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May 15, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Cuba in the Clear Carter announces that they have no biological-weapon capability. By Joel Mowbray

hile cozying up to Fidel Castro, former President Jimmy Carter complained that the Bush administration is sabotaging his excursion, and he's fighting back by sticking up for the Western Hemisphere's last Communist dictator.

Carter told the press that in his supposedly high-level White House briefing — which lasted about as long as it takes to brew a pot of coffee, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that there was no evidence that Cuba was exporting bioterrorism.

Regardless of what Carter may or may not have been told, however, one thing is clear: The U.S. government has been on record for months now expressing concern that Cuba is developing biological weapons.

Two months ago, Assistant Secretary of State Carl Ford testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in an open hearing, where he warned Congress that "Cuba has at least a limited, developmental offensive biological warfare research and development effort." No other information beyond that very brief message has been made public, because those details are classified.

Ignoring the initial statements on Cuba's role in supporting bioterrorism, Carter's scorn instead has been heaped upon a May 6 speech given by Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a seasoned and highly respected Washington veteran, in which Bolton restated the government's position on the threats posed by the island nation 90 miles off our coast.

Carter and Castro apologists-cum-conspiracy theorists are charging that Bolton's address was intended to hinder the former peanut farmer's efforts, but the speech at Heritage had been in the works for some time and was scheduled more than a month in advance. (Bolton is a busy guy, after all. He just spent the past six months negotiating the new arms-reduction treaty with Russia.)

Lost in the media frenzy, however, is the context in which Bolton's comments were made. In discussing weapons of mass destruction being developed by rogue states, Bolton devoted exactly one paragraph to Cuba's efforts in the course of a 20-minute address. There was no mention of Carter, and far more time was dedicated to Libya's and Syria's activities.

The most important aspect of the speech, though, is that it was given fully three days before Carter's mini-briefing with Rice on May 9th. If Carter really did bring up the issue with the National Security Advisor — and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the matter was not discussed — he must not have pressed hard. Carter gave no indication that he so much as referenced Bolton's remarks, and the truncated meeting lasted barely long enough to exchange pleasantries and a few platitudes about the virtues of freedom.

Given that Carter is no Bill Clinton, maybe there is some truth to what he said, but only in as much as no evidence was shared with him. "That information is classified, and Carter is a private citizen. Why in the world would we share that with him?" asks a senior administration official.

Carter has deftly diverted attention to the who-said-what-when game to shield obvious questions about his competence to determine whether or not a lab is in fact researching biological warfare.

Unlike inspectors looking for conventional arms, Carter's task of spotting chemical agents is a daunting one, to say the least. "You can't point to germs the way you can point to a missile silo," notes Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy.

Pointing to a germ, though, is not the hardest step in figuring out whether or not a powdery material is destined for a biological weapon. Even a highly trained scientist would have great difficulty ascertaining the eventual composition of agents that are being made. "There are many benign substances, for example, which are extremely similar to anthrax until the very last stages of production," says a senior administration official.

Notwithstanding the evident shortcomings in his own ability to "inspect" a scientific-research facility, Carter proudly pronounced that Castro's regime does not export biological agents to Libya or Iran. All based on a brief, guided tour.

Reports are not in yet, but it is not likely that free nations of the world are going to rest easy now that Carter has made such a definitive declaration.

— Joel Mowbray is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.