Fla. Anti-Castro Forces Helped Shape Laws
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A01
Early last year, Otto Reich shopped a new project to his boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. A Havana-born hard-liner with a habit of picking verbal fights with Cuban President Fidel Castro, Reich believed the United States was unprepared for Castro's fall and needed a transition strategy.
Rice liked the idea. The White House was overwhelmed with preparations for invading Iraq, so she told her new special envoy for Latin America to proceed and promised to pay closer attention after the war. Reich and a close-knit team of State Department political appointees felt they had, at last, an insider's chance to undo Castro.
As Reich's initiative gathered steam, word kept reaching the White House that Cuban Americans in Miami felt that President Bush had broken his promises to challenge Castro more sharply. Worse, Republican political figures warned that Cuban Americans crucial to Bush's 537-vote margin in Florida in 2000 might stay home in 2004.
This confluence of policymaking and politics led to the tightest restrictions on Cuban Americans' interactions with the island in decades: a limit of one visit every three years, a sharp reduction in how much they can spend there and new curbs on the goods they can send.
The policy, imposed this summer, prompted a revolt in Congress and angered some of the Cuban Americans it was intended to please; it also produced enough animosity, Democrats hope, to help throw Florida to Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.).
OK, kiddies, it's time for another side-by-side comparison:
Iraq was claimed to have WMD, claimed by exiles to be full of people just waiting for America to invade, and run by a ruthless, cranky, old bearded man leading third-world versions of socialist parties. Both were admittedly undemocratic regimes that delighted in tweaking America's nose and were more than willing to stir up trouble. Both have generated large cadres of well-financed exiles who tirelessly lobby the U.S. Government to install them in the seat of power. Both have been accused of having WMD. Both are breathlessly predicted to be ready to welcome American invaders.
Cienfuegos, Cuba, May, 2005
Lt. General Gomer Pudnik, Commander of the Coalition Forces occupying Cuba, continued to insist today that the invasion of the tropical island nation had gone well, and that National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice had not "gone off the deep end" by convincing the newly-reelected president Bush to invade Cuba, despite the conspicuous failure of her promise that American troops would be greeted by "adoring crowds."
Pudnik cited the capture of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as "progress" in the administration's "war on sugar cane." Castro was pulled from a spider hole two days ago, and is said to be under interrogation about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. The press remains skeptical, however, noting that despite the claims of Under Secretary of State John Bolton, there is still no evidence that Cuba harbored a WMD program.
Rice, in the meantime, continues to insist that "there was no looting" after the fall of Havana, despite the fact that the entire collection of the Libreria Nacional Del Pueblo Cubano is now for sale on ebay by someone with the screen name "Looter05."
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Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product.
The rest is the fakey part.
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