you have any disagreements
with the draft versions of the speech submitted for clearance
by Mr. Bolton?
Mr. Ford. The portions that were shown us were ones that we
had cleared through the intelligence community process earlier,
so that to the best of my knowledge we didn't--since we didn't
see the speech in its entirety, we only saw those portions that
had to do with CW or BW----
Senator Dodd. But you were given the draft speech, your
staff was?
Mr. Ford. Not to my knowledge.
Senator Dodd. They're saying yes behind you.
[Pause.]
Mr. Ford. Oh, OK. Clarification. I misunderstood. We
received the whole speech, but we only commented on those
portions that were from intelligence.
Senator Dodd. Did you have any disagreements with the draft
speech?
Mr. Ford. On the intelligence side we did not. We approved
it. It was the language that we had provided. Again, it's--the
intelligence--we don't make it a secret within our building
what INR's views are. So that all of the members, Secretary
Bolton, Secretary Powell and others, all know what INR's
position on intelligence is.
But it's not our responsibility or our job to tell the
policymakers what the implications of that intelligence are or
what they should do about particular problems around the world.
Senator Dodd. But if you're going to get into intelligence
matters and make a public speech and you have things in there
that the interagency task force would disagree with, I presume
that point would be made?
Mr. Ford. That point would be made.
Senator Dodd. Was the entire interagency intelligence
community given the opportunity to review and clear the full
content of Mr. Bolton's May 6 Heritage Foundation speech?
Mr. Ford. I don't know.
Senator Dodd. You want to check with your people? Do you
want to ask?
Mr. Ford. I'm sorry?
Senator Dodd. Do you want to ask your people?
Mr. Ford. I don't think they would know, either. I'll take
the question.
Senator Dodd. Well, who would be responsible for ensuring
that interagency clearance is requested and received?
Mr. Ford. The normal process is that if you have a speech
that you want cleared with the intelligence community you bring
that to INR. INR sends it to the National Intelligence Council.
The National Intelligence Council then clears it through the
rest of the community. When we get it back, it has the stamp of
approval from the intelligence community.
In this particular case, the speech itself was not of a
matter of intelligence community responsibility and so that the
only things that were cleared or focused on were those parts
that contained sources and methods and/or that purported to be
the intelligence community's view.
Senator Dodd. Let me ask you one additional question. My
time is up, just to wrap up this line of questioning. It was
not until March, obviously, until your testimony here on March
19, that the administration publicly commented on this specific
issue. What factors influenced the decision to address this
issue publicly? Did any administration officials in the State
Department other than those in the Bureau of INR or in any
other governmental agencies discuss with you the inclusion of
the Cuba matter in your March 19 public testimony?
Mr. Ford. No, sir, they did not.
Senator Dodd. Senator Chafee.
Senator Chafee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Is there any evidence in the past number of years or
decades of the Cuban military using biological weapons in any
of their adventures around the world, whether it is Angola or
anywhere else?
Mr. Ford. Senator Chafee, I would prefer when we start
talking about what I know beyond my unclassified statement, I
would prefer to take that question in closed session, if you
don't mind.
Senator Chafee. Very good. Can you answer how quickly and
easily a biomedical project could be converted into a
bioweapons project?
Mr. Ford. Senator, it's one of the great difficulties for
intelligence analysts, is that most of the procedures for
building an offensive biological warfare capability are--if you
have the capability to do the civilian research on vaccines and
various pathogens, that it is a simple matter to turn that into
at least a limited offensive capability.
We have difficulty even trying to determine where all this
work would be done. It doesn't require a large building. It
doesn't require a lot of special facilities. If you have the
facilities to do medical biotechnological research, you have
the facilities to build a biological weapon, unfortunately.
Senator Chafee. I think one of the reasons for having this
hearing is there is a perception that the speech to the
Heritage Foundation was counter to the administration's policy,
it went too far. And certainly there seems to be a lot of spin
control going on. Even right after the speech, the Secretary of
Defense is putting a different look on it. Major General Speer,
Commander of the Southern Command, is putting another look on
the words that Secretary Bolton used. And here we are even
splitting hairs between whether it is an effort or a program.
Is that accurate? It's an effort; not a program? I don't know
the difference. They seem the same to me.
I guess the main point is that the State Department has the
responsibility to have a unified position and to make sure that
everybody is not saying things to one group that they are not
saying to another. Do you agree with my assessment of the
situation here this morning?
Mr. Ford. I would take some exception to the
characterization of not much difference between a program and
an effort. There really is a difference. We've never tried to
suggest that we have the evidence, the smoking gun, to prove
proof positive that they had a program. A program suggests to
us something far more substantial than what we see in the
evidence.
But we feel very confident about saying that they're
working, working on an effort that would give them a BW, a
limited BW offensive capability. That's serious enough for us
to tell you about it. If we didn't think it was important, if
we didn't think that that was a dangerous thing to occur, we
would have looked at the evidence and said, well, this is all
bogus and there's nothing here worth reporting.
I wouldn't have given it in my March 16 speech, I wouldn't
be back here today telling you they had a limited offensive BW
capability, if I didn't think that was a pretty important thing
for you to know.
Senator Chafee. I guess my followup question would be then,
why would the Secretary of Defense, of all people, not be
concerned that there is an effort 90 miles away from our
borders? He said ``I haven't seen the intelligence'' the day
after Secretary Bolton's speech.
Mr. Ford. Again, as an alumni of the Foreign Relations
Committee staff, one of the things I did learn--not a lot of
things; I learned some things--is don't answer questions like
that. The fact is that I'll let the Secretary of State and the
Secretary of Defense and all those people speak for themselves
and I'm not going to characterize or explain what the chairman
meant by a certain comment.
I understand your question. I understand the concerns. But
all I can give you is my best assessment. My only instruction
from the Secretary is tell the truth, and that's what I'm
doing. So that I can give you our best judgment on what we
think is happening in Cuba on BW. I have a sense of where the
community is on this issue and there's really no difference
between us.
But if you want to test that, I would--rather than take my
word for it, I would suggest that you have CIA and DIA and
others come up and tell you directly in their testimony.
Senator Chafee. Thank you very much.
Senator Dodd. Thank you, Senator.
We've been joined by Carl Levin of the Armed Services
Committee. Carl, we will get to you in a minute, but I want to
stick, if I can, with our committee members.
Senator Allen.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to get a few facts straight here. The young woman had
a chart that was up that shows your statement, Mr. Ford, on
March 19, 2002, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and then this supposedly controversial statement by Under
Secretary of State John Bolton at the Heritage Foundation on
May 6, 2002.
If you could, is that--on the top is your testimony. Is
that an accurate transcription of your testimony?
Mr. Ford. Yes, sir, it appears to be.
Senator Allen. OK and under that is the May 6 statement at
the Heritage Foundation by Mr. Bolton. I'm not going to ask you
if that's how it's been reported.
Mr. Ford. But it was my understanding that this was
correct. This is what I had been told, that both of our
statements were identical.
Senator Allen. You both used the term--you both used the
phrase that ``Cuba has at least a limited developmental
offensive biological warfare research and development effort,''
right?
Senator Dodd. That's incorrect. I've got the text of the
speech here. The direct line is: ``The United States believes
Cuba has a limited offensive biological warfare research and
development effort.'' The ``developmental'' you got was not in
the speech.
Senator Allen. All right, that's yours. So the evidence I
have--I guess we ought to get a transcript if there's a court
reporter at the Heritage Foundation.
All right. Well, it seems to be substantially the same.
Now, let me ask you this. Did you both state that ``Cuba has
provided dual-use biotechnology to rogue states''?
Mr. Ford. Yes.
Senator Allen. And did you both state that ``We are
concerned that such technology could support BW or biological
weapons programs in those states''?
Mr. Ford. I said that, yes.
Senator Allen. All right. Now, this is where I think the
main concern, at least my main concern, is that according to
the National Intelligence Council Iran maintains a significant
chemical and biological weapons program and continues to
develop and expand its CBW or chemical and biological weapons
programs. Now, Iran is on the State Department's designated
state sponsors of terrorism list; is that correct?
Mr. Ford. That's correct.
Senator Allen. And does the U.S. Government believe that
Cuba's assistance to Iran is simply helping Teheran's public
health program? Or do we know, if you can state in open
hearing?
Mr. Ford. We don't know, but I would like to expand my
answer in closed session if I might, Senator.
Senator Allen. Fair enough.
Should we--or can we assume that the transfer of
sophisticated biotechnology which has a dual use from Cuba to
rogue states is for a benign purpose? Can we make any
assumption or can you answer that?
Mr. Ford. I certainly wouldn't make that assumption myself
and I wouldn't see it only as a one-way street, that the
sharing of chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons
technology is a concern of mine and I think the intelligence
community. So that while I'm concerned about what Cuba and its
biotechnological capability may be providing other countries
like Iran, I'm also concerned about their associations with
countries that also have a chemical and biological warfare
capability and there can be an exchange of ideas, exchange of
capabilities, again as part of the process of showing an
interest and watching very carefully what they're up to in Iran
and Iraq, Syria, Libya, wherever else they might be talking to
people.
Senator Allen. Without getting into the names of countries,
which we had in a top secret briefing yesterday afternoon, we
do have different levels of concern or levels and understanding
of the levels of capabilities of different countries in the
world in their capacity, whether they're programs or efforts,
to produce biological or chemical weapons; isn't that correct?
Mr. Ford. That's correct.
Senator Allen. And while Cuba may not be as high in their
capabilities as other countries, there is clear evidence that
they are transferring at least dual-use biotechnology that
could be used, could potentially be used, in biological or
chemical weapons to countries that do have a greater capacity
than even Cuba does?
Mr. Ford. That is correct.
Senator Allen. That's kind of following yours, but I'm
trying to be more specific.
Mr. Ford. That's correct, Senator. Just so that you
understand, what I have said is that, although we make a
distinction between a program and an effort, it's not to
suggest that an effort can't hurt you. A program in our minds
is, really the standard that we're using to compare is the
Soviet Union during the cold war, the Russians and what sort of
program they had, which include test facilities, weapons
development, weapons production, the weaponization process in
its sort of entirety.
If you look at what we see going on in Cuba, we don't see
that sort of thing. But the fact is that with BW you don't have
to put it in a 130-millimeter howitzer shell and deliver it or
deliver it by a rocket for it to be dangerous. Unfortunately,
it's the sort of thing that can be carried by individuals and
brought here in an unconventional way.
So an effort, no matter how small or how suspicious, how
much evidence we have, is still something for us in the
intelligence community to worry about and report to you as
something you ought to know about.
Senator Allen. Now, as you know, Cuba is a signatory--thank
you for that comment and insight. Cuba is a signatory to the
Biological Weapons Convention, and if you stand behind your
statement of March 19, which you say you have, that Cuba has at
least a limited developmental offensive biological warfare
research and development effort, then wouldn't Cuba be in
violation of the BWC?
Mr. Ford. Very good question, Senator. It was one of the
reasons that, when I had a choice, I chose to be an
intelligence officer rather than a policy official in this
administration. I simply report to the policy people what I
think is happening in Cuba or Iran or North Korea or wherever,
and it's up to the people who are in the verification and
monitoring and arms control business to determine whether or
not it's a violation of an arms control agreement,
international or multilateral, bilateral, whatever it might be.
While I have a superficial and general knowledge of these
arms control agreements, I would be entirely the wrong person
to make that judgment without further study. It's not normally
my job, so I don't really look at it that closely. I won't have
any more to say in closed session, either.
Senator Dodd. Carl, you took a strong policy position on
March 19. That wasn't just intelligence. To the Senator's
question, you called on Cuba to cease all biological
cooperation with rogue states and fully comply. Now, that
implies you've got full awareness of what the treaty is. That's
not intelligence; that's a policy statement.
Mr. Ford. It also suggests that I'm not perfect. If you've
noticed that in my testimony today, that I looked at much more
carefully than I did the Cuba part, the Cuba part on my 16th of
March statement, which had to be done very quickly, I have been
very careful to state what INR's position is on the
intelligence and I've dropped off that last sentence.
I did say it on the 16th, you're right. If I had to say it
again today, I wouldn't, because it is a policy issue and I
simply was--what happened without my really knowing it--I
should have known; I should have focused on it--was those words
were approved for Secretary Bolton in his speech and I simply
stole them from him in haste to put them in a broader speech,
and I should have caught it, didn't, and I uttered those policy
statements as you correctly point out.
Senator Allen. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
reclaiming whatever few moments I had.
You were not chastised by anyone for that last sentence,
were you?
Mr. Ford. No.
Senator Allen. All right.
Mr. Ford. I chastised myself.
Senator Allen. OK, self-flagellation.
Mr. Ford. Because it was my rule that I broke, not yours.
Senator Allen. Fine. In all of this, I want to say to the
chairman, I think your statement's accurate and I don't think
you have any worry about it. I know people thrive on process
around here and that's important, I suppose. The substance is
what I care about and the truthfulness of the assertions is
what's most important.
On Senator Dodd, you are correct and you stand corrected.
The word ``developmental'' was not in Bolton's speech. But as
far as all of the statements about concern for technology,
supporting BW programs in other states and transferring it to
the dual-use, it's all correct. But I just want to state for
the record that word ``developmental'' in the first sentence
wasn't there, but all the rest of the concerns are the same. I
want to clarify that. I'm sorry for having the incorrect
assertion.
Senator Dodd. No, not at all.
Senator Allen. Let me ask you this, if you could answer,
Secretary Ford. There are many states who have--many countries
that have biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries that are
sophisticated. Why would states such as Iran go to Cuba for
biotechnology equipment and not purchase more advanced
technologies from those available elsewhere? Despite the
economic incentives to do so, isn't it true that European
countries control the sales of dual-use biotechnologies to
rogue states such as Iran because they recognize the nefarious
intentions or potential intentions of such countries as Iran?
Mr. Ford. It's my understanding that countries in Europe
and the United States, we all very carefully try to monitor the
most egregious dual-use capable sorts of biomedical equipment
and do put limits on it. To suggest that we're perfect at that
or that it's effective, unless there is a total boycott,
sanctions against a country, I'm sure that there are certainly
ways for Iran to buy it in other parts of the world.
