INATODAY.com - INTERNATIONAL NEWS ANALYSIS -- TODAY by Toby Westerman: "FASCIST AMERICA? Russia and Communist Cuba Join In 'Anti-Fascist-Front'" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "At the Moscow meeting, Russia declared that Cuba is its "key partner in Latin America." The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a press statement referring to an "active political dialogue based on mutual trust" between Russia and Cuba. "The two countries have similar or identical stances on a whole number of global political issues. Most importantly…on the construction of a fair and stable world order," the Russian Foreign Ministry declared. The "construction of a fair and stable world order" for Cuba and Russia includes sophisticated intelligence operations against the United States. Cuban operates a sophisticated intelligence program against the U.S. One of its highly placed agents, Ana Belen Montes, worked at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency before her arrest and conviction of espionage in October 2002. The "Wasp Network," a Cuban espionage group spying on U.S. military facilities, was uncovered by the FBI and five of its leaders convicted in 2001. In 2001 the U.S. intelligence community was rocked by the discovery that top FBI intelligence agent Robert Hanssen spied on his country for Moscow for 20 years. On the island of Cuba, Russia still operates the Lourdes spy base, while Russia's close ally, China, is constructing a similar base not far away from Lourdes.") (April 29, 2003) (Read More...)
ALERT...INATODAY.com - INTERNATIONAL NEWS ANALYSIS -- TODAY by Toby Westerman: "NEW RED TERROR" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "China maintains "high level military contacts" with Cuba, and is constructing an electronic spy base eight to ten miles from Russia's Lourdes intelligence facility, according to Dennis Hays, Executive Vice President of the pro-democracy exile group, the Cuban American National Foundation. The Chinese spy base, which would be capable of intercepting, and possibly jamming, U.S. electronic signals, "should be a security concern" to the U.S., urged Hays in an interview with INA Today. Hays also warned that the communist Chinese are active throughout the South American continent. The Cuban state-run press is openly discussing the "very strong ties with the Cuban military," said Perez, who notes that several Chinese generals have recently visited Cuba. In addition to China, Cuba's traditional friend and supporter, Russia, is still involved in the island.") (April 18, 2003) (Read More...)
Sept. 29, 2001, 11:53PM/ Analyst at Pentagon arrested on charges of spying for Havana / FBI says espionage goes back 5 years By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS / New York Times - [Full Text] WASHINGTON -- A few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, Ana Belen Montes, a top Defense Department intelligence analyst, sent an e-mail note to an old friend saying she was all right and had not known anyone who died at the Pentagon.
"I could see the Pentagon burning from my office," she wrote. "Nonetheless, it pales next to the World Trade Center. Dark days ahead. So much hate and self-righteousness."
The days darkened especially quickly for Montes. A week after she signed off, sending love to her friend's family, federal agents surprised her at work and charged her with spying for Cuba. She is the highest-ranking official ever accused of espionage at the Defense Intelligence Agency, which, as a sister agency to the CIA, handles analysis for the Pentagon.
The arrest, on Sept. 21, left her friends and colleagues at a loss to explain what might have motivated her to risk everything, should the charges prove true. Friends described Montes, who is 44 and single, as a loyal companion, doting aunt, and an avid traveler. She had no evident money problems, and was apparently content dating a man who either was in the military or did business at the Pentagon, they said.
She was warm and funny, friends said, and seemed apolitical, even back in college. Her remark about "self-righteousness" was as ideologically pointed as she had ever been, said Lisa Huber, who had attended the University of Virginia with Montes and received the e-mail message.
"I can't picture her being involved in something like this," said Huber, a Louisville, Ky., resident who has seen Montes at least twice a year since their college days. "It goes against everything I know about her. She has a lot of integrity."
Montes, who had been the DIA's top intelligence analyst for Cuba since 1992, left a different impression among colleagues. She came off as rather severe, they said; at meetings, she sat rigidly in her chair and rarely spoke. Some associates viewed her as struggling to advance in a culture dominated by men.
"She was a very strange person, very standoffish, extraordinarily shy," said a U.S. diplomat.
But professionally, Montes seemed above reproach. She spoke fluent Spanish because of her Puerto Rican heritage, and in 1990 she was tapped to brief Nicaragua's new president, Violeta Chamorro, about the Cuban-backed Sandinista military.
In 1992 or 1993, she pulled off what seemed to be an intelligence coup. She traveled to Cuba and interviewed Cuban generals about economic reforms on the island. In 1998, she played an important role in drafting a widely cited analysis that found that Cuba's much diminished military posed no strategic threat to the United States. As recently as the week before last, she briefed top Pentagon policy-makers on Cuba.
According to the FBI affidavit, Montes, who had a high-level security clearance, spied for Cuba for at least five years, and possibly longer. She identified at least one U.S. undercover agent to the Cubans, disclosed a top-secret intelligence-gathering program and reported on U.S. training in the Caribbean, the FBI said.
Current and former U.S. officials say she was in a position to tell have told Havana virtually everything the intelligence community knew about Cuba's military and might even have disclosed U.S. contingency plans for taking the island by force.
"I would think, if damage was done, it would be about what she learned about the U.S., how it was militarily prepared vis-a-vis Cuba," said Richard Nuccio, who was President Bill Clinton's special adviser on Cuba. [End]