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Cato Daily Dispatch for August 13, 2003

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Castro Celebrates Birthday Today
Panel Cautions Extending Smallpox Vaccine to Public
Feds Arrest Suspect in Missile Smuggling Plot

Castro Celebrates Birthday Today

"Fidel Castro, the world's longest ruling leader, turns 77 today after a year that saw his communist-run island grow even more isolated as he lashed out at his European allies and jailed some of his most vocal critics," reports The Associated Press.

"When Cuba's rubber-stamp parliament confirmed him in March to a sixth term as the island's maximum leader in March, Castro acknowledged he won't be around forever. His current five-year term would have him governing until he is 81."

In " Report from Havana: Time for a Reality Check on U.S. Policy toward Cuba," Jonathan G. Clarke, senior fellow in foreign policy studies, and William Ratliff, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, argue that it's time for the United States to end the embargo against Cuba.

"Current U.S policy toward Cuba is based on historical inertia, domestic political calculations, and emotionalism," Clarke and Ratliff write. "The embargo will continue to be ineffective -- -especially given dwindling support for the policy, the ease with which Cuba gets around the sanctions, and the ways in which Cuba has been adapting to changing world conditions. The United States could help improve Cuba's poor human rights record and reveal Fidel Castro's regime as the main source of Cuba's economic troubles by lifting the trade and investment embargo, restoring the right of Americans to travel to Cuba, and rejecting any current or proposed official aid to groups inside Cuba."

Panel Cautions Extending Smallpox Vaccine to Public

"The Bush administration's smallpox vaccination plan is too narrowly focused to adequately protect Americans from bioterrorism, and the vaccine itself is too risky to be made widely available to the public, a scientific advisory panel reported yesterday," according to the Los Angeles Times.

"The program has strained the resources of underfunded state and local health departments, leaving them unable to provide some basic public health services and unprepared to respond to other bioterror agents, the committee concluded."

Charles V. Peņa, director of defense policy studies, and Veronique De Rugy, policy analyst, argue in "Responding to the Threat of Smallpox Bioterrorism" that an ounce of prevention in the form of a partially vaccinated population against smallpox will be more effective -- both in deterring and responding to an attack -- than leaving the American public unprotected and completely at risk.

Feds Arrest Suspect in Missile Smuggling Plot

"Federal officials arrested a British man in New Jersey yesterday and said he had tried to smuggle into the United States shoulder-fired missiles that could be used to shoot down commercial jetliners," The Washington Post reports.

In " Flying the Friendly Skies," Director of Defense Policy Studies Charles V. Peņa writes that instead of focusing on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration should instead concentrate its efforts on thwarting terrorism closer to home.

"The war on terrorism would be better served if it got back to basics and focused on the enemy that attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001: al Qaeda. And instead of weapons of mass destruction, perhaps we ought to be more worried about simpler, cheaper weapons. If we aren't, flying the friendly skies might never be the same again."

Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org