WP: Policy Met Politics in Cuba Rules

[kskiska]

Fla. Anti-Castro Forces Helped Shape Laws

Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A01

Early last year, Otto Reich shopped a new project to his boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. A Havana-born hard-liner with a habit of picking verbal fights with Cuban President Fidel Castro, Reich believed the United States was unprepared for Castro's fall and needed a transition strategy.

Rice liked the idea. The White House was overwhelmed with preparations for invading Iraq, so she told her new special envoy for Latin America to proceed and promised to pay closer attention after the war. Reich and a close-knit team of State Department political appointees felt they had, at last, an insider's chance to undo Castro.

As Reich's initiative gathered steam, word kept reaching the White House that Cuban Americans in Miami felt that President Bush had broken his promises to challenge Castro more sharply. Worse, Republican political figures warned that Cuban Americans crucial to Bush's 537-vote margin in Florida in 2000 might stay home in 2004.

It was a matter, state Rep. David Rivera said, of "telling the White House we need some help down here. We need something to motivate people."

This confluence of policymaking and politics led to the tightest restrictions on Cuban Americans' interactions with the island in decades: a limit of one visit every three years, a sharp reduction in how much they can spend there and new curbs on the goods they can send. Cuba policy has historically been driven by domestic politics, but this episode -- in accounts given by participants and close observers in Miami and Washington -- offers an exceptional glimpse into how the two interact.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26928-2004Aug23.html

[kskiska]

1. Kick!

:kick: