Secretary Cohen, Casey Institute Symposia Agree:
Castro’s Cuba Remains an Asymmetric Threat

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday, the Pentagon released an unclassified version of a recent
Defense
Intelligence Agency assessment of the threat to U.S. national security posed by Cuba, produced in
response to a request from Congress. News of this report’s conclusion that “Cuba does not pose
a significant military threat to the U.S. or to other countries in the region” was leaked to the press
last March, precipitating considerable public outcry and prompting postponement of the study’s
submission pending a personal review of its contents by Secretary of Defense William
Cohen.

It is not clear whether Secretary Cohen’s review significantly affected the content of the highly
superficial unclassified intelligence estimate or the longer, and presumably more rigorous,
classified version. His transmission letter, however, paints a starkly different — and more
accurate — picture of the abiding danger posed to the United States and its interests than
that conveyed by the accompanying report (and, more to the point, press accounts
referring to
its findings.) In particular, Senator Cohen wrote Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
Strom Thurmond:

“While the assessment notes that the direct conventional threat by the Cuban military
has decreased, I remain concerned about the use of Cuba as a base for intelligence
activities directed against the United States, the potential threat that Cuba may
pose to neighboring islands, Castro’s continued dictatorship that represses the
Cuban people’s desire for political and economic freedom, and the potential
instability that could accompany the end of his regime depending on the
circumstances under which Castro departs.“

Additionally, the Secretary raises his concerns “about Cuba’s potential to
develop and
produce biological agents, given its biotechnology infrastructure, as well as the
environmental health risks posed to the United States by potential accidents at the Juragua
nuclear power facility.“

The sorts of abiding “asymmetric threats” posed by the Castro regime were the focus of two
Symposia sponsored by the William J. Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy on 12 and
13 March 1997, convened in Coral Gables and West Palm Beach, Florida (respectively). The
Institute today released a summary of these meetings addressing
“Vital U.S. Security Interests
in Cuba” with important insights into a number of issues of concern to Secretary Cohen,
including: the dangers to millions of Americans downwind from the doomed Cuban
nuclear
power complex abuilding at Juragua; Cuba’s potential biological weapons
capabilities; and
the Castro regime’s continuing involvement in drug-trafficking, narco-terrorism and
subversion of democratic governments in the Western hemisphere.