The United States yesterday intensified charges against Cuba when a senior Bush administration official said Cuba is not complying with the Biological Weapons Convention.  Speaking in Moscow, the official was asked whether Cuba is in “noncompliance” with the pact, and he replied, “Yes, yes.”

“Cuba has been involved in discussions with other rogue states, with Iran and Libya, in ways that we find very troubling,” the official said.

The United States did not include Cuba in a list of noncomplying states offered at the BWC Review Conference in November.  At the time, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton charged that North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria were not complying with the treaty (see GSN, November 20, 2001).

The official yesterday welcomed an offer from Cuban President Fidel Castro to open Cuban biotechnology facilities to impartial visitors.

“I think we’re going to take a close look at President Castro’s offer to let others come and take a look at his pharmaceutical and biochemical facilities,” the official said, but he questioned the value of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s recent visit (see GSN, May 14).

“With all due respect, President Carter is not a weapons inspector,” the official said (Greg Webb, GSN, May 15).

Meanwhile, U.S. officials denied Carter’s assertion that he had been told that the United States had no information relating to Cuba’s proliferation activities. 

Carter said Monday that he had asked Bush administration officials if there was any evidence that Cuba had given other countries information concerning weapons of mass destruction.  The officials told him “no,” Carter said.  White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said yesterday, however, that biological weapons were never brought up during Carter’s briefing with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

“This question of bioweaponry was not raised by President Carter or brought up by Dr. Rice,” Fleischer said.

In a speech last week, Bolton said Cuba is developing a biological weapons research program and has probably aided other rogue states in developing similar programs.  Those claims, however, were first made in March during Senate testimony by Carl Ford, assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, Fleischer said.

“This is a concern that goes back several months,” he said (Audrey Hudson, Washington Times, May 15).

Inside Cuba’s Biotechnology Laboratories

Cuba’s biotechnology centers, renowned for their work in pharmaceuticals, immunology and other biological research areas, do have the technologies needed to produce biological weapons, according to Time magazine.  Many biotechnology laboratories worldwide, however, also have the same equipment, Time reported.  Cuban leader Fidel Castro also probably would not waste the prestige that Cuban biotechnology centers have obtained in order to pursue biological weapons, according to experts on Cuba.

Concepcion Campa, director of the Finlay Institute in Cuba, denied any allegation that Cuban laboratories are conducting covert biological weapons research.   The institute has developed vaccines for diseases such as tetanus and hepatitis, Time reported.  In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical company Smith-Kline purchased meningitis vaccine produced by the institute to help fight an outbreak of the disease in the United States, according to Time.

Cuba’s biotechnology facilities are suffering from a lack of funding that makes developing biological weapons a waste of revenue, Campa said.

“You see all this equipment we’ve imported, even for things as simple as conserving the low temperatures we need?  If it breaks, because we can’t buy replacement parts from the (nearby) U.S., it costs us three times as much as it should for us to fix it,” Campa said.  “Our philosophy is not to produce vaccines purely for profit, but still, why would we bother with biological weapons when there is so much more revenue in selling vaccines to companies like Smith-Kline?”

Castro yesterday said any “neutral and impartial” inspectors from any country could come and inspect Cuban biotechnology centers (Padgett/Mascarenas, Time, May 14).

On Monday, Carter visited a Cuban biotechnology center and said he believes Havana’s assertion that the center is not being used to develop weapons technology to share with other nations, according to the Washington Times.

U.S. Senator George Allen (R-Va.), however, said he is disappointed Carter accepted “at face value the assurances of Communist Cuban officials there that the facility is engaged solely in medical and humanitarian pursuits” (Hudson, Washington Times).

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP

Back to top