Cuba does not sponsor terrorism, former US officials say

Washington, Oct 20 (Prensa Latina) Former United States intelligence officials think that Cuba's inclusion in the list of countries that sponsor terrorism is unjustified, a US news source revealed on Thursday.

The statement was supported by half a dozen people in charge of devising the Cuba policy in both Republican and Democratic administrations, who also claimed that the consensus in the US intelligence community agrees that Cuba does not sponsor terrorism.

Former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America Fulton Armstrong described the designation as ‘bogus’ in an interview with NBC News.

For his part, Larry Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to then Secretary of State Colin Powell in the administration of President George W. Bush (2001-2009), said that Cuba is not a state that sponsors terrorism.

It is a fiction that we have created… to reinforce the logic of the blockade, he said.

Cuba’s inclusion in the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, in addition to being unjustified, damages the national security interests of the United States, Ben Rhodes, who was deputy national security advisor to former President Barack Obama (2009-2017), was also considered.

He told NBC News that using that designation for purely US political purposes is wrong with respect to Cuba and delegitimizes the purpose of the law, devised to punish those whom Washington targets as alleged defenders of terrorism.

Meanwhile, American University School of Public Affairs Professor William LeoGrande said that the inclusion of Cuba in the list is ironic coming from a country that does attack the Caribbean island.