But it does suggest that, from a country like Cuba, they
would have fewer restrictions, I would think, and it would be
easier for countries like Iran to get some of the things that
they want and may turn to Cuba to do that. Cuba has clearly
decided that it's a very important money-maker for them and so
they are prepared to sell this equipment to anybody who wants
to buy it, including Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and other states
that we have concerns about.
Senator Allen. Well, that is my concern, Mr. Chairman and
members of the committee, that even if Cuba were innocently
thinking that they were just making money because they are a
generally impoverished country and they're making money, what
are those others going to do with it?
I would like to simply close by, if I could, ask that the
following attached documents be entered into the record. One is
a brief history of concerns and questions and suspicions about
Cuba's biological weapons program. Second is excerpts from
``Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert
Biological Weapons Program in the World,'' by Ken Alibek, who I
referenced earlier; and then an article by Maria Werlau, ``Does
Cuba Have Biochemical Weapons?''
Senator Dodd. Without objection, so ordered.
Senator Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The material referred to follows:]
Cuba's Biological Weapons Program: A Brief History of Concerns,
Questions and Suspicions
In a transmittal letter accompanying the Defense Department's May
1998 report, The Cuban Threat to U.S. National Security, Secretary of
Defense William S. Cohen wrote to the chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee: ``I remain concerned about Cuba's potential to
develop and produce biological agents, given its biotechnology
infrastructure.
In its public Executive Summary, the report stated, ``Cuba's
current scientific facilities and expertise could support an offensive
BW [bioweapons] program in at least the research and development stage.
Cuba's biotechnology industry is one of the most advanced in emerging
countries and would be capable of producing BW agents.''
In the October 2001 issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Jose
de la Fuente, the former director of research and development at Cuba's
premier Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, wrote he was
``profoundly disturbed'' that Cuba was selling to Iran technology that
could be used to produce biochemical weapons. He wrote, ``No one
believes that Iran is interested in these technologies for the purpose
of protecting all the children in the Middle East from hepatitis, or
treating their people with cheap streptokinase when they suffer sudden
cardiac arrest . . ..'' During a May 2001 visit to Tehran, Castro
proclaimed, ``Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring
America to its knees.''
In October 2001, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
Bob Graham (D-FL) told the Miami Herald that Cuba ``clearly has the
capability of producing chemical and biological ingredients that could
become weapons of mass destruction.'' He added that it was impossible
to know what Cuba was up to because international inspection agencies
have not been given access to facilities. He said, ``Nobody, at least
nobody that I'm aware of in the United States, feels that we know what
Cuba's doing.''
An October 2001 study by the University of Georgia's Center for
International Trade and Security found that safeguards to prevent
terrorists and rogue nations from acquiring the equipment and material
necessary to make biological and chemical weapons are dangerously
inadequate. Cuba, one of 19 countries examined, rated a C- in limiting
exports of such equipment and material. (Atlanta Journal and
Constitution, October 26, 2001.)
An October 10, 2001, report on MSNBC.com said, ``With help from the
Soviet Union's massive secret biological weapons program, Castro was
able to build one of the world's most sophisticated biotechnology
industries which can also be used to build weapons of mass
destruction.'' Former Soviet scientist Ken Alibeck (see below) says he
helped to train Cubans in this technology, which he now regrets. ``This
work would be used for developing biological weapons or biological
agents. As a result of this, we helped Castro develop biological
weapons. It was such a stupid decision.''
Also reported: Gen. Charles Wilhelm, a former Southcom Commander
said: ``The indications we have is that they have the capability to
produce those type of substances.'' The Canadian Security Intelligence
Service, which investigates terrorist threats, said in a 1996 report,
``Cuba has been a supply source [to terrorist groups] for toxin and
chemical weapons.''
At an October 11, 2001, hearing of the House Intelligence Terrorism
and Homeland Security Subcommittee, Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), noted that
the Pentagon lists 15 countries believed to have biological weapons--
among them, Cuba. (Associated Press, October 11, 2001)
In his 1999 book Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest
Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from the Inside by
the Man Who Ran It (Random House), former KGB Colonel Ken Alibek,
second in command of the Soviet offensive biological warfare program
until his defection in 1992, wrote that his former boss, Maj. Gen. Yuri
Kalinin, visited several Cuban biotechnology facilities in 1990 and
told him he was convinced the Castro regime was deeply involved in a
biological warfare research effort. Alibek, who is widely respected in
the U.S. biological warfare community, told the Miami Herald (June 23,
1999), ``Kalinin saw no weapons production, but with his experience in
offensive biological warfare work, it was his opinion that they were
doing offensive work also. They are using the same cover stories we had
developed, about factories to produce single-cell bacteria as animal
feed. Maybe we were over-suspicious, but we did not believe their
stories
. . . .
In my personal opinion, I have no question Cuba is involved.''
In an October 2, 2001, commentary in the Los Angeles Times, author
Jeremy Rifkin (The Biotech Century, Tarcher Putnam, 1998) notes,
``Iraq, long known as a threat for biological warfare, is not alone in
its interest in developing biological weapons. In a 1995 study, the CIA
reported that 16 other countries were suspected of researching and
stockpiling germ warfare agents-ban, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Taiwan,
Israel, Egypt, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Bulgaria, India, South Korea, South
Africa, China and Russia.''
In his 2001 book Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox
(Atlantic Monthly Press), Jonathan Tucker, a leading expert on
biological and chemical weapons writes, ``leaks and rumors of uncertain
reliability suggested that several countries might have inadvertently
or deliberately retained specimens of the virus from the time when
smallpox was a common disease. Possible suspects included China, Cuba,
India, Israel, Pakistan, and Yugoslavia.''
In their 2000 book Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to
Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe (Delta Publishing), experts
Michael Osterholm and John Schwartz cited a 1999 report by the
congressionally created Commission to Assess the Organization of the
Federal Govemment to Combat Proliferation of Weapons of Mass
Destruction that said ``most of the nations identified as sponsors of
terrorism either have or are seeking weapons of mass destruction.
(Those nations are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and
Syria).''
In the July 12, 1999, issue of the New Yorker, Richard Preston, an
expert on biological and chemical weapons, reported that the U.S.
govemment ``keeps a list of nations and groups that it suspects either
have clandestine stocks of smallpox or seem to be trying to buy or
steal the virus.'' The classified list is ``said to include'' Cuba
along with nine other countries.
A March 31, 1998, article in the Washington Post said, ``Cuba has
one of the most sophisticated biotech and pharmaceutical industries in
the hemisphere. Because lethal biological materials can be produced by
countries with biotech industries, it is difficult to determine when a
country moves from simply having the capability to produce deadly
viruses, to the intent or plans to do so.'' It said, ``while [Clinton]
administration officials do not allege that Cuba has such weapons, `You
can't say there's no capability,' said one defense official.''
According to Insight Magazine (July 20, 1998), ``A classified annex
to the Pentagon final report to Congress [in 1998] further warns:
`According to sources within Cuba, at least one research site is run
and funded by the Cuban military to work on the development of
offensive and defensive biological weapons.' ''
A December 1993 Office of Technology Assessment report
``Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction'' identified Cuba
as one of 17 countries possessing a bioweapons capability.
In 1988, syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
revealed that Soviet-supplied Cuban troops fighting in Angola had used
chemical weapons against the U.S.-backed forces of Jonas Savimbi's
UNITA. They cited evidence ``scrupulously documented'' by the senior
United Nations consultant on chemical warfare, Dr. Aubin Heyndrickx of
Belguim. Toxicologists certified that residue from chemical weapons--
including sarin--was found in areas of recent action. When questioned
by then-Sen. Dennis DeConcini about the then-rumours, Heyndrickx
replied, ``There is no doubt anymore that the Cubans were using nerve
gases against the troops of Mr. Jonas Savimbi.'' Also, the columnists
noted that Heyndrickx had warned the United States that if Soviet-Cuban
managers in Angola used gas in the past, they could use it in the
future.
More evidence of Cuba's use of chemical agents in Africa surfaced
in a July 28, 1998, Reuters report that Wouter Basson, former head of
South Africa's covert chemical weapons program, had given a sworn
statement implicating Cuba. He said that South Africa had been forced
to begin its chemical weapons' program after Cuba had used chemical
warfare on South African troops fighting in Angola. At the time they
had been unprepared and defenseless. (South African troops fought in
Angola until 1990.)
______
Does Havana Have a Biological Weapons Programs?
Excerpts from biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert
Biological Weapons Program in the World by Ken Alibek \1\ (Random
House, 2000). Pages 273-277
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Mr. Alibek is a former deputy director of Biopreparat, the
Soviet Union's biological weapons program.
When Yuri Ovchinnikov died in 1987, I joined a group of Biopreparat
scientists at his funeral services in Moscow. The conversation
eventually turned to Cuba's surprising achievements in genetic
engineering. Someone mentioned that Cuban scientists had successfully
altered strains of bacteria at a pharmaceutical facility just outside
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
of Havana.
``Where did such a poor country get all of that knowledge and
equipment?'' I asked.
``From us, of course,'' he answered with a smile.
As I listened in astonishment, he told me that Castro had been
taken during a visit to the Soviet Union in February 1981 to a
laboratory where E. coli bacteria had been genetically altered to
produce interferon, then thought a key to curing cancer and other
diseases. Castro spoke so enthusiastically to Brezhnev about what he
had seen that the Soviet leader magnanimously offered his help. A
strain of E. coli containing the plasmid used to produce interferon was
sent to Havana, along with equipment and working procedures. Within a
few years, Cuba had one of the most sophisticated genetic engineering
labs in the world--capable of the kind of advanced weapons research we
were doing in our own.
General Lebedinsky visited Cuba the following year, at Castro's
invitation, with a team of military scientists. He was set up in a ten
room beach-front cottage near Havana and boasted of being received like
a king. An epidemic of dengue fever had broken out a few months
earlier, infecting 350,000 people. Castro was convinced that this was
the result of an American biological attack. He asked Lebedinsky and
his scientists to study the strain of the dengue virus in special labs
set up near the cottage compound. All evidence pointed to a natural
outbreak--the strain was Cuban, not American--but Castro was less
interested in scientific process than in political expediency.
. . . Cuba has accused the United States twelve times since 1962 of
staging biological attacks on Cuban soil with anti-livestock and anti-
crop agents . . .
Kalinin was invited to Cuba in 1990 to discuss the creation of a
new biotechnology plant ostensibly devoted to single-cell protein. He
returned convinced that Cuba had an active biological weapons program.
The situation in Cuba illustrates the slippery interrelation
between Soviet support of scientific programs among our allies and
their ability to develop biological weapons.
. . . For many years, the Soviet Union organized courses in genetic
engineering and molecular biology for scientists from Eastern Europe,
Cuba, Libya, India, Iran and Iraq among others. Some forty foreign
scientists were trained annually. Many of them now head biotechnology
programs in their own countries. Some have recruited the services of
their former classmates.
In July 1995, Russia opened negotiations with Iraq for the sale of
large industrial fermentation vessels and related equipment. The model
was one we had used to develop and manufacture bacterial biological
weapons. Like Cuba, the Iraqis maintained the vessels were intended to
grow single-cell protein for cattle feed . . .
A report submitted by the U.S. Office of Technological Assessment
to hearings at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in
late 1995 identified seventeen counties believed to possess biological
weapons ``Libya, North Korea, South Korea, Iraq, Taiwan, Syria, Israel,
Iran, China, Egypt, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Bulgaria, India, South Africa
and Russia.''
______
Does Cuba Have Biochemical Weapons?*
(By Maria C. Werlau)
* This article was published as Chapter 6, pp. 99-128, of Cuba:
Assessing the Threat to U.S. Security (Miami: The Endowment for Cuban
American Studies, 2001), edited by Adolfo Leyva.
Today this country has more options than ever, is stronger
than ever, and has more weapons than ever to wage the
ideological battle--and let's not forget the other weapons we
have stored away and the very clear idea on how we'd use them,
so we are calm.
Fidel Castro, October 17, 2001.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Castro compared the United States to a dragon and warned
against the dragon eating the lamb, Cuba. (``Fidel inaugura nueva
escuela de formacidn de trabajadores sociales.'' Granma Internacional
Digital. 18 de Octubre de 2001. http://www.granma.cu/espanol/octu3/
43escuela-e.html. Translation by the author.)
This lamb can never be devoured--not with planes nor smart
bombs--because this lamb is smarter than you, and in its blood
there is, and always will be, poison for you.
Fidel Castro, January 28, 1998.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Armando Correa, `` `Veneno' de Castro abre sospechas que Cuba
oculta armas bacteriologicas.'' El Nuevo Herald, May 4, 1997, Sec. A.
p.6. (Translation by the author.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
what does the u.s. government know?
In May of 1998, then Secretary of Defense William Cohen submitted a
report to Congress titled ``The Cuban Threat to U.S. National
Security.'' Prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a result of
an inter-agency effort, the Executive Summary of its section
``Biological Warfare Threat'' read: `Cuba's current scientific
facilities and expertise could support an offensive BW program in at
least the research and development stage. Cuba's biotechnology industry
is one of the most advanced in emerging countries and would be capable
of producing BW agents.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ The Cuban Threat to U.S. National Security, Report Submitted to
Congress by Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, 1998. The Transmittal
Letter of May 6, 1998 from the Secretary of Defense to The Honorable
Strom Thurmond, Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee, states that
the review and assessment was conducted by the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) in coordination with the National Intelligence Council;
the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the
Intelligence and Research Bureau at the State Department. The Joint
Staff, the United States Southern Command, the National Security
Council, and the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs at the Department of
State were also consulted. http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/cuparpt.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At a congressional hearing held recently. Rep. Chris Shays, R-
Connecticut. Chairman of the House Government Reform's Subcommittee on
National Security, Veterans' Affairs and International Relations,
asserted that the Defense Department openly lists the countries
believed to have biological weapons, mentioning Cuba alongside fourteen
others.\4\ \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Hearing of the House Intelligence Terrorism and Homeland
Security Subcommittee, October 11, 2001. At the hearing, Col. Edward
Eitzen, who heads the Army's lead biological defense lab at Fort
Detrick, Maryland (Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases)
refused to say which countries are thought to have experimented with
bioterrorism weapons.
