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Cutting-edge biotech in old-world Cuba : Castro Weaponizes West Nile Virus - *** As the Bush administration prepares for war with Iraq a growing threat to its rear flank is being ignored, according to senior officials who believe that Cuba's biological-weapons (BW) program is at more advanced stages than officially is acknowledged. There now are reports that P-4 containment systems used to store the deadliest toxins have been identified at suspected bioweapons labs inside Cuba.

A member of the intelligence community expresses concern, but says that an open hearing on this issue would provide "feedback" to Cuba on "how much we know about its BW effort." Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, the source says, was scheduled to deliver details of the Cuban program to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June, but the testimony was suppressed by the intelligence bureaucracy.***

Cutting-edge biotech in old-world Cuba: Castro's Connections - Editor's Note: This article first appeared in American Legion magazine, April 2002. *** The U.S. government's detaining of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo naval base in Cuba is supremely ironic given Fidel Castro's long-standing support for global terrorism. As we continue our worldwide battle against terrorists, this sly but significant terror monger on our very own doorstep should not be overlooked. Castro is a bankrupt dictator with a decades-long history of support for violent, anti-American terror groups, obsessive hatred of the U.S., sophisticated spy rings operating on our soil and a potentially deadly biowarfare capability.***

Where are you now, Fidelistas? ***What's truly shocking is the absence of outrage from his American friends. Where are all the Fidelistas in Hollywood, whose lengthy love affair with Castro is impressively -- and depressingly -- documented by Damien Cave in the April issue of The Washington Monthly? Oliver Stone has recently completed a documentary, ''Commandante,'' which HBO was supposed to air in May but canceled last week because of the news events. In Stone's oeuvre, Castro is given a chance to assert, unchallenged, that the Cuban regime has never practiced torture -- and also to show his ''human'' side by discussing, among other things, his love for the movie ''Titanic.'' Maybe the metaphor of a huge sinking ship strikes a chord: After all, Castro presides over a country whose economy has hit bottom and whose inhabitants are willing to brave shark-infested waters in rickety boats to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Stone is well known for his far-left political views, but he is hardly alone in his Fidel worship. Actors Kevin Costner and Jack Nicholson and director Steven Spielberg have made fawning comments about the Cuban dictator; after a trip to Cuba last year, Spielberg described his meeting with Castro as ''the most important eight hours in my life.''

And it's not just Hollywood types, either. Media stars and executives, from CNN founder Ted Turner to ABC News veteran Barbara Walters and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, have joined in the lovefest -- apparently setting aside for the occasion their passion about freedom of speech. In The Washington Monthly, Cave speculates that the reasons for this strange romance are both personal and political: They range from resentment of US foreign policy and the perception of Castro as a fearless David standing up to an American Goliath to the dictator's personal charisma and his skill at massaging the egos of his celebrity guests. All that may be so. But one would think that the recent crackdown in Cuba would serve as a shattering wake-up call even for the most oblivious.***