'We have the most inept leadership in the history of the U.S.'

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Excerpts from an interview conducted by Edmundo García in his Miami radio program "The night moves" on Oct. 11, 2007. The guest was Col. Larry Wilkerson, who was chief of staff of former Secretary of State Colin Powell during the first term of the George W. Bush administration. Wilkerson has moved in the most important circles of the U.S. Army in recent decades and has been at the very center of many important decisions.

EDMUNDO GARCIA: Colonel, some time ago you said that U.S. policy toward Cuba was a joke, that it was laughable, and that your opinion was shared by former Secretary of State Colin Powell. [You said] the influence of the Cuban-American community in the United States made it difficult to change that policy.

CORONEL WILKERSON: Correct. [Powell and I] have known each other for almost 20 years and during that time held many private conversations. In all of them, he and I were more or less in accord that that policy did not work.

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GARCIA: In your opinion and in former Secretary Powell's opinion, why does this policy not function?

WILKERSON: My best estimate as to why the U.S. policy toward Cuba doesn't work is that a group of very strong persons have an antagonistic attitude toward Cuba, in terms of their own interests.

GARCIA: What would those interests be?

WILKERSON: I used to think that they did what they did to bring freedom to Cuba, to bring democracy to Cuba, and all those things to which we [Americans] give rhetorical support. But now I opine that the real and fundamental reason is the desire for power by a group in Florida. It is simply the desire to keep the money flowing to Radio and TV Martí, to keep the money flowing to Florida.

GARCIA: Do you mean that they don't seek real change in Cuba but want to gain power in Miami?

WILKERSON: For certain, they want to have a lot of power in Florida, and I think they have it, because it's evident that they have controlled [U.S.] policy toward Cuba for more than four decades. But today it is a combination of the interests of politicians [Ileana] Ros-Lehtinen, the Díaz-Balarts [Mario and Lincoln] and others. Also, the desire of Cuban-Americans to return to Cuba and reclaim all their rights in that country.

GARCIA: How do you assess the measures the Bush administration has taken in the past three years toward Cuba, including the measures that prevent Cubans from visiting each other and that define for us what a family is?

WILKERSON: There are two reasons why the travel restrictions are not justified. The first reason is that they are unconstitutional. It is contrary to the Constitution of the United States to forbid the citizens of this country to travel anywhere, unless there is an extraordinary reason that affects national security. In this case, there is no type of reason that justifies [the limitations].

The second reason is that Cuban-Americans should be allowed to visit their relatives in Cuba without restrictions, as frequently as they wish or find it necessary. I believe Sgt. Carlos Lazo has been very eloquent in this sense.

GARCIA: Colonel, if it is well known that Cuba is not a terrorist country, why does the United States continue to place it on the list of terrorist countries kept by the State Department?

WILKERSON: Because it is to the best interest of the powerful Florida Congresspersons to keep Cuba on the list of terrorist countries, so they can carry out their intentions and wishes.

GARCIA: Their desire for power?

WILKERSON: Yes, I refer to their desire to hold on to power in Florida and eventually in Cuba. And I will add that the opinions of Cuban-Americans are changing. I expect that one (maybe more than one) member of that group of Congresspeople will not be reelected, will be eliminated from that circle of power within five or six years.

GARCIA: Would that be possible within the next several months?

WILKERSON: (LAUGHS) That would be marvelous.

GARCIA: What is your opinion about the policy of embargo against Cuba?

WILKERSON: The embargo has been a total failure; a failure for the American citizens in general and for Washington in particular, in terms of foreign policy.

This island, only 90 miles from the shores of Florida, with approximately 11 million people, does not represent any threat to the United States. American farmers, American businessmen, including our oil companies, and tourists in general could help Cuba to reestablish a balanced trade exchange and eventually bring about a new political situation.

There's no way you can convince me that if the Germans, French, Canadians, Israelis and a bunch of more people, including the Americans, visit Cuba and share with the Cubans their ideas of freedom and democracy in general, this wouldn't have a better impact, or a better chance to bring freedom to Cuba than the embargo that has been maintained unsuccessfully for almost half a century.