\5\ Remaining countries listed are: Bulgaria, China, Egypt, Iran,
Iraq, Israel, Laos, Libya, North Korea, Russia, South Africa, Syria,
Taiwan, and Vietnam. (Carolyn Skorneck, ``Anthrax Dangerous, Difficult
Weapon,'' Washington, Associated Press, October 11, 2001.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1995, the congressional Office of Technology Assessments \6\ had
submitted a report to Congress identifying seventeen countries believed
to be in possession of biological weapons--the list included Cuba,\7\
in fact, might well be among the countries alluded to in a Defense
Department 2000 report to Congress: ``Intelligence analysts believe
that at least seven potential adversaries have an offensive BW
capability to deliver anthrax.'' \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ The Office of Technology Assessments was established by
Congress in 1972 to provide congressional committees analysis of
emerging, difficult and often highly technical issues.
\7\ Others on the list were Libya, North Korea, South Korea, Iraq,
Taiwan, Syria, Israel, China, Egypt, Vietnam, Laos, Bulgaria, India,
South Africa, and Russia. (Congressional Hearing of the Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.)
\8\ DOD response to the staff report of the House Government
Reforms' Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans' Affairs and
International Relations entitled `The Department of Defense Anthrax
Vaccine Immunization Program: Unproven Force Protection,'' February 29,
2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 2000, Michael Osterholm and John Schwartz--recognized experts on
biochemical weapons,\9\ cited a 1999 report by the congressionally
created Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government
to Combat Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: ``most of the
nations identified as sponsors of terrorism either have or are seeking
weapons of mass destruction. (Those nations are Cuba, Iran, Iraq,
Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria). According to the commission . . .
more than a dozen states have offensive and/or chemical weapons
programs.'' \10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Mr. Osterholm is the Director of the Center for Infectious
Disease Research and Policy as well as Professor of Public Health at
the University of Minnesota. Mr. Schwartz is a journalist for The New
York Times.
\10\ Michael T. Osterholm and John Schwartz, Living Terrors (New
York: Delta Publishing, 2000), p. 37.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to intelligence reports, albeit imprecise, leading
experts and journalists, relying on diverse sources, have included Cuba
in the short list of countries suspected or said to have biological
weapons. In 1998, for example, Richard Preston, a journalist who's
written extensively on biological and chemical weapons, reported that
the U.S. government ``keeps a list of nations and groups that it
suspects either have clandestine stocks of smallpox or seem to be
trying to buy or steal the virus.'' The classified list is ``said to
include'' Cuba along with nine other countries.'' \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Also listed are Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North
Korea, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, and Serbia. (Richard Preston, ``The demon in
the freezer,'' The New Yorker, July 12, 1999, pp. 44-61.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In his authoritative book on smallpox, Scourge, published in 2001,
Jonathan Tucker \12\ sustains: ``. . . leaks and rumors of uncertain
reliability suggested that several countries might have inadvertedly or
deliberately retained specimens of the virus from the time when
smallpox was a common disease. Possible suspects included China, Cuba,
India, Israel, Pakistan, and Yugoslavia.'' \13\ Tucker also cites a
1994 Defense Intelligence Agency report on the work of an Interagency
Working Group that determined the former Soviet Union had transferred
smallpox virus to Iraq in the 1980's or 1990's. Although he does not
explore the Castro regimes' close ties with Saddam Husseins' Iraq,
these purportedly include cooperation in biochemical weapons'
development.'' \14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Jonathan Tucker, a leading expert on biological and chemical
armament, is currently Director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons
Nonproliferation Project of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of
the Monterey Institute of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. and
has worked for the U.S. State Department, the congressional Office of
Technology Assessments and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
\13\ Jonathan B. Tucker, Scourge: The once and future threat of
smallpox (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001), p. 205.
\14\ For more on the Iraq-Cuba relation, see Briefing Paper by
Manuel Cereijo, Cuba-Iraq, October 2001. (Cereijo, former professor at
Florida International University, claims he has interviewed many
scientists and defectors from Cuba over a period of years. He reports
that by the early 1990s Iraq had given Cuba anthrax virus for its
development. See his papers at http://www.amirospais-guaracabuya.org/
index cereijo.html). Also see Marcelo Fernandez-Zayas, Intelligence
Report of October 25, 2001. (Fernandez-Zayas has written has
interviewed numerous defectors and has contacts with diplomats and
government sources worldwide. His articles are available at http://
www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/index.mfz.html.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most compelling indication of a Cuban bioweapons program,
however, comes from a high-ranking Soviet defector. In 1998, Ken
Alibek,\15\ former Deputy Director of Research and Production of the
former Soviet Unions' biological weapons program, gave a first-hand
account of the Cuban operation. In his book Biohazard,\16\ Alibek
recounts how his boss--Major General Yury Kalinin, head of the Soviet
bioweapons program--had returned from a 1990 visit to Cuba ``convinced
that Cuba had an active biological weapons program.'' Kalinin had been
invited by Cuba to discuss the creation of a new biotechnology plant,
ostensibly devoted to single-cell protein. Alibek also recalls how, in
July 1995, Russia had opened negotiations with Iraq for the sale of
large industrial fermentation vessels and related equipment--the very
model ``we had used to develop and manufacture bacterial biological
weapons. Like Cuba, the Iraqis maintained the vessels were intended to
grow single-cell protein for cattle feed . . .'' \17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Formerly Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, from 1987 to 1992 he was first
deputy chief of research and production of Biopreparat, known as ``The
System,'' the Soviet Union's clandestine biological weapons program.
Its top scientist, he had thirty-two thousand scientists and staff
people working under him. After an inspection trip to the U.S. in
December 1991, Alibek became convinced it had no active biowarfare
program. Confirming his already growing doubts, he realized the Soviet
leadership had used propaganda lies to justify its huge offensive
biological program. He resigned and left the Russian Federation for the
U.S. several months later, in October 1992. (Ken Alibek, ``Behind the
Mask: Biological Warfare,'' Perspective, Volume IX, No. 1, September-
October 1998 (Perspective is a publication of Boston University's
Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy); Richard
Preston, ``The bioweaponeers,'' The New Yorker, March 9, 1998, pp. 52-
65; J. Tucker, Scourge, pp. 138-162.)
\16\ Ken Alibek with Stephen Hendelman, Biohazard (Random House,
1998).
\17\ Ibid, p. 275.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a June 1999 interview, Alibek explained that the Cubans had,
since 1988, been after them (the Soviets) for help in building the
microbiology plant with a huge reactor. His boss, Kalinin, was aware
that Cuba's investment in biotechnology was beyond the means of the
country's economy and suspected the plant was actually intended for
developing biological weapons in industrial volumes. In a previous trip
to Havana, Kalinin had reported encountering severe security measures
and secret, closed off, areas--just as in the Soviet offensive
biological program. And, in his 1990 visit to Cuba, Kalinin saw the
sophisticated equipment Cubans had purchased, a requirement for the
development of military biological material. Alibek claimed that their
suspicions of a Cuban biowarfare program had began in 1987; by 1991
they were seeing ``irrefutable signs of biowarfare production.'' \18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Roberto Fabricio, ``Las instalaciones cubanas de biotecnologia
`estan llenas de zonas cerradas y secretas,' '' El Nuevo Herald, June
20, 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to Alibek, the Soviet Union had helped Cuba develop its
biotechnology program after a February 1981 trip by Castro to the
Soviet Union, then under Brezhnev. He writes: ``Within a few years,
Cuba had one of the most sophisticated genetic engineering labs in the
world--capable of the kind of advanced weapons research we were doing
in our own.'' \19\ In Biohazard he revealed how, for many years, the
Soviets had organized courses in genetic engineering and molecular
biology for scientists from Eastern Europe, Cuba, Libya, India, Iran
and Iraq among others. Some forty foreign scientists were trained
annually.\20\ He later elaborated that Cuba had sent dozens of students
to Moscow's State University for studies in macrobiology and
biotechnology.\21\ Most recently, he's regretted having helped train
Cubans in this technology, which helped ``Castro develop biological
weapons.'' \22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Ken Alibek, The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert
Biological Weapons Program in the World (Random House, 2000), pp. 273-
277.
\20\ ``Many of them now head biotechnology programs in their own
countries. Some have recruited the services of their former
classmates.'' (Ibid.)
\21\ R. Fabricio, op.cit.
\22\ Ike Seamans Report: Cuba's Biological Weapons Industry, NBC 6.
October 10, 2001. http://www.msnbc.com/local/wtvi/nbc6e201fsc.asp
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Already in 1988, the United Nations Security Council has been
informed of use of toxic weapons by Soviet-supported Cuba in
Angola.\23\ Belgian toxicologists \24\ had certified that residue of
chemical weapons--including sarin and VX gas--had been found in plants,
water and soil where Cuban troops were alleged to have used chemicals
against Savimbi's troops. Additional tests had provide evidence that
other substances--such as napalm and sarin--were used against civilian
populations supporting Savimbi; \25\ \26\ Allegations had been made
previously that Cuba had used chemical weapons in Angola in 1984 and
1986.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ The use of chemical and bacteriological agents in war is
forbidden by the 1925 Geneva Protocol (Protocol for the Prohibition of
the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and
bacteriological methods of warfare) which entered into force on
February 8. 1928.
\24\ The team was led by Dr. Aubin Heyndrickx, chief United Nations
consultant on chemical warfare, a world-renowned Belgian toxicologist
and professor at the State University of Ghent, Belgium. (Rowland Evans
and Robert Novak, ``Cuban troops in Angola said to use poison gas,''
Syndicated Column Mid-January 1988, FortFreedom.com, February 6, 1989,
http://www.fortfreedom.org/y19.htm; Ariel Remos, ``Las armas
bacteriologicas colocan a Castro en el Biocerrorismo,'' Diario Las
Americas, July 13, 1999.)
\25\ A. Remos, op.cit.
\26\ The now defunct Voix d'Afrique is said to have published (2/6/
90) photos of people allegedly deformed by chemical weapons used by
Cuba against men, women and children in Angola in the 1980's. (Jonathan
T. Stride, ``Who will check out Fidel Castro's new chemical/biological
weapons plant in East Havana.'' Miami. www.fiu.edu/-fcf/
bio.chem.plnat91097.html)
\27\ Rafael Fermoselle, ``El terrorismo y la conexion cubana,'' El
Nuevo Herald, October 8, 2001. (Mr. Fermoselle is retired from the U.S.
Foreign Service and the author of several books.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the United States, an Evans & Novak column of mid-1988 had
criticized the Reagan Administration for turning away from evidence
that Soviet-sponsored Cuban troops were using poison gas against the
U.S.-backed freedom fighters. It argued that the very serious charges
were being ignored to avoid compromising ``the cozy new relationship''
with Gorbachev and, perhaps, to also keep from stirring the pot after
the recent agreement between South Africa and Angola.\28\ Evans & Novak
asserted that the charges had been ``scrupulously documented'' by Dr.
Aubin Heyndrickx, the senior United Nations consultant on chemical
warfare, and cited his recent response to an inquiry from Democratic
Senator DeConcini about the rumors: ``There is no doubt anymore that
the Cubans were using nerve gases against the troops of Mr. Jonas
Savimbi.'' Heyndrikcx was also reported to have warned the United
States that ``if Soviet-Cuban managers in Angola used gas in the past,
they could use it in the future.'' \29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Ibid. (The pact called for a staged Cuban withdrawal of its
troops and an end to South African aid for Savimbi.)
\29\ Evans & Novak, op.cit. (Heyndrickx told an African publication
that in Angola chemical gases supplied by the Russians had been used by
dos Santos against the Unita movement of Jonas Savimbi at least between
1986 and 1991. Idrissa Fofana, ``Menaces pour la paix,'' Dentain.
L'UNITA, Afrique Golfe Magazine, Janvier-Fevrier 1998. http://
www.afard-unita.asso.fr/html/revuepress/revue15.htm).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evidence of an offensive chemical program re-surfaced in 1998.\30\
In July it was reported that Wouter Basson, former head of South
Africa's covert chemical weapons program,\31\ had given a sworn
statement with serious allegations against Cuba. He declared that South
Africa had been forced to begin its chemical weapons' program after
Cuba had used chemical warfare on South African troops fighting in
Angola. At the time they had been caught unprepared and defenseless.
(South African troops fought in Angola until 1990.) \32\ In fact, the
highest ranking military officer to ever defect from Cuba, Air Force
Brigadier General Rafael del Pino, has reported that since the 1970's
war in Angola, the Cuban Armed Forces, he explained, had been bent on
developing and possessing chemical weapons. Cuba's top brass had
approached the Soviets to request these weapons, but the Soviets had
refused.\33\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Actually, documents allegedly smuggled out of Cuba in 1997
indicated that Castro initiated a chemical-weapons program in 1981,
when Soviet technicians built a plant to produce tricothecen, the main
component of ``yellow rain,'' in an underground tunnel complex at
Quimonor in Matanzas province. The program was expanded some years
later with the construction of another chemical-weapons facility in
Pinar del Rio, where Cuban and Soviet technicians began experimenting
with mixtures of germs and toxins to produce anthrax. (See M. Arostegui
and J. Stride, op.cit.).
\31\ Basso, a doctor and toxicologist, headed South Africa's 7th
Medical Division. ``SA's poison gas secrets sold to Libya,'' Electronic
Mail & Guardian, February 7, 1997, http://www.mg.co.za/mg/news/97feb1/
7feb-poisongas.html
\32\``Cuba uso arias quimicas en contra de Sudafrica,'' Reuters
(Capetown)/El Nuevo Herald, July 28, 1998. (Soviet-sponsored Cuban
troops fought against Jonas Savimbi's anti-Communist guerrillas. When
negotiations began in 1988 for a staged withdrawal, an estimated 55,000
Cuban troops were deployed in Angola.)
