U.S. RE-EXAMINES CUBAN CONNECTIONS TO ILLEGAL DRUG SMUGGLERS

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration has ordered a top-to-bottom review
of Cuba's alleged links to drug smugglers, in response to harsh attacks on
its efforts to expand anti-narcotics cooperation with Havana.

The key part of the inquiry is ''an all-sources intelligence review, a
re-examination of all data on Cuba held by a half-dozen agencies, from the
DEA to the CIA, top administration officials said.

The Justice Department was asked separately to review evidence gathered by
a Miami federal grand jury in 1993 that nearly indicted President Fidel
Castro's brother on cocaine smuggling charges, officials added.

State Department lawyers were also asked to reconsider whether the transit
of drugs through Cuban waters and airspace is sufficient to land Cuba on
the list of countries that are major transit points for the U.S. market,
the so-called ''majors list.''

The reviews, to be completed by October, have frozen recent administration
efforts to expand drug interdiction contacts with President Fidel Castro's
government.

U.S. drug policy director Barry McCaffrey has argued that smugglers, taking
advantage of Havana's shortage of patrol boats, planes and fuel, are
increasingly using Cuban airspace and waters to transfer shipments from
mother ships to speedboats bound for South Florida.

But critics charge that Castro's government has a long history of
protecting drug traffickers as part of its anti-U.S. policies.

''U.S. cooperation will do little more than enable the Castro regime to
divert attention from the fact that . . . [senior Cuban officials] have
been repeatedly accused, in U.S. federal court, of conspiring to smuggle
cocaine, the chairmen of the Senate and House foreign relations committees,
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Rep. Ben Gilman, R-N.Y., wrote Clinton last
week.

Information Needed

McCaffrey and other administration officials have been defending the need
to increase cooperation with Cuba.

''In recent years, we have not had a sufficient amount of intelligence,
data or information to be able to make the determination that there is in
fact a sufficient amount of drugs going through Cuba to have a significant
effect on the U.S. market, said one top State Department counter-narcotics
official.

''This is not to say that we're denying it, the official quickly added.
''We just don't have enough concrete data to make a determination.

Offering a more frank assessment of Cuba in exchange for anonymity, one
administration expert in drug interdiction said he would give Cuban
counter-narcotics efforts ''pretty low marks, even taking into account
Havana's shrinking resources since the collapse of Soviet aid in 1991.

''Yes, they have resource problems. But . . . after receiving tips from us
[on suspicious planes or boats], I don't see the number of responses that
in my mind would say these guys are really trying, the official said.

But maintaining cooperation with Cuba is important, the official added.
''Even if you're dealing with a highly suspect partner . . . a carefully
defined, limited approach might have value, he said.

Radar Sightings Shared

Critics counter that even the current levels of cooperation with Cuba might
help drug smugglers, and point to a year-old Coast Guard program of giving
Havana most U.S. radar data on possible smuggling airplanes and boats as
they enter and leave Cuban territory.

The U.S. data would allow Havana to deduce the location of any gaps in the
U.S. radar coverage -- information highly valuable to drug smugglers, said
aides to Helms and Gilman.

Administration officials said all the reviews ordered on Cuba are to be
finished before Nov. 1, when the State Department's International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Bureau is required to issue its annual ''majors list.

The ''all sources review involves the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI,
CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard, the Treasury and Justice
Departments and the White House National Security Council.

Among the cases to be reviewed are the 1982 marijuana smuggling indictment
issued in Miami against Cuban Adm. Aldo Santamaria and two other top
government officials, and Cuba's 1989 execution of Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa.

Raul Castro Revisited

The Justice Department was asked to review the 1993 Miami grand jury
investigation of charges that Castro's brother, Armed Forces chief Raul
Castro, used military planes and boats to protect cocaine shipments.

And State Department lawyers were asked to review the laws on the ''majors
list, now interpreted to require that drug shipments touch land in the
listed nations. Cuba has avoided the list so far because most of the
U.S.-bound drugs pass through its waters and airspace and never touch its
land.

Adding Cuba to the list would require the White House to certify by each
March 1 whether Havana is cooperating with the war on drugs. Since
Washington provides no counter-narcotics aid to Cuba, any White House
decision would have no financial consequences for Havana.

But it could cast a politically embarrassing spotlight on Clinton's policy
of expanding people-to-people and counter-narcotics contacts with Cuba,
which critics see as a Trojan horse for warming U.S. relations with Castro.

Gilman and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., head of the House Government Reform
Committee, submitted a bill July 7 mandating that the State Department put
Cuba on the list.

Gilman and Helms also wrote Clinton last week warning that U.S. laws expose
Coast Guard officers to criminal liability when they give Havana tracking
data on suspicious flights that might be shot down by Cuba.

The letter added: The laws establish that liability can be avoided only if
the governments receiving U.S. tracking data promise not to shoot down the
suspect planes, or if the White House issues a ''determination that they
have ''appropriate procedures to protect against innocent loss of life.

Washington has such agreements with Peru and Colombia but not with Cuba,
which shot down two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue airplanes over
international waters in 1996, killing four Miami pilots.

''It is our expectation that you will instruct U.S. officials to cease and
desist from sharing such information with the Cuban regime until you have
ensured that they are not exposing themselves to criminal liability, the
Helms-Gilman letter concluded.