Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
May 17, 2007
A Pentagon request for more contacts with Cuba has been denied as Cuba and Venezuela intelligence operation languishes for lack of staff and money, a former official said.
By Pablo Bachelet
A recent Pentagon request for more military-to-military contacts with Cuba was denied and a special intelligence office created to closely monitor Cuba and Venezuela has ''practically disappeared,'' due to staff and budget cuts, the office's former head said Wednesday.
Norman Bailey, who until March was mission manager for Cuba and Venezuela at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said the State Department recently blocked the Pentagon request to allow its military attachés abroad to contact their Cuban counterparts.
The Venezuela and Cuba mission manager post was established last year by John Negroponte, then ODNI's chief. He acted on instructions from President Bush amid concerns over the threat to U.S. interests posed by Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chávez and the consequences of Fidel Castro's illness.
After three months on the job, Bailey, an economic consultant and Cold War expert, was fired by Mike McConnell, who replaced Negroponte in the job of coordinating the work of 16 government intelligence agencies and programs.
Bailey said he was initially told the position was being eliminated, but McConnell denied this in a March 14 letter to House members. He wrote that he was looking for a replacement and that the position ``has not been diminished in any way.''
But at a gathering at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank to discuss the impact on the U.S. military of Ana Belén Montes, a Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba analyst convicted of spying for Havana, Bailey painted a different picture.
''The fact is that office has practically disappeared,'' he said, noting that with his dismissal and one resignation its staff has dropped to one full timer and one half-timer.
ODNI spokesman Ross Feinstein declined to comment on personnel matters but said that a replacement search was under way and that Patrick Maher, a 33-year CIA veteran who specializes on Latin American issues, is the acting mission manager for Cuba and Venezuela.
Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said she has voiced her ''great regret'' on the administration's failure so far to replace Bailey. She added that at a classified hearing next week with ODNI officials on the damages caused by Montes' spying, she will press for a replacement ``who will ensure that we have the information necessary to address the Castro and Chávez threats.''
The State Department and the Defense Department declined to discuss Bailey's comment on the State Department's rejection of the Pentagon request, but other U.S. government officials confirmed the request.
In the past, U.S. military attachés abroad were reprimanded even if they entered into casual conversations with their Cuban counterparts.
Only a Coast Guard representative at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana is allowed to talk to Cuban government officials on matters like migration and drug trafficking. The U.S. commander at the Guantánamo Naval Base also holds periodic talks with Cuban military officers to avert tensions.
But further contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military have long been resisted by the U.S. government in part because of fears that Cuban intelligence officers would take advantage of U.S. military officers, said Roger Noriega.
Noriega, who until 2005 was assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, said at the conference he had ``killed that idea more than once.''
May 17, 2007
A Pentagon request for more contacts with Cuba has been denied as Cuba and Venezuela intelligence operation languishes for lack of staff and money, a former official said.
By Pablo Bachelet
A recent Pentagon request for more military-to-military contacts with Cuba was denied and a special intelligence office created to closely monitor Cuba and Venezuela has ''practically disappeared,'' due to staff and budget cuts, the office's former head said Wednesday.
Norman Bailey, who until March was mission manager for Cuba and Venezuela at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said the State Department recently blocked the Pentagon request to allow its military attachés abroad to contact their Cuban counterparts.
The Venezuela and Cuba mission manager post was established last year by John Negroponte, then ODNI's chief. He acted on instructions from President Bush amid concerns over the threat to U.S. interests posed by Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chávez and the consequences of Fidel Castro's illness.
After three months on the job, Bailey, an economic consultant and Cold War expert, was fired by Mike McConnell, who replaced Negroponte in the job of coordinating the work of 16 government intelligence agencies and programs.
Bailey said he was initially told the position was being eliminated, but McConnell denied this in a March 14 letter to House members. He wrote that he was looking for a replacement and that the position ``has not been diminished in any way.''
But at a gathering at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank to discuss the impact on the U.S. military of Ana Belén Montes, a Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba analyst convicted of spying for Havana, Bailey painted a different picture.
''The fact is that office has practically disappeared,'' he said, noting that with his dismissal and one resignation its staff has dropped to one full timer and one half-timer.
ODNI spokesman Ross Feinstein declined to comment on personnel matters but said that a replacement search was under way and that Patrick Maher, a 33-year CIA veteran who specializes on Latin American issues, is the acting mission manager for Cuba and Venezuela.
Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said she has voiced her ''great regret'' on the administration's failure so far to replace Bailey. She added that at a classified hearing next week with ODNI officials on the damages caused by Montes' spying, she will press for a replacement ``who will ensure that we have the information necessary to address the Castro and Chávez threats.''
The State Department and the Defense Department declined to discuss Bailey's comment on the State Department's rejection of the Pentagon request, but other U.S. government officials confirmed the request.
In the past, U.S. military attachés abroad were reprimanded even if they entered into casual conversations with their Cuban counterparts.
Only a Coast Guard representative at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana is allowed to talk to Cuban government officials on matters like migration and drug trafficking. The U.S. commander at the Guantánamo Naval Base also holds periodic talks with Cuban military officers to avert tensions.
But further contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military have long been resisted by the U.S. government in part because of fears that Cuban intelligence officers would take advantage of U.S. military officers, said Roger Noriega.
Noriega, who until 2005 was assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, said at the conference he had ``killed that idea more than once.''