\33\ A. Correa, El Nuevo Herald, 5/4/97, ibid. (Brigadier General
del Pino defected in 1987. He also reported that the Cubans had
attempted an experiment in a helicopter, using a chemical weapon, but
it had failed.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite all of the above, it is unknown what exactly U.S.
intelligence has uncovered regarding Cuba's biochemical programs.
Meanwhile, U.S. government officials outside the intelligence
community, while confirming that Cuba's highly advanced biotechnology
industry is capable of producing biological warfare agents, have
publicly discredited allegations that Cuba is manufacturing biological
weapons. In 1997, for example, the U.S. State Department responded to a
report of secret documents smuggled out of the island with details of
Cuba's bioweapons program: ``The U.S. government follows the matter of
weapons of mass destruction very closely, and we can assure you that we
know of no reason to be alarmed.'' \34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Juan O. Tamayo, ``U.S. downplays rumors of Cuban germ
missiles,'' The Miami Herald, February 4, 1997. (News of the existence
of the documents was released by a former high-ranking Air Force
General, Alvaro Prendes, exiled in 1994.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1999 there was another official response. The Miami Herald
published a story on U.S. government reactions to Alibek's account in
Biohazard, which had received prominent coverage in Spanish-language
media in Miami, home of a large Cuban American community. State
Department sources were quoted: ``Cuba certainly has the know-how and
capability to brew terrorism-sized batches of deadly agents,'' but
``there has been no proof that it has methodically produced military-
grade agents or munitions.'' Moreover it elaborated, there was ``no
evidence that Cuba is stockpiling or has mass-produced any BW
[biological warfare] agents,'' plus there was not ``any sign of
production facilities.'' Another U.S. official was cited: ``We don't
see any special facilities with eight-foot fences and stuff like that .
. .'' And, yet another government representative reported that
intelligence from defectors and other means hadn't produced any
verifiable evidence of bio-chemical weapons production.\35\ U.S.
officials, however, also acknowledged that the possibility could not be
ruled out of Cuba manufacturing small quantities of biological warfare
agents and containers for terrorist and sabotage actions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Juan O. Tamayo, ``U.S. skeptical of report on Cuban biological
weapons,'' The Miami Herald, June 23, 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After revisiting the denials issued in 1999, the Coordinator for
Cuban Affairs at the State Department has recently reaffirmed: ``We are
not aware of anything different'' that would be at odds with those
statements.\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ James Carragher, recently appointed Coordinator for Cuban
Affairs, U.S. Department of State, in telephone conversation, October
23, 2001. (The author read Mr. Carragher quotes from the Herald article
of 1998 attributed to U.S. government officials.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public contradictions point to a seeming discrepancy between U.S.
policy and defense officials on the matter of Cuba's offensive
biochemical capability. El Nuevo Herald--the Spanish version of The
Miami Herald--reported in June of 1999: ``Official Pentagon sources
declare they are aware that Cuba has bacteriological weapons,'' but
``we cannot discuss what we know because there's a political decision
to not rock the boat, yet we are concerned.'' \37\ Further, it cites a
former high-ranking government official with access to classified
reports claiming that already in 1988 the CIA had produced a long
document that concluded that Cuba had biological weapons and described
the island's biotechnology facilities.\38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ Roberto Fabricio, ``Agencias del gobierno pugnan sobre armas
bacteriologicas,'' El Nuevo Herald, June 23, 1999.
\38\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The strong indication of an offensive biochemical weapons program
in Cuba has, until now, received surprisingly scant media attention
despite the island's highly developed biotechnology industry, its
geographic proximity and the open hostility of the Castro regime
towards the United States.\39\ Tragically, since recent events have
made the threat of biological and chemical terrorist attacks a reality,
there seems to be a gradual--albeit faint--turn of attention to Cuba as
a potential source of biological weapons. An October 15, 2001 Reuters
report read: ``According to the U.S. Department of Defense and the Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel,
Libya, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Taiwan all have developed
potential biological weapons, including with anthrax. Such governments
could sponsor an attack, or sell an anthrax weapon to the right
bidder.'' \40\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ 0ne notable exception of media coverage was a 1998 story in
The Washington Times of documents smuggled out of Cuba on the island's
biological weapons facilities. (Martin Arostegui, ``Fidel Castro's
Deadly Secret--Five BioChem Warfare Labs,'' Insight Magazine/The
Washington Times, Vol. 14, No. 26 July 20, 1998.) Aside from this, the
little coverage has been, up to now, almost exclusively limited to the
El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish daily counterpart of The Miami Herald,
which is published in South Florida, home to a large Cuban American and
Cuban exile community. (Refer to bibliography for some examples.)
\40\ Maggie Fox, ``Anthrax available from many sources,'' Reuters
(Washington), October 15, 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In mid-October 2001, The Miami Herald featured a story on a visit
by Senator Bob Graham, D-Florida to its Editorial Board, focused on his
comments that Cuba ``clearly has the capability of producing chemical
and biological ingredients that could become weapons of mass
destruction. (. . .) ``Nobody, at least nobody that I'm aware of in the
United States, feels that we know what Cuba's doing.'' Graham, however,
reported it was not known if Cuban scientists are actually facilitating
such efforts, partly because international inspection agencies have not
been given access to facilities.\41\ Two days later, the Herald
followed up with an editorial favoring keeping Cuba on the State
Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism and citing, among
other reasons, the lack of access to inspect for bio-chemical
weapons.\42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Nancy San Martin, ``Cuba forced to sell technology,'' The
Miami Herald, October 10, 2001.
\42\ ``Terror's Servant,'' Editorial, The Miami Herald, October 12,
2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also in mid-October, an NBC/MSNBC story raised concerns over Cuba's
alleged sales of biotechnology to the Iranians, claiming the Soviets
had helped Castro build one of the world's most sophisticated
biotechnology industries, which could ``also be used to build weapons
of mass destruction.'' \43\ General Charles Wilhelm, a former Southcom
Commander affirms: ``The indications we have is that they have the
capability to produce those type of substances.'' The report also cites
a 1996 Canadian Security Intelligence Service report that ``Cuba has
been a supply source (to terrorist groups) for toxin and chemical
weapons'' and a 1995 U.S. Senate report which included Cuba as one of
17 countries believed to have biological weapons. In addition, it
recounted Cuba's use of biological weapons to kill rebels opposed to
the Marxist government during the Angolan Civil War.\44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ In May of 2001 Castro went on a tour of Iran, Syria, Algeria
and Malaysia. In Tehran he declared that Cuba and Iran could together
``bring the United States to its knees.'' Stating that the United
States was weaker than ever, he called for Iran-Cuba cooperation to
contribute to the downfall of the ``imperialist king.'' (``Castro
pronostica en Iran el hundimiento de EU,'' Associated Press, Tehran,
May 13, 2001.)
\44\ Ike Seaman's Report, NBC 6, 10/10/01.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How an offensive program of this nature might be kept secret is not
difficult to imagine. The 1999 Herald story included Mr. Alibek's
reaction to refutations by U.S. government officials: ``You have to
understand that bio-weapons is one of the most sensitive topics in the
world. No one shares this type of information, even with best friends.
But in my personal opinion, I have no question Cuba is involved.'' \45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\ J.O. Tamayo, ``U.S. skeptical,'' op.cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the involvement of many thousands of people, only a few top
scientists and a small circle of the Kremlin leadership understood the
full scope of the Soviet Union's huge biowarfare program Biopreparat.
Over forty facilities dispersed over the country and a vast amount of
acreage were used in the program, yet it was kept under wraps thanks to
tight security, elaborate cover operations and legitimate civilian work
(which, according to Alibek, actually never accounted for more than 15%
of the research and development activities).\46\ Its former top
scientist has stated: ``To the outside world, Biopreparat was a state-
owned pharmaceutical complex that developed drugs and vaccines for the
civilian market. In reality, it was an elaborate front for a military-
funded program code-named Fermenty (the Russian word for enzymes) which
aimed to develop a new generation of super-lethal biological weapons.''
\47\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Biopreparar consisted of forty research-and-production
facilities, some of them enormous; around half of its employees are
said to have worked developing weapons while the other half made
medicines. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, over 60,000 people were
involved in the research, development, and production of biological
weapons. The total production capacity of all of the facilities
involved was many hundreds of tons of various agents annually--
including anthrax, smallpox, and plague. (Sources as in footnote 15.)
\47\ J. Tucker, Scourge, p. 145.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A high-ranking Cuban sociologist, former member of Cuba's Communist
Party and head of an important Sociological Research Center in Cuba,
has explained that, although she had no knowledge of biochemical
weapons programs in Cuba, she did have the suspicion. According to Dr.
Maida Donate-Armada,\48\ the biotechnology center was under the
strictest military control despite the appearance of civilian activity.
``Civilian scientists and other professionals are the face to the
world, but their military counterparts, who come and go as they please
within the structure, have access to all the scientific work produced
by civilians. In turn, they don't have an institutional identification,
nobody knows what they are working on and they do not share the results
of their work.'' \49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\48\ Dr. Donate-Armanda, a historian-psychologist-sociologist
trained in Cuba, was a specialist in living conditions with the Cuban
Institute of Internal Demand Management (Instituto Cubano
deinvestigaciones y Orientacion de la Demanda Interna (ICIODI)). She
defected in Spain in 1993 while attending a conference.
\49\ Maida Donate-Armada, e-mail to the author, September 3, 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jose de la Fuente, who from 1990-98 was Director of Research and
Development at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
(CIGB) in Havana, has attested to the frustration of witnessing
``institutional paralysis'' as a result of the impossibility for the
biotechnology centers to decide on internal policy ``even for small
things.'' ``All decisions,'' he reports, ``were made by the Secretary
of the State Council, Jose M. Miyar Barrueco (`Chomi') at Castro's
personal insistence.'' What's worse, Miyar--known to be a very close
protege of Raul Castro--was, according to de la Fuente, ``incapable of
deciding scientific matters, because of his background.'' \50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Jose de la Fuente, ``Wine into vinegar--the fall of Cuba's
biotechnology,'' Nature Biotechnology, October 2001. (De la Fuente fled
Cuba by boat in 1999 and is now on the faculty of Oklahoma State
University.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Alibek has provided detailed accounts of the lengths to which
the Soviet Union went to keep its huge bioweapons program secret and
the West's scientific and intelligence communities under the impression
that it was honoring the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which
it had signed in 1972. These efforts were entirely successful. ``There
was a comnonly held belief among many American scientists, supported by
the strong, even passionate views of a handful of experts in biological
weapons, that the Soviet Union was not violating the treaty.'' \51\ In
fact, the public was kept in the dark until early 1998. After his
defection to the United States in 1992, Alibek had briefed U.S.
intelligence and scientific experts for almost a year, but until 1998
only the national security community had access to the information he
brought.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ R. Preston, ``The bioweaponeers,'' op.cit. On this issue, also
see J. Tucker, Scourge, op.cit.
\52\ In October 1989, a Biopreparat scientist, Dr. Vladimir
Pasechnik, had defected to Great Britain while on an official visit to
France. His briefings stunned the British and U.S. governments, which
delivered a formal diplomatic protest to Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev. Gorbachev denied the allegations and invited inspection
teams. The Soviets, under Alibek's direction, prepared their cover for
months; the inspection team, however, left with strong suspicions that
the Soviets were hiding the truth. Mr. Alibek, then, led the Soviet
team that reciprocated with visits to U.S. facitilities they had
requested to inspect. This visit was what prompted Mr. Alibek's
reckoning and later defection. (J. Tucker, op.cit. pp. 159-162.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the accounts of cuban defectors
For several years now, a number of top Cuban defectors and exiles--
scientists and former high-ranking Cuban officials and members of the
military--have been reporting of first hand or circumstantial knowledge
of Cuba's biological and chemical weapons programs.
In 1997, former Cuban Air Force Commander Alvaro Prendes,\53\
exiled in 1994, appeared on Spanish-language radio stations in Miami
reading from documents he claimed had been prepared by dissident Cuban
military officers and scientists and smuggled out of Cuba. They
described in great detail biotechnology facilities serving as fronts
for military operations producing bioweapons such as anthrax and
bubonic plague.\54\
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\53\ Prendes had trained as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Fidel
Castro, upon assuming power, asked him to head Cuba's Air Force, later
promoting him to Commandant (highest rank in Cuba's Armed Forces,
equivalent to full General). During his long career, he faced numerous
setbacks and demotions, including three court martials, for ``political
discrepancies'' with superiors, but was sent for special air force
training at the Soviet Union and received assignments such as
Commanding Officer of the San Antonio de los Banos Air Base, home of
the Central Air Command (where he received orders directly from Fidel
Castro), Commander and Tactical Operations Chief of all MIG squadrons
and Second in Command of the International Directorade of Cuba's Armed
Forces. He became an increasingly vocal opponent to the Castro
government, calling for a national dialogue, free speech and economic
reform in the presence of the foreign media (1992) and writing a letter
calling on Fidel Castro to resign. Facing a Court Martial and severe
persecution, he was granted political asylum by the U.S. govemment and
left for the U.S. via Spain in 1994. Prendes is now the Miami-based
spokesman for the Union of Free Soldiers and Officers, composed of
former Cuban military in exile and clandestine pro-democracy
acquaintances within Cuba's military and security services. (Telephone
conversations, e-mail exchanges and documents sent by Col. Prendes to
the author, October 2001.)
\54\ Juan O. Tamayo, ``U.S. downplays . . .,'' The Miami Herald, 2/
4/97, op.cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In mid-1998 The Washington Times' Insight magazine featured an
investigative report citing the Prendes documents and other underground
sources from Cuba.\55\ It provided extensive description of five
chemical and biological weapons facilities said to be operating
throughout the island, and details such as how some of the plants were
constructed, security arrangements, the purchase overseas and shipping
of sophisticated lab equipment, and names of the scientists and
engineers from military establishment who ran the operations.\56\ The
Times further reported that ``the credibility of the smuggled documents
is enhanced by a recent classified Pentagon analysis.'' In addition, it
cited from a classified annex to a Pentagon report to Congress:
``According to sources within Cuba, at least one research site is run
and funded by the Cuban military to work on the development of
offensive and defensive biological weapons.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Martin Arostegui, ``Fidel Castro's Deadly Secret--Five BioChem
Warfare Labs,'' The Washington Times, Insight Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 26
July 20, 1998. (Prendes also made part of the documents available to
the author.)
