5 interagency groups hard at work preparing for Cuba after Castro

[The freaks who can't even do anythig right in this country, can't keep their greedy heads off of Cuba either....]

by Pablo Bachelet, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON
Convinced that Cuban leader Fidel Castro will never regain the power he once wielded, the Bush administration has created five interagency working groups to monitor Cuba and carry out U.S. policy.

The groups, some of which operate in war-room-like settings, were quietly set up after the July 31 announcement that the ailing Castro, 80, had ceded power temporarily to a collective leadership headed by his brother, Raul, U.S. officials say.

The groups' composition reflects both the administration's Cuban policy priorities as well as the belief that Castro's status as the island's undisputed leader is finished, regardless of the nature of his still-mysterious ailment.

Thomas Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, said last month that Castro "does not appear" to be in a position to return to day-to-day management.

Eric Watnik, a State Department spokesman on Cuban issues, went further. Castro "will never come back to the position that he previously enjoyed," he said last week.

U.S. officials say three of the newly created groups are headed by the State Department: diplomatic actions, strategic communications and democratic promotion. A group that coordinates humanitarian aid to Cuba is run by the Commerce Department, and a fifth, on migration issues, is run by the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security.

Many of the groups' members work out of the same State Department office in what one person familiar with the operation described as a "control room."

The State Department is reluctant to give details on the new interagency groups, saying the focus should be on the democratic transition they're trying to achieve in Cuba rather than on the U.S. government process.

Officials portrayed the working groups as logical outcomes of the Commission on Assistance to a Free Cuba, an interagency Cabinet-level effort that has been convened twice to draft policy recommendations. A second commission, co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, issued a report in July, just weeks before Castro underwent surgery for intestinal bleeding caused by a still-undisclosed ailment.

It recommended more aid to Castro opponents, a diplomatic campaign to offset Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's alleged efforts to prolong communism in Cuba, and stricter enforcement of sanctions. It also recommended more coordination between government agencies.

The establishment of the new interagency working groups came around the same time the intelligence community was bolstering its monitoring of Cuba. Last month, U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte appointed CIA veteran Patrick Maher as acting mission manager for Cuba and Venezuela. Officials say the post had been planned before the announcement of Castro's illness.

The position is considered "very high level," according to Brian Latell, a retired CIA analyst on Cuba and the author of "After Fidel," a recent book on Fidel and Raul Castro.

Mission managers usually oversee a staff of four to six people who cull intelligence information on the target countries. Though the post is essentially one of coordination, the mission manager also is expected to "be an activist" to stimulate better information gathering from the different branches of the intelligence services, Latell said.

The creation of the post also underlined the national security importance of Cuba and Venezuela. Only Iran and North Korea - both perceived as nuclear threats - have similar country mission managers. Three other managers oversee counterterrorism, counterintelligence and counter-proliferation.

The Bush administration's policy on Cuba has been straightforward: Pressure Havana to adopt democratic reforms through economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. But when specific options are discussed, Cuba has often turned out to be divisive.

The Defense Department, for instance, has balked at acting too aggressively for fear of igniting a crisis in the United States' backyard when U.S. forces are stretched thin by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mauricio Claver-Carone, who heads the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee in Washington, which lobbies Congress for tougher sanctions on the island, says democratic change in Cuba should "supersede perceived instability" concerns.

He said the State Department and the White House are committed to "democracy above all options," while Homeland Security and the Pentagon are "ambivalent to drastic change in Cuba."