Bio-weapons in Cuba?

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Larry Klayman, running in Florida, says he wants to see Fidel Castro overthrown because the Cuban dictator has biological weapons and shelters international terrorists.

Larry Klayman

Klayman called Castro "a master terrorist" and a primary threat to U.S. security.

Klayman is seeking the seat of retiring three-term U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat.

"It's time to remove Castro once and for all, by force if necessary," said Klayman, a former Justice Department attorney. "He's had free reign for too long."

Klayman, who said last week that if elected he'd file legislation to oust Castro, said the U.S. has stood by too long while the Cuban dictator "tortures, maims and rapes" his own people.

"All the politicians go around talking about how bad the situation is, but they don't do anything," Klayman said. "If we can do it for the Iraqis, create democracy there, can't we do it for the Cubans who have done more for this country?"

There was no comment from Havana on Klayman's comments.

The two Cuban-Americans in the Senate race, Republican Mel Martinez of Orlando and Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas support Castro's removal, but not by force.

"I am totally for a regime change in Cuba, but we must do it by peaceful means unless it's apparent that Castro is a more obvious threat than he appears to be today," said Martinez, who came to the U.S. from Cuba at 15 to live with foster parents until his family was able to rejoin him.

"The notion of taking a collective military action in Cuba without any specific evidence of imminent threats to America I would not support," said Penelas, who also spoke Spanish on two occasions to differentiate himself from his Democratic opponents.

Gov. Jeb Bush later said he would not comment on suggestions the U.S. should invade Cuba to overthrow Castro.

WorldNetDaily reported last summer that Castro cooperated with Iraq's Saddam Hussein in an active chemical and biological weapons program. The report originated in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, an online intelligence newsletter published by WorldNetDaily. Some intelligence analysts believe Castro may have unleashed that program on the U.S. in the form of West Nile Virus.

West Nile was first identified in New York City in 1999. By the end of 2002, there were 4,156 laboratory-diagnosed human cases and 284 deaths, the largest arboviral meningo-encephalitis outbreak ever recorded in North America, according to a report by Doctors for Disaster Preparedness.

About 85 percent of human infections occur in August and September, and the mosquito is by far the most common route. It is, however, possible to contract WNV through breast milk, blood contact and organ transplants.

Symptoms include stiff neck, photophobia, depressed states, altered consciousness and personality change. Movement disorders, including tremors, gait disturbance and Parkinsonism may occur.

While it is well-known that WNV is of Middle East origin, what is less well-known is the New Yorker report dating back to 1999 in which Saddam Hussein was quoted by a defector referring to "his final weapon, developed in laboratories outside Iraq ... free of U.N. inspection, the laboratories will develop strain SV 141 of the West Nile Virus." There is also a report that the Centers for Disease Control actually sent WNV samples to Iraq in 1985.

Is it possible one of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has actually been deployed against the U.S. already?

There is increasing suspicion that one of his labs was not in Iraq at all – but less than 50 miles from the Florida coast.

Cuban defectors say that Fidel Castro's Biological Front studied ways of using migratory birds to spread infectious diseases to the U.S. Saddam Hussein was also known to have close ties to Castro. And, according to Soviet defector Ken Alibek, Cuba, Iraq, Iran and other countries simultaneously received transfers of Soviet biotechnology.

Last year, Undersecretary of State John Bolton said Cuba's biological weapons capabilities underscore lingering concerns. He told an audience at the Heritage Foundation the U.S. is suspicious about Cuban biomedical laboratories and their ability to transfer biological weapons technology to Iraq, Syria and Libya – all countries that Castro visited the previous year.

Earlier, in 1998 Clinton administration Defense Secretary William S. Cohen wrote a letter to Armed Service Committee Chairman Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., stating that he was "concerned about the use of Cuba as a base for intelligence activities directed against the United States" and "Cuba's potential to develop and produce biological agents, given its biotechnology infrastructure."

Cohen's letter concluded by telling Thurmond that the Department of Defense "remains vigilant to the concerns posed by Castro's Cuba." Attached to the letter was the defense secretary's classified report, "The Cuba Threat to U.S. National Security." The report's publicly released summary read: "Cuba's biotechnology industry is one of the most advanced in emerging countries and would be capable of producing biological warfare agents."

That same year, the CIA released a report that warned of the dangers of a biological terrorist attack on the U.S. The report explained that such an assault, if launched by a country with sophisticated means, could go undetected and be erroneously attributed to natural causes. The report listed a little over a dozen smaller nations as suspected of possessing biological weapons. Included high on the list was Cuba.

But it was a July 12, 1999, article in The New Yorker magazine by Richard Preston, a best-selling author, that perhaps laid the groundwork for the concerns about a Cuba-Iraq connection to West Nile.

Preston stated that the U.S. government "keeps a list of nations and groups that it suspects either have clandestine stocks of smallpox or seem to be trying to buy or steal the virus." That list is now known to include Cuba.

Preston's article also laid out suspicions that the recent, and now spreading, outbreak of West Nile Virus on the East Coast may have come from a deliberate terrorist act and not from naturally occurring causes. Initially, some scientists scoffed at Preston's claim, but things have now changed.

One entomology expert who maintains an open mind on the West Nile outbreak, Dr. Jonathan F. Day of the University of Florida, said last year: "The sporadic appearance of WNV is disturbing, especially its appearance in the Florida Keys. It really appears that WN has been seeded throughout the eastern half of the United States. I guess the question is, by whom?"

Day continued, "The Florida and East Coast situations relative to human cases are remarkable. In some places, Atlanta, the Florida Keys, WNV appeared in humans without any other indication that the virus was present. In some cases, humans are acting as sentinels for the sentinel (animal carriers). This is unlike any other mosquito-borne virus in North America."

Dr. Manuel Cereijo, a professor at Florida International University, wrote in an October 1997 paper, titled "Castro: A Threat to the Security of the United States": "To conduct a bacteriological attack, a country or a terrorist group does not need to have any sophisticated means of delivery, such as a missile. A container the size of a five-pound sugar bag can bring bacteriological materials capable of causing over 50,000 casualties in an urban area, depending on the flow of air and atmospheric conditions."

In the same paper, Dr. Cereijo states, "Many Cuban engineers and scientists have been trained by former East Germany, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam and China."

Earlier story:

Terror link to West Nile virus?