\56\ For details on these biochemical facilities, see M. Arostegui,
ibid, and Jonathan T. Stride, ``Who Will Check Out Fidel Castro's New
Chemical/Biological Weapons Plant in East Havana,'' Miami. Mr. Stride
also held lengthy interviews with Prendes and had access to the
documents sent from Cuba (as related by Mr. Prendes to the author). In
1999 Miami media also reported of another defector, Ernesto Prida, who
worked at the Bureau of Scientific Research of the Cuban Armed Forces,
essentially confirming some of the information in the Prendes
documents. (A. Remos, Diario Las Americas, 7/13/99.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to Ernesto Betancourt, a former Radio Marti Director who
had security clearance, classified CIA reports dating back to 1989
already described Cuban efforts to acquire technology and equipment to
manufacture biological weapons.\57\ The Prendes documents, in fact,
related how a biochemist and Politburo member of Castro's presidential
staff made, in the early 1990s, numerous trips to Europe, the Middle
East and the former Soviet Union to arrange purchases for a new
macrobiology plant. A centrifugal reactor capable of 10,000 revolutions
per minute--to separate biological microorganisms from solid and liquid
substances--was acquired through Comicondor, an Italian company near
Milan which also supplies technology to Libya for Qaddafi's biological-
weapons experiments. After arrival of the lab equipment, the plant was
slowly equipped and finally inaugurated on December 2, 1993--Armed
Forces Day. The centrifugal reactor is said to be crucial to the
development of other biological microorganisms for use in warfare.\58\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\ Radio Marti is a Voice of America project. Dr. Betancourt is
cited in The Washington Times article (M. Arostegui, op.cit.) and has
confirmed this and other related information in conversations with the
author over several years.
\58\ The report also provides details of the ship that transported
the reactor to Cuba, leased by front companies operated by Cuban
military intelligence and with a crew carefully selected or employed by
the Office of State Security, MININT. Accounting records for the lab's
construction were said to have been meticulously covered up through
authorized funding for extensions to existing medical facilities and
the remodeling of Havana's historical El Morro Fortress. (In M.
Arostegui and J. Stride, op.cit.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The documents also provide details of the work being conducted at
several biochemical facilities. At the Luis Diaz Soto Naval Hospital,
for example, military biotechnicians are said to experiment on
cadavers, hospital patients and live animals with anthrax, brucellosis,
equine encephalitis, and a variety of other bacterial agents.
Experiments are reported on insects, rats and even house pets to be
used as vectors. An extensive report is also given of a facility
established in 1994, known as ``The Little Factory.'' Despite its
public description as a cattle feed producer (Fabrica de Pienso
Animal), entry to the facility is controlled by the Cuban Armed Forces
and said to be restricted to personnel with top-secret clearance. The
plant is reported to cover an area of 120 by 90 meters, bigger than a
couple football fields \59\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ J. Stride, op.cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1992, Carlos Wotzkow, a leading Cuban ornithologist, had been
forced to leave Cuba for Switzerland for his critical work on the
demise of Cuba's ecology. In 1998, he published Natumaleza Cubana,\60\
a detailed account of the destruction of the Cuban environment and a
damning expose of his professional experiences in Cuba. In it was a
brief account of the beginnings of a biological warfare program within
the Institute of Zoology, where he worked at the time, and how the
scientific purposes of the institution had been militarized; its
scientists purged for political purposes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ Carlos, Wotzkow, Natumaleza Cabana (Miami: Ediciones
Universal, 1998). Wotzkow fell in disfavor for presenting papers
overseas on the destruction of Cuba's environment. He was allowed out
of the country after Germany tiled a protest. He was granted political
asylum in Switzerland, where he still lives and works for a Swiss-U.S.
joint venture. (Related by e-mail to the author, October 21, 2001.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wotzkow related how, in 1981, Fidel Castro gave orders to create
within the Institute of Zoology the ``Frente Biologico del
Instituto''--a ``biological front'' to develop bioweapons against the
United States by spreading infectious diseases through implantation in
migratory birds. This was a joint project with the Instituto de
Medicina Tropical Pedro Kouri and many scientists were involved--often
indirectly or without cognizance of the purpose of the work they were
instructed to conduct. Fidel Castro personally supervised many of the
activities and paid personal visits to the facilities.\81\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ Ibid. p.58. (Also see ``Fidel Castro: decano del
bioterrorismo,'' an interview of Carlos Woztkow by Eduardo Prida,
Bienne, Noviembre 1999.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
During Wotzkow's tenure at the Institute of Zoology, which ended in
1982, the preferred patogen for experimenting with migratory birds was
the leptospirosis (bacteria). Later, he has been told of the
development of the anthrax bacteria, but doubts ``that Castro would
spend too much money on bacteria when he has native virus within the
island's bat population . . . which would cause devastating damage
without the possibility of treatment with antibiotics.'' \62\ Wotzkow's
work and his many scientific trips over Cuba in military aircraft put
him in contact with the highest leadership of the Cuban government,
including Fidel Castro.\63\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Carlos Woztkow, e-mail to the author, October 19, 2001. (Of
course, Wotzkow, like most people, could not imagine then that rapidly
unfolding events in the United States have already proven the
effectiveness of bioterrorism with bacteria (anthrax).)
\63\ During his tenure at the Institute of Zoology, Wotzkow made
over a thousand scientific trips all over Cuba, including 72 trips to
Cayo Largo in military airplanes that left from the Ciudad Libertad
military base (formerly Columbia). (Carlos Wotzkow, e-mail to the
author, October 21, 2001.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Woztkow also claims that in the 1970s Cuba had also experimented
with chemicals, testing the effectiveness of certain powders and gases
exposed to the oxygen of caves. It was thought that if the caves'
entomofauna (insects) died--as resistant as it was to sudden
environmental changes--no man would be able to survive them.\64\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ General Tomasevich related this to Wotzkow in 1980 during a
flight they took together to Cayo Largo. (C. Woztkow, e-mail of 10/19/
01.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Luis Roberto Hernandez,\65\ who defected from Cuba while
attending a conference in London in 1995,\66\ confirmed Wokztkow's
claims in late 1998. El Nuevo Herald published a story of Wotzkow's
allegations in Natumaleza, which included Dr. Hernandez' first public
account of his own experiences.\67\ He related how the laboratories for
the ``biological front'' were established within the Institute of
Zoology, where he too had worked, and sought to identify and produce
host viruses for migratory birds. There, only two top scientists had
full access to all the ``top secret'' labs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\65\ Hernandez, an entomologist, has a long and distinguished
career of teaching, field work, and research in Cuba and with the
foremost scientific institutions of the United States, England, Puerto
Rico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and others.
\66\ Hernandez was not planning to defect, but was called by a
colleague that, due to political unreliability, a plan was underway to
accuse him of spying and arrest him upon his return to Cuba. He stayed
in London with his wife, but they left behind a son, who was unable to
leave Cuba for years. Fear for the son in Cuba delayed Hernandez from
coming forth with his account. (Dr. Hernandez in telephone conversation
of October 19, 2001, and in previous conversations with the author,
who's known Hernandez for several years.)
\67\ Pablo Alfonso, ``Cuba experimenta con ayes con fines de guerra
bacteriologica,'' El Nuevo Herald, October 18, 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cuba, Hernandez claimed, continued the project at a farm outside
Havana, where a vast nesting program had been established to study the
routes and habits of migratory birds. U.S. scientists, he said, had
naively collaborated in these studies with their own work on nesting.
In addition, he knew that Cuba had conducted studies on the Culex
mosquito, main vector for the encephalitis virus that is particularly
resistant to certain insecticides. In fact, he reported, a Cuban
scientific journal had described how, in 1998, the CDC (Centers for
Disease Control) in Atlanta had donated a standard strain to Cuba of
the St. Louis encephalitis virus, which is similar to, but more potent
than, the West Nile virus.\68\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Revista Cabana de Medicina Tropical, Vol. II/1996. Ibid. (Ken
Alibek also reported that Soviet intelligence services obtained
numerous strains of virus for the biowarfare program through covert
operations--including ordering them through undercover agents posing as
legtimate researchers. J. Tucker, op.cit, p. 140.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Hernandez explains how the secrecy of the program was
maintained: ``Everything is very compartimentalized. If you work in one
area or field, you don't know who's work you're complementing. But,
naturally, you can infer things.'' In all the centers working in the
biotechnology field, he elaborates, there is very tight security; for
example, ``if you work on one floor, you don't have access to other
floors--yet this is supposedly scientific work for which this is not
required or expected. There's electric fencing surrounding the
facilities, codes to get into different areas, a lot of secrecy. At the
Pedro Kouri Institute, even the scientists couldn't walk around. This
didn't make sense.'' \69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\69\ L. Hernandez, telephone interview, 2/19/01.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As an entomologist, Hernandez became involved in the migratory
birds' project and had colleagues working on it who also wondered what
ultimate purpose was pursued. For example, he says, ``we were
instructed to look into virosis, such as parvovirus and others. I had
another colleague who was asked to collect blood samples from birds. In
the meantime, the Department of Ornithology was instructed to trap
birds from routes that go through the United States.'' In conclusion,
``one puts it together.'' Finally, he adds: ``Fidel Castro, we know,
called for a `biological front' to develop a biological weapons
program. I cannot be 100% sure, but I'm almost sure, that Cuba has
worked on developing biological weapons. There are others who feel this
way, but are afraid to speak out. I'm also troubled that men I know are
Cuban agents are currently working with birds in farms in Puerto Rico.
What for?'' \70\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\70\ Ibid. Currently, Dr. Hernandez is professor of entomology at a
university in Puerto Rico.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both Wotzkow \71\ and Hernandez have said that Castro believed the
United States was waging biological war against Cuba and was looking
for ways to respond. Hernandez has recently published an article
detailing how there was no scientific basis for certain allegations
with which he had direct involvement due to his work.\72\ In Biohazard,
Alibek relates how Cuba had accused the United States twelve times
since 1962 of staging biological attacks on Cuban soil with anti-
livestock and anti-crop agents, yet a high-level Soviet investigation
found these allegations to be all ``probably false.'' Zilinska, the
Soviet in charge, had further reported that none of the Cuban
scientists supported the government position on U.S. germ warfare. He
had said: ``They are keeping quiet. So it makes me believe that these
allegations are a pure propaganda exercise by Cuba.'' Furthermore. he
``was worried about whether Castro could be using the charges to
justify his own germ warfare program.'' \73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\71\ C. Wotzkow, Natumaleza. op.cit., p. 179.
\72\ Dr. Hernandez debunks specific allegations of biological
attacks from the U.S. (Luis Roberto Hernandez, ``El bumerang maldito,''
Encuentro en la Red, Ano 2, Edicion 216, 18 de octubre 2001.
www.cubaencuentro.com/ecologia/2001/10/18/3952.html.)
\73\ Alibek tells of an invitation Soviet General Lebedinsky had
received from Castro. Together with a team of military scientists, they
went to Cuba to study an epidemic of dengue fever that had broken out a
few months earlier, infesting 350,000 people. Castro had been convinced
it was the result of an American biological attack. The Soviet team
concluded that ``all the evidence pointed to a natural outbreak--the
strain was Cuban, not American--but Castro was less interested in
scientific process than in political expediency.'' (Alibek, Biohazard,
ibid.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most recently, Jose de la Fuente--who was Director of Research and
Development at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology
(CIGB) in Havana from 1990 to '98--confirms Cuba's huge investment in
biotechnology and expresses concern that Cuba has placed ``the prized
fruits of the CIGB'' in Iran's hands.\74\ He discloses how, in an
effort to seek hard currency after the end of massive Soviet support,
between 1995 and 1998 Cuba sold to Iran biotechnology which could be
used to produce biochemical weapons.\75\ (Iran is, like Cuba, one of
seven nations on the State Department's list of states that sponsor
terrorism.\76\) He concludes: ``There is no one who . . . believes that
Iran is interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting
all the children in the Middle East . . .'' A representative of the
Cuban Interest Section, in turn, acknowledged that Cuba has sold
pharmaceutical products to a number of countries.\77\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\74\ J. de la Fuente, ibid; Nancy San Martin. ``Cuba forced to sell
technology,'' The Miami Herald, October 10, 2001.
\75\ De la Fuente describes a strengthening of Cuban-Iranian
cooperation beginning with Cuban aid shortly after the Iranian
earthquake of 1990. He writes that Cuba sold Iran recombinant protein
production technologies in yeast and Escherichzia coli, as well as the
large-scale purification protocols for both soluble and insoluble
proteins synthesized in or excreted by them. This technology was
allegedly for civilian/medical uses, but is reportedly the same
technology that could be used to produce lethal agents in biochemical
weapons--like anthrax bacteria or smallpox virus. (J. de la Fuente,
op.cit. and N. San Martin, op.cit.) De la Fuente discussed this with
the author in a telephone conversation of October 9, 2001, but said he
does not believe Cuba had malicious intent.
\76\ The State Department's Report, Patterns of Global Terrorism
2000 asserts: ``Iran remained the most active state sponsor of
terrorism in 2000.'' (www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000).
\77\ N. San Martin, op.cit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indeed, Cuba's massive investment in biotechnology cannot be
explained in rational economic terms. De la Fuente, for example,
reports that in 1996 the CIGB alone had 1,100 employees with more than
200 scientists in R&D working on a pipeline of 112 products, the result
of an investment of more than one billion U.S. dollars since the
Center's inception in 1986.\78\ Yet, the data available \79\ indicates
that the entire Cuban pharmaceutical-biotechnology industry was
reportedly exporting a mere US$50 million per year for the period 1995-
99.\80\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\78\ He describes the inauguration of the CIGB in 1986 as the
beginning of the maturation of biotechnology in Cuba and puts the
initial investment at approximately US $100 million (used to fully
equip modern research in areas covering pharmaceuticals and
immunodiagnostics, vaccines, animal, plant, and industrial
biotechnology).
