THE US: The State Department head of intelligence said yesterday the US had "substantial information" that Cuba was developing biological weapons (BW) and exporting dual-use technology, which could be used for germ warfare, to Iran.
Mr Carl Ford, assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, told a Senate committee he would only provide the evidence to a closed-door session later in the day, but he insisted that it was convincing. "We feel very confident about saying that they're working on an effort that would give them a limited BW offensive capability. And that's serious enough for us to tell you."
His testimony marks an important step in a row that blew up on May 6th, when a conservative political appointee to the State Department, Mr John Bolton, made a widely reported speech to a right-wing think-tank accusing Cuba of developing biological weapons and exporting dangerous technology to Iran.
Cuba and Iran rejected the accusation. Former president Jimmy Carter, who visited Cuba a week later, questioned Mr Bolton's claim and said he had not been told of them in intelligence briefings before his visit.
Democrats have accused right-wing elements in the administration of using the "war on terror" to pursue their own agenda in Colombia and Cuba; they argued that Mr Bolton's claim was intended to undermine Mr Carter's Cuban visit and lay the ground for President Bush's renewal of sanctions against Cuba last month.
The Connecticut Democrat senator Mr Chris Dodd, who chaired yesterday's hearing, said he was concerned the administration was "raising spectres" which could divert resources from defending the US from more substantial terrorist threats.
Mr José de la Fuente, a Cuban scientist who once ran Cuba's biotechnology centre in Havana, and who defected to the United States in 1999, has insisted that he had neither seen nor heard of any Cuban attempts to develop biological weapons. But he did express concern about Havana's technology transfers to Tehran.
"No one believes that Iran is interested in these technologies for the purpose of protecting all the children in the Middle East from hepatitis," he wrote last year.
The US was alarmed by a speech made by President Fidel Castro last year: "Iran and Cuba can bring America to its knees. The US regime is very weak and we are witnessing this weakness from close up." - (Guardian Service)