A Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Cuba has ‘a number of projects that are what could be dual-use things, but they’re probably not. . . . It’s a question more of them exciting suspicions by not being open. I don’t know of any tangible stuff that shows yes, they are making anthrax [or anything else]. There is stuff we don’t know about.’
This is the key graf from today’s Washington Post piece about the Bush administration allegations that Cuba has an offensive biological weapons program. An administration official is in so many words saying that Under Secretary of State John Bolton’s allegations are crap. As I noted in the earlier post, Cuba has a fairly advanced biotech industry. If you do biotech, almost by definition much of your equipment and facilities are going to be dual-use. So they seem to have nothing. And the actual briefings Carter got from the State and intel people seem to back that up.
This is the problem with the hawks. They often do see certain big picture things with real clarity. But they’re irresponsible, reckless, and they often just don’t tell the truth.
As I said earlier, Bolton’s throw-away remarks about Cuba — perhaps a sop to Otto Reich — weaken our hand against Saddam Hussein. If you’re a hawk, if you really care about weapons of mass destruction, you should be angry with Bolton. If you think this is just a parlor game then maybe you won’t mind.