\79\ The Latest CEPAL (ECLA--the United Nations Economic Commission
on Latin America) economic report for Cuba--a foremost tool on Cuba's
economy--fails to present export data on the medical-pharmaceutical
sector despite providing this information for other sectors. (See Cuba:
Evolucion Economica: 2000, Comision Economica para America Latina y el
Caribe, Naciones Unidas (CEPAL), LC/MEX/L.465 21, May 21, 2001.)
\80\ The Economic Impact of U.S. Sanctions with Respect to Cuba,
International Trade Commission, USITC publication 3398, February 2001.
ftp://ftp.usitc.gov/pub/reports/studies/pub3398.pdf (The ITC report
states that Cuba's trade data precludes separating the pharmaceutical
and biotechnology industries. It also states that Cuba is reported to
have developed a number of original vaccines and generic pharmaceutical
products. A CIGB brochure is cited as reporting that in 1996 it had 128
product registrations in 34 countries.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
recommendations
Cuba is a signatory of both the Biological Weapons \81\ and the
Chemical Weapons Conventions \82\--together they outlaw the possession
of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Yet, given the
first hand accounts and strong circumstantial evidence indicative of
non-compliance, Cuba should submit to independent verification.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\81\ The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production and Stockpiling of Biological and Toxin Weapons and on their
Destruction, open for signature in Washington, London, and Moscow on
April 10, 1972. Cuba was among the original signatories (1/13/93) and
ratified it on April 4, 1997. (www.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/1972a.htm)
\82\ The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their
Destruction, signed in Paris on January 13-15, 1993. (See the
Convention at www.opcw.org)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Biological Weapons Convention does not incorporate compliance
and verification mechanisms, but the Cuban government is on the record
denying the production of biological weapons.\83\ Cuba should, thus,
have no objection to inspection. It should also be taken into account
that Cuba's alleged biowarfare program is said to have been set up
during its alliance with the Soviet Union. The Soviets initiated their
biowarfare program a year after the USSR had signed the Convention
banning the development, production and stockpiling of all offensive
biological agents. Despite forceful and official denials, it was only
after irrefutable testimony provided by top defectors and the actual
breakdown of the USSR that the Russian Federation acknowledged its
violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.\84\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\83\ 1n 1998, a spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in
Washington told The Washington Times: ``We are producing medicines, not
weapons. (. . .) We deny the Pentagon's charges of offensive potential
in our biogenetic industry.'' (M. Arostegui, TWT/Insight, op.cit.)
\84\ In April 1992, Boris Yeltsin admitted to the Soviet Union's
violation of the Convention and issued an edict banning further
offensive research and development. The Soviet program, Biopreparat was
set up in 1973, just a year after the Soviet Union signed the
Convention banning the development, use, and stockpiling of biological
weapons. The October 1989 defection to Great Britain of a Biopreparat
scientist, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, prompted the British and U.S.
governments to deliver a formal diplomatic protest to Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev denied the allegations and invited
inspection teams in. The Soviets prepared their cover for months, but
the inspection team left with strong suspicions that the Soviets were
hiding the truth. (J. Tucker, ibid. pp. 159-162, 168 and other sources
as per footnote 14.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has detailed provisions on
compliance and verification. In fact, it established the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), headquartered in The
Hague, which provides mechanisms of implementation and international
verification of compliance.\85\ The United States should submit an
immediate inspection challenge to the OPCW's Executive Committee. \86\
\87\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\85\ See the Convention, namely Art. VIII, and Leonard Cole. ``The
Specter of Biological Weapons,'' Scientific American, December 1999,
pp. 60-65.
\86\ Cuba is a member of the Executive Committee of the OPCW for
the 2000-2002 period. The Executive Council consists of 41 members,
including seven states parties from Latin America and the Caribbean,
designated by states located in that region. Each state party has the
right, in accordance with the principle of rotation, to serve on the
Executive Council; members are elected for a term of two years.
\87\ Under Article IX of the CWC any State Party can request the
Secretariat to conduct an on-site challenge inspection anywhere in the
territory of any other State Party. States Parties are not granted the
right to refuse a challenge inspection, regardless of the nature of the
location at which it is to take place.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Verification of Cuba's compliance with both Conventions should be
conducted through inspections characterized by the ``any time, any
place'' concept incorporated in the CWC (they are to be launched at
very short notice and can be directed at declared or undeclared
facilities and locations). The inspections should also take place over
an indefinite period of time.
The United States government should, regardless of international
efforts and without further delay, form an interagency Task Force on
Cuba to study this specific issue exclusively, gathering all
intellirnce reports from different agencies and reassessing the
potential threat to U.S. security.\88\ The Task Force should also
conduct a serious and thorough review of the allegations of scientists
and other defectors from Cuba that, up to now, have been mostly
ignored.\89\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\88\ This is particularly important in the wake of the September
21st, 2001 arrest of Ana Montes, the Defense Intelligence Agency's top
Cuba specialist, for spying for Cuba. Reportedly, she could have had a
very influential role in downplaying the threat posed by Cuba to the
United States. (See John J. Miller, ``Under In Castro's Service: The
undertold story of Cuba's spying, and terror,'' National Review, Vol.
LIII, No. 21, November 5, 2001 and Christopher Marquis, ``Labels of
analyst vary, but spy came as a surprise,'' The New York Times,
September 30, 2001.)
\89\ The author understands that all of the Cuban defectors
interviewed for this paper have not been debriefed by U.S. intelligence
or government representatives.
Senator Dodd. Thank you, Senator.
Before I turn to Senator Levin, I just want to come back,
because in reading the speech Mr. Bolton gave, because he goes
on in some paragraphs, this one paragraph is yours, but your
staff said they read the whole speech and had the whole speech
and looked at it. So he asked the question here, ``Why was the
1998 report on Cuba so unbalanced?'' I'm quoting the speech
here.
My first question to you was has there been any change in
the assessment on Cuba? Your answer was ``no, substantially
not.''
Mr. Ford. No, there has not.
Senator Dodd. So is that statement ``unbalanced,'' is that
an inaccurate statement based on the INR's assessment?
Mr. Ford. INR's position is that, that--as I was stating
and that I will elaborate on later, but how people characterize
that is not my call. They can--we're just intelligence----
Senator Dodd. When you're given a speech to look at and you
see that someone's about to make, in the administration, make a
characterization that the work of your agency only 3 years
earlier was unbalanced----
Mr. Ford. It would not be the first time that someone took
a shot at the intelligence community. It's not our
responsibility to put words in the mouths of policymakers.
Senator Dodd. Did you raise, did anyone raise, any
objections to that word being used, even though I understand
it's policy? I mean, if I saw someone was going to say
something about my office, I'd say, well, that's incorrect--if
you feel that's incorrect. I presume you feel that's incorrect;
is that right?
Mr. Ford. It certainly is not INR's position.
Senator Dodd. OK. Well, you look at the whole speech, it
seems to me when you've got paragraph after paragraph here--you
know, we went through a period back in the eighties when we had
a lot of assessments about the Soviet Union that turned out to
be terribly wrong in terms of their capabilities, economically
and otherwise.
My concern here is, look, if Cuba's got this stuff I want
to know it, and I want to deal with it immediately, and if they
don't we don't want to raise specters here that divert
attention, resources, and the like when they ought to be going
elsewhere. That's my concern. So when you get a speech like
this, when I have INR disagreeing--I understand you agree with
certain pieces here, but there's a lot of rhetoric around this,
made by a very high-ranking administration official, that had
to be corrected, as Senator Chafee has pointed out, by various
people trying to spin this correctly. That worries me and
concerns me, as we're trying to make decisions both in the
administration and in the Congress about how to allocate
resources, time and attention.
So that's the reason I raised it.
Senator Levin.
Senator Levin. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman and
our colleagues, for allowing me to join you for a few minutes
here just to ask a few questions.
Senator Dodd. Not at all.
Senator Levin. Your prepared remarks indicate the
difficulty in differentiating between legitimate biomedical
technology and illicit offensive biological warfare technology
because the technologies are essentially identical; is that
correct?
Mr. Ford. That's correct, Senator.
Senator Levin. So that's where we get into the dual-use
issue. How many countries other than Cuba are supplying dual-
use biomedical technology to these states such as Iran? Do we
have some pretty good allies that are doing the same thing?
Mr. Ford. I don't know, Senator, and I'll have to take the
question and get back to you. I don't normally--I just don't
have that in my notes.
Senator Levin. Can you find out how many of our NATO allies
are supplying technology to Iran of the same type?
Mr. Ford. Yes, sir.
Senator Levin. Would it surprise you to find out that some
are?
Mr. Ford. No.
Senator Levin. Have we protested that to them?
Mr. Ford. I don't know.
Senator Levin. Can you find that out for us?
Mr. Ford. Yes.
Senator Levin. The use of the words ``has an effort'' is an
unusual construction of the English language. You said this
morning that there's a distinction between effort and program.
Mr. Ford. That's correct.
Senator Levin. Usually when you are making an effort you
are ``making an effort,'' you don't ``have an effort.'' It
suggests that there was a different construction when this was
first drafted and then the word ``program'' was changed to
``effort''; is that correct?
Mr. Ford. No, sir.
Senator Levin. So this was always structured as ``has an
effort''? It was never ``making an effort''?
Mr. Ford. Well, the history has been told to me. I didn't
live it, so I can only give you my version of it. But my
understanding is that the issue of whether it was a program or
an effort goes back at least to the 1999 National Intelligence
Estimate, and that at least a distinction that we make is that
a program has certain classic signatures that we developed in
the intelligence community from looking at the Soviet Union and
the Russian CW/BW program. And it has certain components. And
that those--that's called a program, because it has a
multifaceted, many components to it that are all designed to
create military weapons that can be delivered by military
forces, conventional military forces--artillery units, air
forces, et cetera.
An effort in our minds is the research and development
necessary to create BW weapons in the laboratory that can be
delivered in conventional means, by putting into a weapon that
may have already been built and you bought from Russia for
conventional purposes, or, more likely, delivered in some
unconventional way; and that it stops short of being a full-
fledged 100 percent major program to develop a stockpile of
hundreds, thousands of biological weapons.
Senator Levin. I think you may have been asked earlier, but
if so, forgive me for asking this again. There was a newspaper
account in the Washington Times on May 7 that stated that a
senior administration official said ``Washington has gathered
broad and deep evidence of Cuba's pursuit of biological
weapons.'' Have we?
Mr. Ford. I've characterized the INR's position, which I
think also reflects the community, that we believe that the
evidence--our judgment is that the evidence supports a limited
development, a development offensive BW capability.
Senator Levin. Is it broad and deep evidence of the pursuit
of biological weapons, the focus on ``weapons''?
Mr. Ford. Clearly we're suggesting that Cuba is working on
biological weapons.
Senator Levin. And that we have broad and deep evidence of
their pursuit of weapons? I just want to know, is that a fair
characterization of that finding?
Mr. Ford. I was not the senior administration official that
the Times is talking about.
Senator Levin. In your judgment is that a fair
characterization?
Mr. Ford. There's no one on my staff--I would not have
characterized it as broad and deep. I would say that there is
substantial information about Cuba's BW program.
Senator Levin. All right. Do you know who issued that
statement?
Mr. Ford. No.
Senator Levin. It does not reflect, however, in your
judgment, your finding, your characterization?
Mr. Ford. I didn't say it. I would characterize it slightly
differently.
Senator Levin. Have you attempted to find out who
mischaracterized it?
Mr. Ford. No. I have asked the question myself, I wonder
who that was, but I haven't--no one has admitted it to me.
Senator Levin. But you have sought to find out, is that it?
Mr. Ford. Well, like anybody who has followed this, I have
asked the question, I wonder who said that?
Senator Levin. Why?
Mr. Ford. Well, I just thought it was interesting. Clearly
the committee here thought it was interesting, and I've
certainly gotten more questions about Cuba and Cuba BW in the
last month or so than I ever realized that you could ask, quite
frankly.
Senator Levin. You will submit to the committee, I believe,
if I'm allowed to ask that--Mr. Chairman, I think I can't ask
that, so I have to ask you whether or not it would be all right
if we ask our witness to submit those two lists to the
committee that I suggested.
Senator Dodd. Yes, we will make that request.
Mr. Ford. I'd be happy to, Senator. I'm not sure how long
it will take us. It may already be prepared and I'll just go
ask somebody to give it to me, or it may be we'll have to do a
little bit of work. But we'll put it together for you.
[The information requested is classified.]
Mr. Ford. [DELETED].
Senator Levin. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. That Miami Herald story, which I think was
the same article in which the words of ``broad and deep''--it
may not have been, maybe. Well, it's not the Miami Herald. That
was the Washington Times. The Miami Herald in October of last
year contained a story claiming that Cuba has sold to Iran
production technology for recombinant hepatitis B vaccine,
interferon used for treatment of viral diseases and some forms
of cancer, and a variety of other things used for heart
attacks, stroke.
The story was based on a 1999--now, this is a public story,
so I'm not asking about any classified information--a 1999
Cuban defector, Dr. Jose de la Fuente, who formerly directed
Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. He
oversaw the work of 350 scientists at what would be their
major, I gather, research facility in the area of
biotechnology.
Are you familiar with this individual?
Mr. Ford. Yes.
Senator Dodd. Dr. De la Fuente, a defector, told the Miami
Herald that he had: ``No reason to believe that Cuba's sale of
technology to Iran was malicious, although the outcome could
be.''
Isn't it virtually impossible to deny a country access to
dual-use technology in the BW area?
Mr. Ford. Extremely, extraordinarily difficult.
Senator Dodd. In other words, are almost all commercial
technologies in the pharmaceutical area adaptable to BW
purposes as well?
Mr. Ford. Yes.
