Powell aide blasts policy on Cuba

The Miami Herald | 5-09-04 | Lesley Clark

[SmithPatterson]

Powell aide blasts policy on Cuba

BY LESLEY CLARK lclark@herald.com

As the White House last week prepared to put its stamp of approval on a range of Cuba sanctions recommended by Colin Powell, a senior aide to the secretary of state was quoted as calling the decades old-standoff against the communist island, the ``dumbest policy on the face of the Earth.''

The outspoken remarks appear in the June issue of GQ magazine.

In the article, GQ writer Wil Hylton interviews several Powell aides, including Larry Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff who is described in the article as having a ''mind meld'' with Powell. The two have worked together for 15 years.

Wilkerson criticizes some administration officials as hawkish, citing a lack of interest in negotiations.

''When all you use is a stick, you're not going to get very far,'' Wilkerson said in the article, suggesting that with negotiations 'you can make more progress than if you just sanction somebody and walk off and say, `That's it, I'm not dealing with you anymore.' ''

''It hasn't worked in Cuba for 40 years,'' Hylton said.

''Dumbest policy on the face of the Earth,'' Wilkerson is quoted as saying. ``It's crazy.''

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters last week that the remarks were ``not the secretary's words.''

''The secretary,'' Boucher said, ``has expressed himself on the subject of Cuba many times. He has done a thorough and excellent job of preparing a report for the president, along with the Commission on a Free Cuba.''

The new restrictions limit family visits to Cuba by Cuban Americans from once a year to once every three years and tighten the list of Cubans who can receive cash from family in the United States.

[prion]

What is it with people in government not being able to keep their mouths shut? If I gave an interview to a magazine blabbing about the company I work for and its stupid policies, I would be so fired.

[YaYa123]

I thought I remembered from last week that it was Wilkerson in this GQ article, who called Condeleeza Rice a jerk, but lo and behold, this morning I'm watching C-Span Wash Journal, and a guy named Harlan Ullman is on, and he said: The GQ reporter misquoted me. I did not call Rice a jerk, what I said was, "Condeleeza Rice is not a jerk". He also said he has apologized to her. (As an aside, Ullman also said his favorite congress critters are McCain, Hagel, and John Kerry.)

[SmithPatterson]

That's true...If you did blab about a company like people do about working in government, you would be fired. Of course, if some people in government conducted themselves the same way in the private sector, they would be fired. Many government employees feel that they are too far above everybody. They seem to forget that it is us the taxpayer that is paying their salary.

[The Scourge of Yazid]

The entire thrust of our Cuban policy has been going in the wrong direction since 1991-gee, I wonder which administration we can blame for this failure-when the "Evil Empire", in Ronald Reagan's inimitable phrase, bit the dust.

Here we had a nation whose chief sponsor had just undergone a radical transformation-I'm not even going to point out that Castro's slush fund had already been cut by Gorbachev-and we couldn't find a coherent policy to help it shed the awful burden of over 40 years of totalitarian mis-rule.

Even Clinton's half-hearted measures, e.g. signing the Helms-Burton Act were undercut by his own, craven electioneering.

[G.Mason]

And when an aide of anyone, says anything, the entire world sits up and listens.

[bushfamfan]

I heard about that Condi Rice is a 'jerk' comment and I was livid. For Powell to surround himself with such people and go to a rag mag and have himself and his aides say the kind of garbage that was said in that article is grounds for saying goodbye. They obviously have no class.

[FreeManWhoCan]

Freepers: In Miami, people are excited by the news. The Cubans down here are all basically saying "Gracias a Dios!" Thank God somethin is finally being done.". But what most people also say is that they wish they would COMPLETLY block the flights and COMPLETELY block the money. We are so sick of this bull***t.

[Semper Paratus]

Why the whole world doesn't do to Cuba what it did to South Africa makes me want to scream!

[The Scourge of Yazid]

It's a devil of a problem for the people down there. I can see what a bind they're in: Do they stand idly by and watch their relatives starve to death at the hands of a brutal dictator or send these remittances to their loved ones and possibly prop up the most heinous despot to grace this hemisphere since "Papa Doc" Duvalier?