Critics Question Sources for AP Report on Cuba Democracy Program

Critics Question Sources for AP Report on Cuba Democracy Program
Say sources had political agenda to undermine U.S. policy
BY: Daniel Wiser
August 11, 2014 5:00 am

Critics are raising questions about the Associated Press's recent report
on a U.S. program to foster civil society in Cuba and have accused the
news organization of cooperating with sources who have a political
agenda against U.S. policy toward the island.

The AP recently reported on the program that sent Spanish-speaking youth
to Cuba to help build health and civil society associations, which the
news organization described as a "clandestine operation" with the goal
of "ginning up rebellion." Human rights groups involved in the program
criticized the report and said it mischaracterized the nature of the
civil society projects.

Defenders of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
program say the AP has been less than forthright about the sources for
its reporting. They also allege that the AP obtained information and
documents from longstanding critics of U.S. policy toward Cuba's
communist government.

The anti-Castro website Capitol Hill Cubans alleged that the key source
for the AP's reporting on both the civil society program and a separate
project, an attempt to develop a Twitter-like social media service for
Cubans, was Fulton Armstrong. Armstrong is a former Senate Foreign
Relations Committee (SFRC) staffer and senior intelligence analyst for
Latin America.

Armstrong told the Washington Free Beacon in an email that although the
AP contacted him, he was not the main source of information and
documents. "The AP's reports are pretty obviously based on documentary
evidence provided by insiders concerned about the regime-change
programs," he said, adding that he was never fully briefed on what he
called USAID's "clandestine, covert operations."

"Because the SFRC had investigated these scandalously run secret
programs during my tenure on the Committee staff, and because my boss
(Chairman [John] Kerry) was concerned enough to put a hold on the
programs for a while, I was logically among the dozens of people to be
called by the AP reporters," he said.

Armstrong has long raised the ire of U.S. officials and activists
advocating a tough line against the Castro regime. Foreign policy
officials in the George W. Bush administration attempted to reassign
Armstrong from Latin American intelligence after arguing that he was
"soft" on threats from Cuba, according to a 2003 report by the New York
Times.

He wrote in a 2011 op-ed that "it's time to clean up the regime-change
programs" and focus on securing the release of Alan Gross, a former
USAID subcontractor who has been imprisoned for almost five years in
Cuba. Gross worked to provide Internet access to small Cuban
communities, but authorities arrested him on charges of attempting to
destabilize the government.

Armstrong also served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Latin
America when a widely criticized Pentagon report about Cuba was drafted.
The 1997 report from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) determined
that Cuba's military "poses a negligible conventional threat to the U.S.
or surrounding countries."

The original drafter of the report was Ana Montes. Montes was later
revealedto be a top Cuban spy in the U.S. government and is currently
serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Armstrong said one of his responsibilities as a senior intelligence
officer at the time was to "shepherd it through interagency coordination."

"The draft was very weak and was heavily rewritten by representatives of
all 15 agencies at the table," he said. "All 15 agencies endorsed the
rewritten paper without reservation."

He added that he was "deeply shocked by her arrest" and that "not one of
the dozens of [intelligence community] professionals with whom Montes
interacted suspected she was a spy."

Critics of Cuba's government note that it continues to be a
U.S.-designatedsponsor of terrorism and authoritarian regimes, and that
it attempted an arms shipment to North Korea last year that violated
U.S. and international sanctions.

An AP spokeswoman declined to comment on what information its reporters
received from Armstrong or other sources. "We don't discuss our
sourcing," said senior media relations manager Erin Madigan White in an
email.

Jose Cardenas, a former senior USAID administrator in the George W. Bush
administration who helped oversee the Cuba program, said in an interview
that the AP "jumped to too many conclusions" and "misinterpreted"
internal documents about the program. Although some security protocols
were necessary to not arouse the suspicion of Cuban authorities, the
projects were more about developing relations between young Cubans
rather than instigating a rebellion, he said.

The AP's source is "acting on a political agenda," Cardenas claimed.

"It raises serious questions about the veracity and integrity of their
whole story," he said.

The AP published a blog post on Thursday that provided some background
on its reporting. It said reporter Desmond Butler's "source gave him a
new batch of documents" for the article, and noted that one of the
investigative reporters used a secure phone and encrypted emails
"because communications in Venezuela, like Cuba, are not considered secure."

The AP also described how one of its reporters repeatedly attempted to
contact the main organizer of a group of Venezuelans who traveled to
Cuba for the program, including filming the woman as she refused to talk
outside her house and slammed her door. A Venezuelan human rights group
involved in the program denounced the AP's reporting on Thursday and
accused it of harassing one of its members.

The reporters who covered the story won a $500 prize for keeping "the AP
out front on American secret activities in Cuba," according to the AP.

Source: Critics question sources for AP report on Cuba Democracy Program
| Washington Free Beacon -
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/critics-question-sources-for-ap-report-on-cuba-democracy-program/