GARCIA: What effect would a change in policy toward Cuba have on the United States?

WILKERSON: First and foremost, it would show that the United States has a foreign policy that does not only contemplate having weapons and bombing people. Secondly, it would show that just as we have engaged Vietnam, China and other countries, we can do the same with a country lying very close to the coast of Florida.

The Cuban people have a high level of intelligence and education. [Cuba] has very talented people and has much to teach us: how to deal with certain crises, as far as history is concerned, and how to extend access to public health care to low-income people, as it has done all along.

Specifically, the United States would benefit in the fields of agriculture and medicine -- in the discoveries of new vaccines. Cuba can be our ally in the war on drug trafficking and terrorism in the Caribbean area. So, if the embargo ends tomorrow, I can't see any result that isn't positive.

GARCIA: On July 26 and Oct. 8 respectively, Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés restated [Cuba's] willingness to negotiate with the next administration in Washington, whether it is Republican or Democrat, if it assumes a responsible position toward Cuba. Do you think we'll see such a responsible negotiation with regard to Cuba?

WILKERSON: That is not something I hear in their respective election campaigns, but I think that when one of the potential presidents reaches the White House, it is possible a change will occur.

I was very enthused with the position assumed by Senator Dodd with regard to Cuba. And I was impressed (though not to a great extent) by the answers given by Senator Obama. I have to think that if Senator Obama or Senator Clinton wins the presidency of the United States, [he or she] would be exploring a new policy toward Cuba within a few years, but I am in no way sure of that.

I must point out that, when I visited Cuba recently, I had an opportunity to have a long conversation with [National Assembly President] Ricardo Alarcón. He told me -- and I think he was sincere -- that the United States were increasingly becoming irrelevant for the future of Cuba.

GARCIA: Do you think that a change in U.S. policy toward Havana could occur before a change in the political power occurs in Miami?

WILKERSON: I would like to think that it will happen, but I am a realist. Until the majority of the Cuban-Americans in Florida express their opinions with enough forcefulness to convince the politicians in Washington that they have changed their opinions regarding Cuba, that will probably not happen.

GARCIA: Let me ask the question in reverse. Should a change of policy occur in Miami in order for a change in policy to occur in Washington?

WILKERSON: As a realist, I would have to say that that's probably true. As long as Florida has 27 electoral votes, as long as the main candidates perceive that their votes will be in the hands of the Cuban-Americans in Florida, and as long as the representatives of those Florida voters, the people who speak for them, are Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lincoln Díaz-Balart, [Mel] Martínez and [Bob] Menéndez, it's going to be very difficult to change the policy.

GARCIA: We may conclude, then, that the United States' policy toward Cuba has been kidnapped by the political power of Florida.

WILKERSON: I would say that rather than a simple kidnapping it's a hijacking.

GARCIA: But that isn't very American -- or is it?

WILKERSON: It isn't very American, but these people have many strong groups of lobbyists who direct our foreign policy in ways that are not necessarily in the best interest of the United States. That's unfortunate, but it happens.

GARCIA: What's your opinion of the creation by this administration of the so-called "Commission for the Transition in Cuba," an office headed by Mr. Caleb McCarry?

WILKERSON: You must remember that it was my boss, Colin Powell, who organized all this, along with his aide, Roger Noriega (and before that, with Otto Reich), so I'm familiar with the commission that was organized. After all, Secretary Powell was the boss, the man in charge.

I do not think that, when this commission was organized, Secretary Powell realized how wrong the United States' policy would be, as far as travel to Cuba was concerned.

I also think that this is a problem generally faced by politics in the United States: there is an infinity of affairs with a certain priority, such as North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan and eventually Iraq. Cuba always was at a lower level of priority, and people like Powell did not pay sufficient attention to it.

I expect that, because the issue of travel to Cuba is a big problem nowadays, we will at least improve the travel restrictions. And I have to believe that Colin Powell would be in favor of that.

GARCIA: Secretary Powell did not really believe in the commission that was created during his term of office?

