Report: Pentagon urges closer U.S.-Cuban ties

Officials say island no longer a threat

March 28, 1998
Web posted at: 11:36 a.m. EST (1636 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon has concluded that Cuba is no longer a threat to U.S. security, and that engagement -- not isolation -- may be a better way to reduce tensions between the long-time rivals, according to a defense report obtained by The Miami Herald. The Pentagon assessment, which is to be delivered to Congress by Tuesday, also says chances of another mass exodus have been greatly reduced.

Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces has been so "dramatically" weakened from its peak of 130,000 troops in the 1980s that it "has no capability whatsoever to project itself beyond the borders of Cuba," Marine Gen. Charles Wilhelm, chief of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, told the Herald.

Other military experts told the newspaper that Cuban President Fidel Castro wants to stay in power, and is smart enough to realize that provoking the United States would only trigger his demise.

However, advocates of maintaining a more cautious policy on Cuba point to Castro's record, including the 1996 shootdown of two exile planes over international waters, as evidence of Cuba's threat.

Some Cuban exile leaders and congressional lawmakers expressed outrage at the suggestion that President Clinton's administration should warm up to Castro's regime, the Herald said.

The paper quoted an excerpt from a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, dated March 19, in which nine members of Congress, including three Cuban-American lawmakers, wrote:

"We are appalled by current attempts to downplay the Castro threat. ... There is a pathologically unstable tyrant in the final years of his dictatorship just 90 miles from our shores. His four-decade record of brutality, rabid hostility toward the Cuban exile community, anti-Americanism, support for international terrorism and proximity to the United States is an ominous combination."

The classified report was mandated by Congress last year, and comes just days after Clinton relaxed sanctions against the Caribbean island by restoring direct flights for humanitarian purposes, permitting Cuban-American families to send money to their relatives and promising more medical and food aid.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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