Obama Cuba Initiative Prompts New Fears of Gitmo Naval Base Giveaway

[flowers]

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-cuba-initiative-prompts-new-fears-of-gitmo-naval-base-giveaway/

President Obama’s drive to normalize ties with communist Cuba is raising new concerns among security officials and experts that the administration will give up the strategic naval base at Guantanamo Bay in deal with Havana.

White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials offered assurances that the Obama administration currently does not plan to negotiate the return of the base, leased by the United States since 1903.

“I’ve not been involved in any talks on normalization in the past … but it will not be on our agenda for upcoming talks,” Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson told the Washington Free Beacon, referring to discussions with the Cubans on the future of what the Pentagon calls Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

U.S.-Cuba talks on normalization are scheduled for later this month. U.S. officials expect the Cuban government to demand the return of the base, located at the southeastern tip of the island, during the talks led by Jacobson.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), a leader in Congress on scrutinizing the administration’s new Cuba policy, expressed concerns over the future of the naval base.

you know he will give it to them.

[mountaineer]

Jennifer Rubin, WashPost (excerpted):

By Jennifer Rubin
 January 6    


There is nothing like a State Department briefing to reveal how utterly feckless the Obama administration’s foreign policy is. Consider this exchange on Monday:

QUESTION: Under the Administration’s deal to normalize relations with the Castro regime, 53 Cuban political prisoners are set to be released. Do we know who they are and where they are now?

MS. [JEN] PSAKI: Well, when the announcement was made in December, of course, the United States shared the names of individuals jailed in Cuba on charges related to their political activities. We’re not going to outline who those individuals were. We shared them with the Cuban Government. Obviously, it’s a topic that we will remain engaged with them with, but I don’t expect we’ll be releasing a public list.

QUESTION: There’s a prominent dissident group in Cuba, the Ladies in White; they’ve been protesting the new policy. And they say the list is so secretive that no one knows who’s on there. Is there a lack of transparency?

MS. PSAKI: Well, we know who’s on there, and the Cuban Government knows who’s on there, and we’ve given a specific number. Obviously, there are a range of steps that both sides will need to continue to work together to take over the coming weeks. One of the reasons why we felt so strongly about changing our policy is that this – the old policy was not just broken on the economic front, but it was making it impossible for civil society and people to operate and kind of live and communicate in Cuba. So there’s a range of benefits, not just the release of the prisoners, which, obviously, we see as something that’s positive and we’ll continue to discuss and press; but there are other steps that will help, I think, groups like you mentioned, and we think it will take some time but over the coming months.

QUESTION: Jen, are you saying that you don’t – you cannot confirm if Cuba has actually released a single one of these 53?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t have anything to confirm for you publicly, no. . . .

QUESTION: So you know that they have not been released. Is that what you’re saying?

MS. PSAKI: That’s not what I’m saying. I will see if there’s more – anything more publicly we can share.

...

The back-and-forth went on for some time, but you get the drift. We gave the Castro regime everything it wanted, namely normalization and got nothing whatsoever in return and cannot even claim to have secured the release of 53 prisoners that was supposed to be part of the initial deal. It’s hard to say whether Cuba is in violation of any understanding since the administration was determined to ask nothing of the Cubans.

When asked about statements from Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) vowing to block confirmation of an ambassador, Psaki responded, “I think most people would agree that what the Interests Section now – does now and the U.S. embassy would do in the future is critically important for Americans and Cubans alike. It includes things like uncensored internet access. It includes visas for thousands of Cubans every year, nonimmigrant visas for many thousands, immigrant visas for 20,000 Cubans a year. U.S. engagement will be critical when appropriate and will include continued strong support for improved human rights conditions, as I’ve outlined. So we’ll let the process play out. Obviously, we’ll make a strong case for why a change in our presence there is warranted.” Well, that should be enlightening.

In a letter to the president today Rubio observed, “While I believe that the entirety of your new Cuba policy is overwhelmingly one-sided in the Castro regime’s favor and based on the flawed premise that giving it more legitimacy and money will result in a freer Cuban people, the least your Administration can do now is hold the regime accountable for fully freeing these 53 political prisoners as well as those who have been detained in recent weeks.” He urged the administration to “to cancel the travel of Administration officials to Cuba to further discuss the normalization of diplomatic relations at least until all 53 political prisoners, plus those arrested since your December 17th announcement, have been released and are no longer subjected to repression that often takes the form of house arrests, aggressive surveillance, denied Internet access, forced exile and other forms of harassment.”

With answers like the ones given by the State Department on Monday, I see no chance of any ambassador to Cuba being confirmed or any change in U.S. law getting through Congress. This is another instance of weakness and embarrassing lack of diplomatic prowess. Congress should do nothing to enable the administration’s folly.