Senator Dodd. Is Cuba--well, I've asked is it the only
country. You have answered you don't know that, but you're not
going to be surprised if--in fact, we'll state as a matter of
record there are other countries, allies of ours, who do sell
dual-use technology in the pharmaceutical area to Iran and
other rogue states.
Mr. Ford. It certainly wouldn't surprise me. I just don't
know it for a fact.
Senator Dodd. What dual-use technology has Cuba sold or
otherwise made available to rogue states? Which ones? What
other countries have made--we don't bother with that question.
Would anything they sell in this area be automatically
classified as dual-use?
Mr. Ford. What I can say about this, I do touch on this
subject briefly in my classified presentation. If you don't
mind, I'm not trying to avoid the question, but it would really
be better for me to answer this in the closed session.
Senator Dodd. Again, I don't want to draw you into policy,
but it seems to me if in fact what you said is true, and I
believe it to be the case, it is very difficult in the
pharmaceutical area, in dual-use technology, to be able to
characterize it as strictly BW or not BW because of the
potential use of it, the capability.
It seems to me if that's the case then it would make more
sense for the United States to deny Iran, Syria, and other
rogue states access to vaccine production technology, whether
it's from Cuba, France, or any other country. That to me ought
to seem to be where the effort ought to be if in fact they're
getting it from so many sources. Do you agree with that?
Mr. Ford. Again, as you suggest, that's--I obviously have a
personal view and a sense for policy, but that's really not my
field. Of course, I think that we should try to do what we can
to ensure that rogue states like Iran don't get nuclear,
chemical, or biological technologies, dual-use or otherwise,
not only from Cuba but from any of our friends, allies, other
rogue states.
But I admitted up front that that's very, very difficult.
It's in fact--in measuring things, it's much easier to deal
with the nuclear problem than it is the biological weapons
problem because there's a difference in scale, difference in
evidence, difference in requirements. So that BW is probably
the most difficult for us to deal with.
Senator Dodd. Dealing with the Carter visit, were you aware
that President Carter was going to be making a visit to Cuba?
Mr. Ford. I was aware that he was going to Cuba. I had read
it in the newspapers or heard it on TV.
Senator Dodd. Were you aware about the time that the Bolton
speech was cleared by your agency, or your department, rather?
Mr. Ford. Frankly, I didn't know that Secretary Bolton's
speech was scheduled or when it was going to be.
Senator Dodd. That didn't raise any concerns in your mind
that this may have been a speech given in response to the
upcoming visit of the former President to Cuba?
Mr. Ford. I didn't make the connection. I could understand
why others might, but I simply was focused on another problem
during that period of time and I really didn't pay much
attention to either the speech or, unfortunately, President
Carter's trip to Cuba.
Senator Dodd. Did you participate in President Carter's
intelligence briefings prior to his recent visit to Cuba?
Mr. Ford. No, Mr. Chairman, I did not. I understand he
received one, but it was from CIA or somebody. It wasn't from
myself or my staff.
Senator Dodd. So you're not aware whether or not he was
briefed about BW programs in Cuba?
Mr. Ford. I don't know.
Senator Dodd. Is any of our information about Cuba's BW
capability or its programs based on Cuban scientists who
actually worked in the programs?
Mr. Ford. All of our information is indirect.
Senator Dodd. The answer is no?
Mr. Ford. No.
Senator Dodd. There have been a number of defectors who've
come out of Cuba from the scientific community.
Mr. Ford. That's correct.
Senator Dodd. But none of the information on which we base
this conclusion is drawn from those sources?
Mr. Ford. Of course, we look at all the information
available to us--scientists, intelligence officers, emigres of
various sorts from Cuba. And these people have talked at
various times and in various levels of detail about a limited
offensive BW capability. We didn't just pull it out of the air.
Senator Dodd. But none of them had any direct----
Mr. Ford. None of them had direct evidence.
Senator Dodd. Except Dr. De la Fuente.
Mr. Ford. Again, we're getting to areas where for me to
explain my reasoning and rationale I really need to talk about
the whole range of information.
Senator Dodd. I understand. But my point is he directed the
biotechnology program in Cuba, oversaw 350 scientists. He's
asked whether or not there's any information that there was a
malicious intent behind the export of dual technology to Iran
and he said none. Now, the capability is there, he quickly
added. But there's one person who did have a direct knowledge
because of his role, a defector, and says no.
But we have no one else from the scientific community who
will give us direct evidence, direct evidence to contradict his
statement; is that correct?
Mr. Ford. Again, let me talk about the whole subject more
in closed session. But I'm not suggesting that your
characterization is incorrect or that you are not making a
valid point.
Senator Dodd. On the treaty violations--again, I won't get
into that because that statement you've already said we'll
bring that up with others along the way. It gets a little
complicated. There's an Australian group and other things that
make this a little more difficult.
Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. Yes, I thought you might appreciate that.
Secretary Powell has stated that--and I'm quoting--``Cuba
has a biological offensive research capability,'' although the
Secretary also stated, and I quote him, ``We didn't say that it
actually had such weapons, but it has the capacity and the
capability to conduct such research.''
Under Secretary Bolton and yourself have both stated that
Cuba has ``limited offensive biological research developmental
effort.'' I wonder if you could help us understand what
constitutes capability here. We're getting down to words and I
don't want to get so bogged down in the minutiae, but this is a
pretty important conclusion and obviously you're going to hear
a lot about it, we have heard a lot about it here.
For example, what kinds of laboratories, reagents, agent
cultures, equipment, biocontainment facilities, et cetera, must
a country possess in order to have such a capability, but not
necessarily a program? How would these facilities differ from
those needed to support a pharmaceutical R&D company, a
university medical school specializing in tropical diseases,
for example?
Mr. Ford. Cuba has in our judgment the trained personnel,
medical and scientific, the knowledge as supported by their
research into various diseases, both human and animal. They
have the research facilities, including biocontainment
facilities. They have everything you need to build a offensive
biological weapon. They don't need anything else.
The difference between that and a program is an arbitrary
intelligence community judgment, that to have a program, you
need to be able to have a factory that tests the weapon, that
puts the weapon in a bomb or a shell and/or does research and
development on that sort of weapons program, and has a unit
within the military specifically designated for a weapons
capability. That whole process of BW warfare is called a
program.
One, we don't see that in Cuba. We don't identify it having
a program. But it has everything else in order to build the bug
that could be used against persons, livestock, or crops.
Senator Dodd. Well, I've got a major production facility in
my state, Pfizer Corporation in Groton, Connecticut. And 800
scientists are there, a research facility, a fantastic one. Are
you suggesting to me that what exists there, because it is a
great laboratory and research facility and production facility
as well, that that's a capability? Because they're able to
produce Viagra, picking a drug out of the air here, that they
may be--that capability----
Mr. Ford. As long as it's not personal.
Senator Dodd. That capability--no one is suggesting, Carl.
You don't need to defend yourself.
Mr. Ford. One, I clearly don't think that----
Senator Dodd. You know what I'm getting at here?
Mr. Ford. I understand.
Senator Dodd. What my point is is that capability--that's a
capability. Does that capability to produce one pharmaceutical
product, with all the scientists and so forth, is that the
analogy we're making here? And is there evidence that the Cuban
pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology industry, is
aggressively pursuing production of products that are non-BW in
areas to deal with animal husbandry issues, crop issues, human
illness? Or is there an absence of that, that would then
heighten the degree of concern about a capability that doesn't
seem to be doing anything else? Unlike Pfizer's?
Mr. Ford. I always suspected that the people in Connecticut
probably didn't like me very much. But beyond that, I assume
that--you're right, we're really talking about that there is
the capability at medical, biological research facilities in
the United States. They have a capability for BW.
I would point to the fact that we're not quite sure--in
fact, as I read the newspapers and talk to my colleagues, we
all suspect that the anthrax that was used here in the United
States, even against the Senate, could very well have been
produced right here in the United States. So clearly that
capability is there.
The difference between what goes on here in the United
States and what we see in Cuba is that they clearly have a
capability, and we have seen them working with bad things that
could make biological weapons, and they don't like us. They may
have good reason for that. That's a different call. But the
fact is that they are worried about the United States. They're
afraid that we are going to use a weapon of mass destruction,
biological, they've argued, or more likely in their minds,
probably some sort of nuclear weapon, and that that gives them
cause, that gives them a reason why they might want to use this
capability to build a weapon.
Senator Dodd. Do they have any justification for that? Have
we ever had any plans to use----
Mr. Ford. I think they--you know, obviously, I see it from
American eyes. I don't think they have any justification at
all.
Senator Dodd. Have we ever had any plans?
Mr. Ford. I think it's a terrible mistake if that's what
they in fact believe.
Senator Dodd. Have we ever had any plans to use biological
weapons against Cuba?
Mr. Ford. I personally don't know. I hope to God we didn't.
But you know, I can't speak for what happened back in the
fifties and the sixties. I don't know.
Senator Dodd. Well, the fact is they don't like us. We
don't like them. That's a major factor in the conclusion?
Mr. Ford. Certainly in my conclusion that I'm not
particularly worried about the medical facilities and
capability for BW in Connecticut or London or even Paris.
Senator Dodd. Unless there's someone there who doesn't like
us.
Mr. Ford. But I am worried about it in Iran and Iraq, North
Korea, and Cuba. But to say that it wasn't a factor in my
thinking, that the position between or the feelings between
Cuba and the United States would be--obviously it is a factor
in my assessment.
Senator Dodd. Senator Chafee.
Senator Chafee. Thank you.
I would like to just followup on ``they don't like us.'' I
guess that's the root of my dispute over this whole issue. And
it's no different from saying that the Russians didn't like us,
but look at what we have accomplished in detente and
conciliation. You can say the North Vietnamese didn't like us,
but look at what's happening between these two countries now.
The Chinese didn't like us back in the Korean War, but look at
what is happening.
Why isn't there more of an effort here with Cuba? Just 90
miles away, to bridge across and to maybe assume that they do
like us, instead of assuming they're aggressive. It's no
different as to whether Canada is capable of having a
biological weapon. They're our allies. And I do think--maybe
you can dispute this--that the signals coming from that island
90 miles south of us are positive, and that things are
changing.
Their ally the Soviet Union is now our ally. Visitors are
pouring in, whether Canadians, Swiss, Swedes, Americans, and
the olive branch is being extended. Why isn't the rhetoric from
the State Department reflecting that?
Mr. Ford. Well, as I suggested earlier, those questions are
legitimate, important questions, but those should be directed
at Secretary Powell or others at State Department who are
responsible for developing our policy on Cuba.
What I can say is that we in INR are telling the Secretary,
and we believe, that Cuba has a limited development offensive
BW effort.
Senator Dodd. We've been joined by Senator Nelson. I
apologize, I didn't see him walk into the room. Bill, welcome.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm curious about your statement, BW capability with regard
to crops. Could you expand on that?
Mr. Ford. I will try. I would be the first to admit that I
am not a biotechnical expert. I wouldn't know a biological
weapon if I stumbled over one. So within those restrictions, I
will say that as I have been told, that the research
capabilities of Cuba include work on various biological agents,
pathogens, that could be effective against both people,
livestock, and crops.
I had taken that as a pretty fundamental basis of
biological weapons, so I didn't question it. I didn't ask them
which crops. I'm assuming they're talking about those close by,
that you know well, that both the cattle industry and the
fruits and vegetables in Florida would be clearly at least on
my list of things to be worried about.
Now, I think that I don't want to give you the impression
that we are suggesting to the Secretary or anybody else that
there is a person with a satchel on his way to Dade County or
to Saint Pete with a bag of biological weapons. Indeed, we
think that if you want to talk about intentions, that it has to
do with their fear of the United States and wanting to have a
deterrent, wanting to have something in their capability that
they could strike back at us.
I certainly see no indications that there is a first strike
capability or effort to attack the United States. It's simply
an effort that would give them a capability if at some point in
the future they thought it important to attack using a
biological weapon. I think that would be a huge mistake for any
country, to attack the United States with such a weapon. But
that's the future and I can't read all of the--I don't have a
crystal ball.
Senator Nelson. So you see their weapons capability as more
defensive in their planning, as opposed to offensive?
Mr. Ford. They have an offensive capability, but I think
that they see, the Cubans see it, as a deterrent, not as
something that they have decided in a back room in Havana that
they're going to use against the United States tomorrow, next
week, next year, 5 years from now.
Senator Nelson. That being your conclusion--perhaps, Mr.
Chairman, you might have already asked this. Perhaps in detail
you went into this or perhaps this is for the closed session,
about the potential of exporting those particular BW agents to
other countries. Have you gotten into that?
Senator Dodd. We talked a little about it. Senator Allen
has talked a lot about it. We have as well. But it's a big
subject, so don't hesitate. I'm sure Carl won't mind your
asking.
Senator Nelson. Given the nature of your last answer, that
in your opinion that you seem to be of the opinion that their
BW elements are more constructed in a defensive nature than
offensive nature, well, how does that work into whether or not
they would be exporting? And do we have any evidence of exports
to other countries?
Mr. Ford. We are concerned about the pattern of trade
activities that Cuba has maintained in their biomedical,
biotechnical use, equipment use. So that many of the things
that they sell and trade with other countries have a dual-use
capability. Many or a number of the countries that Cuba deals
with are considered adversaries or potential adversaries of the
United States, and obviously we're concerned about that
technology, whether it's dual-use or not, being transferred to
those countries.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. I think it's time to go into closed session.
Do you have something else, Senator, you want to raise?
Senator Allen. Yes, if I may, just a few points.
As far as Cuba, a few questions here, and also Cuba's past
use, potentially, or just to get your views on the possible
past use of chemical or biological weapons by Cubans, and get
clear what former President Jimmy Carter's assertion was,
whether you agree or disagree with it.
