More Cuban Spies Lurking in the US

We're paranoid they all say; until of course the evidence shows that the Cubans have spies in the U.S. who are hell bent on hurting the country. First Montes, the Wasps, the FIU professors, etc. Interesting article which states that a lot of the tainted info advanced by Montes is still making the rounds in the govt. and is being touted as true...

One reason Montes's products continue to circulate in Congress and the White House is because of a "pro-Cuban support network of sympathizers and apologists," said former DIA officer Paul Crespo, now with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Crespo said there was a "huge infrastructure of Castro sympathizers" throughout the intelligence community and across government.

"Castro agents of influence have infiltrated the U.S. Army War College, the Navy War College," as well as the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, now known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said. In Miami, Crespo said they had "penetrated the Miami Herald" and local Spanish-language newspapers, by placing former Cuban government reporters in key jobs. "These support networks make it a lot harder to differentiate between actual spies and the useful idiots," he said. Ana Montes was "on a first name basis" with the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, Fulton Armstrong," Carmichael and others said. Montes and Armstrong continued to confide by phone even as Carmichael and his investigative team were closing the noose around Ana Montes.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Fulton Armstrong had something to do with Ana's products not being pulled," said Norman Bailey, who until March 2007 was the Issue Manager for Cuba/Venezuela in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Armstrong was a vigorous supporter of Castro within the intelligence community, Bailey, Carmichael and Crespo said. Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega, added that Fulton Armstrong's "advocacy" on behalf of Castro was so astonishing that Noriega banned him from his office. Fulton Armstrong testified against John Bolton in April 2005 during the Senate Foreign Relations committee confirmation hearing for Bolton to become the Permanent U.S. representative to the United nations.
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Armstrong "would downplay anything that was derogatory to Castro, Venezuela, or to the FARC," Noriega said, referring to the Cuban—sponsored Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. "John Bolton would be ambassador to the United Nations today if not for Fulton Armstrong," he added.

One of the accusations made by Sen. Christopher Dodd and his top staffer, Janice O'Connell, was that Bolton had "pressured" Fulton Armstrong over intelligence relating to Cuba's suspected biological weapons program.

Armstrong and O'Connell had tried to suppress intelligence information that Cuba was pursuing a clandestine biological weapons program, but Bolton sought to declassify that information for use in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in 2002.

Both Armstrong and O'Connell continued to defend Ana Montes in closed-door sessions with top policy-makers, even after she was arrested by the FBI, several former intelligence officers said.

Norman Bailey was summarily fired without explanation in March 2007 by the incoming Director of National Intelligence. Gen. Mike McConnell, after asking too many questions about Cuba and the continued use of the National Intelligence Estimates that Ana Montes had authored before her arrest.

"FBI counter-intelligence is entirely convinced there are several other high-level Cuban agents, not just in the intelligence community, but in the policy community," Bailey said. "You can expect startling revelations in the next few years."

Read the whole thing here.