WILKERSON: No, I'm not saying that, exactly. But there were a lot of things happening at once, with a higher level of importance for Secretary Powell, and perhaps that didn't allow him to pay sufficient attention to the [Cuba] affair. He should have paid attention, particularly to the ban on travel and also at the possibility of sending money remittances to Cuba.

GARCIA: The government of Cuba describes this commission as an intromission into the internal affairs of its country.

WILKERSON: The United States now has a significant problem in its foreign policy, generally because it tries to interfere in the internal processes of other states. I hope that whoever becomes president in January 2009 will understand this and stop doing it.

There are many reasons that lead us to believe that we have damaged our reputation and international prestige, and therefore our real power before the world, precisely because of that pronounced tendency to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.

The most dramatic example we have right now is Iraq, and one can speculate whether the next example will be Iran. I think that would be a tragic error, and I trust that other minds, many more minds are thinking correctly about this issue.

GARCIA: How would you answer a 9-year-old boy if he asked you: "Colonel Wilkerson, why are we in Iraq?"

WILKERSON: It's not simple. Every week I teach a group of children 10 to 12 and they frequently ask me that question. The answer I routinely give them is: "Because we have the most inept leadership in the history of the United States."

GARCIA: How tense was the relationship between General Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney?

WILKERSON: General Powell had worked for Dick Cheney when [Cheney] was Secretary of Defense, and Powell himself wrote in his memoirs: "Secretary Cheney is a very cold fish."

Having said this, I can add that the relationship between the two was formal. It wasn't a warm relationship, but there wasn't a visible tension because Vice President Cheney operates "under the table." Most of the time, or at least for the first three years of the [Bush] administration, some people -- among them Secretary Powell and myself -- did not understand the power wielded by Vice President Cheney's "network," or the amount of key decisions that they made in secret.

General Powell will not agree with me on this and will surely say that President George W. Bush was aware of those decisions. However, my attitude is that President Bush did not have sufficient knowledge to countermand Vice President Cheney's decisions about such complex matters. But if he did know it and had the proper information, then for sure that [Bush] backed the Vice President's actions.

There are two issues where I refuse to accept that the President of the United States had knowledge. First was when the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense [Donald Rumsfeld] essentially ordered that torture be used during the interrogations being carried out. Second, when they could not foresee to a long extent the consequences of the hostilities in Iraq.

On those two occasions, I do not believe that the President was completely aware of what the Vice President was doing. If he was, then he should have been impeached.

GARCIA: I don't know if you know this joke: An American asks another American: "What would happen in the United States if Dick Cheney dies?" The other replies he doesn't know. And the first one says: "Then George W. Bush would be President of the United States!" Do you think that this administration is characterized by the extreme power of the Vice President over the President?

WILKERSON: Yes, I believe this Vice President is the most powerful in the history of our country.

GARCIA: I want to finish this interview with a topic that has created a strong confrontation between Havana and Washingon, a topic on which you have spoken out. It is the so-called "Case of the Five."

WILKERSON: I was not very knowledgeable about this situation until I heard Leonard Weinglass at Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C. Weinglass is one of the lawyers who represent The Five. When he explained the details of the case (and if those details are true), I concluded that this was another example of injustice.

The details were so significant that once you learn that these people have been in prison for more than nine years without a real cause that justifies their imprisonment, once you learn that the appeal courts reverted the ruling, then the situation becomes totally unjustifiable.

If the details that Mr. Weinglass gave us that night are correct, then those men must be released immediately, because the severest sentence they could receive for their acts already has been served with the time they've spent in prison -- which is more than sufficient. Nothing they did justifies a sentence of life imprisonment.

If Weinglass' version is accurate, all those men were trying to do was to protect their country, and they cannot be faulted for that, much less by someone like me who knows that some Cuban-Americans would get in their boats, would equip them with arms and dynamite and would head for Cuba the moment Fidel Castro ceases to exist. If these people are staging terrorist attacks against Cuba, then I can understand the reason why those five men were there. This, of course, depends on whether Weinglass' statement was accurate, and I suspect that, yes, it was.