Back in 1998 columnists Robert Novak and Roland Evans
revealed that the Soviet Union was, of course, back in 1988,
still in existence, they were supplying Cuban troops who were
fighting in Angola. The United States and South Africa were
supporting Jonas Savimbi, the UNITA group. They cited evidence
scrupulously documented by the senior United Nations consultant
on chemical warfare, Dr. Aubin Heyndrickx of Belgium,
toxicologists certified that residue from chemical weapons,
including sarin, was found in the areas of recent action. When
questioned then by Senator Dennis DeConcini about the rumors,
Dr. Heyndrickx, replied: ``There is no doubt any more that the
Cubans were using nerve gases against troops of Mr. Jonas
Savimbi.''
The columnists also went on and said how Heyndrickx had
warned the United States that if Soviet Cuban managers in
Angola used gas in the past, they could in the future.
More evidence also was in 1998 from South Africa, where
Wuter Bassin, former head of South Africa's covert chemical
weapons program, had given a sworn statement implicating Cuba.
He said South Africa was forced to begin its chemical weapons
program after Cuba had used chemical warfare on South African
troops fighting in Angola. South Africa--this is before they
became a free country for all people, but nevertheless--were
fighting on the side of the United States with Savimbi, and
they felt that their troops were defenseless and unprepared for
it.
Can you confirm or deny those assertions as far as the
Cubans' efforts in the Angola war back in the late eighties?
Mr. Ford. I don't have any personal knowledge of those
events. It doesn't mean that they are true, false. Don't know.
If you don't mind, Senator, I will--it's an important enough
question that I will take it and find out and report back to
you what the INR, what the intelligence community, thinks about
those reports.
I'd point out that--but they are talking about chemical
weapons, not biological weapons, and our judgments are slightly
different. Chemical weapons are somewhat easier to deal with in
terms of knowing whether or not they're there or not.
Biological weapons are just much more difficult to deal with.
Senator Dodd. Well, do we have any evidence that there are
chemical weapons in Cuba?
Mr. Ford. No.
Senator Allen. Well, some of the concerns as far as the
transfers, say, to Iran are chemical and biological weapons.
Granted, they may be different, obviously, in their properties,
but many times are associated together for logical reasons. And
they have--well, we'd like to see what----
Mr. Ford. Particularly since I'm on an unclassified level,
before I misspeak let me just make sure and doublecheck both
your question and my response to Senator Dodd to make sure that
I'm accurate and complete on their chemical, as well as on what
happened in Africa and what we think happened in Africa.
[The information referred to is classified.]
Mr. Ford. [DELETED].
Senator Allen. I appreciate that.
Finally, and since we're unclear whether Under Secretary
Bolton used the word ``development'' twice in one sentence or
``developmental,'' let me quote from WashingtonPost.com May 14,
2002, on President Carter, former President Carter's statements
in Cuba. This is what it says: ``I asked them''--regarding
State Department people. ``I asked them specifically, is there
any evidence that Cuba has been involved in sharing any
information to any other country on Earth that could be used
for terrorist purposes,'' Carter said. ``And the answer''--this
is President Carter's comments: ``And the answer from our
experts on intelligence was no.''
Now, is that an accurate statement on the part of former
President Carter, that our experts on intelligence say no,
there is--that there is no evidence about the Cubans sharing
information with any other country on Earth that could be used
for terrorist purposes?
Mr. Ford. As I indicated earlier, Senator, I don't have any
personal knowledge of what CIA or someone else may have briefed
President Carter on. So I can't speak to that.
Senator Allen. Well, regardless, let's assume--let's
stipulate you were not in the room. You did not brief him. He
was not asked--he did not ask you questions or anyone else.
Mr. Ford. If he had asked me the question, I would, one,
make the clear distinction between terrorism and any questions
he may have about Cuban BW effort, capabilities. There are a
number of--on terrorism, there are a number of groups and
individuals that are terrorists that are resident in and/or
travel frequently to Cuba. That's a fact. They are sort of the
Who's Who of various terrorist groups in Latin America and also
other parts of the world. Do I have extensive knowledge that
the Cuban Government is directly supporting terrorist
activities against the United States or in other parts of the
world? I can't go that far.
Senator Allen. Well, former President Carter said that it
is no, in fact states that the United States--this was at their
biotechnology facility--the United States had no proof that
Cuba shared bioweapons data.
Mr. Ford. Well, but see, I would make--I would make the
distinction between the questions about terrorism and the
questions about BW. My sense is that I am worried, and my
statement suggests my worry, that Cuba, with what I believe to
be a limited offensive BW effort, has had biomedical contact
with a number of countries in the world that worry and bother
me. And so that the connection with biological weapons with
Iran and other places is based on simply the fact that they are
involved in economic, commercial relations with Iran on
biomedical devices, capabilities, and research.
So that's why we're worried.
Senator Allen. Have you read former President Carter's
statements, to the extent you can believe what you read in
WashingtonPost.com or elsewhere? I think WashingtonPost.com's
accurate. I want to say that they do a very good job.
Senator Dodd. That's your local paper. I'd be careful
there.
Senator Allen. Well, WashingtonPost.com is a great Website.
Mr. Ford. In preparation for this hearing, I did not go
back and review either a transcript or the press reports of
President Carter's comments. I recall at the time reading in
both the Washington Post and the Washington Times----
Senator Allen. Both fine newspapers in their own respects.
Mr. Ford [continuing]. That's right--and listening to the
radio and television remarks he made and the general thrust of
the issues that were discussed.
Senator Allen. Since you have your general views of all of
that, and if you have any recollection, do you think that his
statements of lack of concern on the part of the United States
as far as Cuba were an accurate description of our actual
policy and the actual concerns of our country insofar as Cuba's
biological weapons capabilities, and also the dissemination or
proliferation thereof elsewhere to rogue states?
Mr. Ford. I don't question--at least that sounds, as I
recall, what President Carter asserted, and I don't question
that.
Senator Allen. Right. Was that an accurate description of
our position and concerns?
Mr. Ford. INR's position, which is the only one I can talk
directly to----
Senator Allen. Right.
Mr. Ford [continuing]. Is that we clearly--I wouldn't have
mentioned it to you before in March. I wouldn't be here today
if I didn't believe that we had good evidence to suggest that
there was something to be concerned and worried about. Is it
the No. 1 danger posed to the United States? Do you go home and
worry about it every night and can't sleep? No, it's not at the
top of my priority list in terms of the greatest threats posed
to the United States, but that's my intelligence judgment.
I've got a number of other things you want to worry about
that I'd like to add to the list. It's on my list. It's
something that I think that the committee and certainly my
bosses in the executive branch need to know about, and I
certainly don't quarrel with them saying that they are
concerned about it in their public statements. But that's about
as best I can do in terms of Carl Ford and INR's view.
Senator Allen. You've been very diplomatic in many respects
here and I will just state my impression is that the President,
former President Carter's, statements are inconsistent with
your testimony on March 19 before this committee. But I'll not
make you have to----
Mr. Ford. He probably would say that, too.
Senator Allen. OK. Well, good, fine.
Thank you.
Senator Dodd. Thank you.
Senator Allen. No further questions.
Senator Nelson. Mr. President--``Mr. President.'' Mr.
Chairman----
Senator Dodd. That has a nice ring to it.
Senator Nelson. That does have a nice ring to it, doesn't
it.
May I divert here just a little bit because of the
credentials of our witness. We just passed a resolution
sponsored by me out of this committee a week and a half ago
commending those brave soldiers in Cuba who have signed the
petition on the Varela Project. The question that often comes
regarding those 11,000 brave souls that put their name on a
petition to Castro's government is, is the Castro government
going to clamp down on them? One of the reasons for us passing
the Senate resolution was to try to draw all the more
attention, world attention, to their very courageous action.
Do you have any information with regard to any plans or any
actions that the Castro government has taken or would be taking
against those citizens who signed the petition in Cuba?
Mr. Ford. Senator, I share your concern. We are watching
closely. At this point I don't know of any evidence that
suggests that there has actually been a specific case of
retaliation or punishment or any impact. That doesn't mean
there hasn't been or that there won't be. I just haven't seen
it yet.
Senator Nelson. What is it, as you observe the changing
conditions internally in Cuba, that would suddenly allow this
seed to germinate and sprout where people would suddenly stand
up and defy the Cuban Government by, according to the Cuban
constitution, coming forth and signing a petition, of which
10,000 names were required, to put an issue in front of the
National Assembly? What is changing there that suddenly allowed
that seed to germinate and sprout?
Mr. Ford. Well, I suspect that you know more, have
forgotten more, than I know about Cuba. So I'm not----
Senator Nelson. I'm interested in your observations from
your world.
Mr. Ford. But I don't find that all that surprising. One,
it isn't the first time that people have taken great risk to
speak out or make a choice about what they thought was going on
in Cuba. They've been coming here, risking their lives, for as
long as I can remember. So that that was always a signal to me.
When a person will get on a boat that doesn't float and set out
across from Cuba to the United States, risking their and their
family's lives, it suggests to me that they really want to get
here.
Senator Nelson. I'll tell you what's different about that
and this, though, is that this, they put their name on the line
and they're staying in Cuba. In the situations you just
described, people are trying to flee.
Mr. Ford. I accept that, Senator. But I would make the
argument that the courage involved and the process, the thought
process, is not at all that different, because there's no
guarantee that you can get out. You might be picked up by Cuban
police or Cuban Coast Guard and, if caught trying to escape,
you're going to be punished.
I think the other part of it, though, is that I think that
it's very difficult over an extended period of time to keep
people from expressing their political, social views; and that
it's not just Cuba. We've seen changes that we never would have
imagined and the intelligence community didn't pick up on in
former Soviet Union, now Russia. But we've also seen changes
throughout Eastern Europe, China, a lot of places that we've
seen changes.
So the notion that people in Cuba would be any different or
be any less willing to take and state their desire for
democracy and greater freedom doesn't surprise me. But I'm not
a Cuban expert. There may be a very good reason that an expert
up here would say: Oh, yeah, I've got this piece of evidence
that says this is why this is happening now.
I frankly did not react as it being something new and
different. I was a little surprised, but pleased, that this
sort of approach had emerged in Cuba.
Senator Nelson. Well, I too was surprised, very pleased. If
you see any evidence either that you can share publicly or
privately that in fact there is any retribution against these
11,000-plus courageous souls, I want you to share that with me.
Mr. Ford. Yes, sir, will do.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. Thank you, Senator Nelson.
Now let me make a couple of closing observations if I can.
First of all, we appreciate your being here, Mr. Ford. Your
statement at the outset that obviously you deal with
intelligence matters, Mr. Bolton deals with policy--I presume
the two of you have met from time to time with the Secretary
simultaneously.
Mr. Ford. That's not--in this case, I have met with the
Secretary on this issue. I have met with Secretary Bolton on
this issue, but not together. The only time that Secretary
Bolton and I were together was we met once briefly with
Secretary Armitage, Secretary Bolton and myself, a week, 10
days ago.
Senator Dodd. Well, the point I make is the one I did at
the outset, and that is I want to express again my
disappointment here. I appreciate your being here, but Mr.
Bolton is the Under Secretary. This is a--it's not about the
personalities on this committee. It's this committee, the
Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate, and when an
Under Secretary makes a speech to a ``political'' organization
here in town and then refuses or is told he cannot come to
testify before a standing committee of the Congress on the
subject matter of that speech, it is terribly disappointing.
That's unhealthy in this country. There is a responsibility
that the executive branch owes to the legislative branch, with
our oversight responsibilities, to appear before us and to
respond to questions that are raised. If it was comfortable
enough for him to submit his remarks to the intelligence group
department at the State Department and then give a speech that
received wide publicity, and then not be allowed to come before
this subcommittee, that is deeply disturbing to me. Beyond the
specifics here, that is deeply disturbing.
I understand the Secretary is prepared to testify and, if
necessary, have Mr. Bolton come up. That's a rather long,
circuitous route. It would have been just as easy for him to be
here this morning to go over this, to respond to the questions.
So I wanted to make that point again to you.
Second, I think it is--I am sorry my colleague from
Virginia has left because I wanted to make this statement in
his presence as well. I happen to believe that most people
admire immensely what President Carter did by going down to
Cuba and giving a very blunt and frank talk in the presence of
Fidel Castro and the Cuban people, given a unique opportunity
not allowed to any Cuban, by the way, to express their views on
national television and radio, when he called for democracy in
that country, when he specifically referred to the Valera group
that my colleague from Florida has mentioned, and their rights.
That is the first time that a person of that level and rank
has gone down and used the opportunity in a public forum that
he was given to really be of a very honest and frank
expression, I think, of the views of many Americans. Whatever
else we may disagree about here, none of us harbor anything but
a fervent desire and hope that the Cuban people be free, and
they are not free. They live under a dictator. That's the long
and the short of it.
Your characterization I think is accurate in the sense that
this is a far lower priority for all the obvious reasons we
don't need to go into, than other places around the world that
pose a threat to us. And I think Senator Nelson is correct,
there are some interesting signs here. The question is whether
or not we're going to be clever enough to pick up on those
signs, to listen carefully to the dissident community within
Cuba.
I have great admiration for those who have fled and placed
their lives on the line to come to this country. I have even a
heightened degree of admiration for those who are dissidents
who decided to stay. I say that with all due respect to those
who have made the decision to leave. But for those who've
stayed and done the 20 and 25 and 30 years in prison, we ought
to listen carefully to their advice and counsel as to how to
proceed.
President Carter I think did a wonderful, wonderful job,
and all Americans, whether you agree with everything he said or
every comment made, I think he's opened up some new
opportunities for us here regarding change in Cuba that weren't
present otherwise.
And I wasn't going to say this, but since the
characterization that he may have misspoke--he was given
information. He specifically asked about whether or not there
were particular problems in this area. He was told there were
not. I don't for a second question the veracity of President
Jimmy Carter, and I don't know many Americans who ever would.
So when he had a briefing and he was asked about concerns, he
was told this matter did not come up, and I take him at his
word, and I believe that most Americans would as well.
We're grateful for your testimony. And I'd like to spend a
few minutes with you in closed session to go over some of the
issues you could not, and rightfully could not, raise in a
public forum, and I'd invite my colleague Senator Nelson to
join us for that purpose. The public session of this committee
will stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:42 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]
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