OPINION:
The release this month of former U.S. intelligence analyst and Cuba spy Ana Belen Montes from federal prison after serving an absurdly lenient 20-year sentence is a stark reminder of the ongoing threat the island’s regime poses to U.S. interests, not only regionally but globally.
Ms. Montes — a “true believer” — was unrepentant upon her release for her treachery on behalf of the Castro regime, just as the regime remains unrepentant about its six-decade record of human rights abuses and asymmetrical warfare against the U.S.
In a statement after her release, she said, in part: “I encourage those who wish to focus on me to focus instead on important issues, such as the serious problems facing the Puerto Rican people or the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.
“Who in the last 60 years has asked the Cuban people if they want the United States to impose a suffocating embargo that makes them suffer?”
This from an individual who, in her espionage career, betrayed some 450 U.S. operatives, sabotaged a top-secret satellite program, undermined U.S. policy in Central America, distorted the U.S. government’s views on Cuba, and leaked U.S. military information that led to the 1987 death of Sgt. Gregory Fronius, a U.S. Green Beret killed in El Salvador.
Now that Ms. Montes gets to spend the remainder of her life in freedom on the beaches of Puerto Rico, it is important to draw the right lessons from this whole sordid episode.
How did she avoid detection?
It is beyond belief that this emotionally unstable, disturbed figure (she once asked her Cuban handlers for a boyfriend) could hold the highest clearances and survive undetected for 16 years as a spy in the U.S. national security establishment.
It’s not that anyone didn’t have suspicions. The open-source record notes many colleagues who did have suspicions and reported them to higher-ups. One background investigator even reported Ms. Montes “seemed to have a tendency ‘to twist the truth’ to her own needs, and her honesty was still a cause of concern.” Still, nothing was ever done. She was uncovered by mere chance.
Why was that? The answer is most assuredly “confirmation bias.” She told too many in the national security establishment what they wanted to hear: that Cuba posed no threat to the United States and, therefore, they needn’t waste their time and could remain focused on “real” threats to U.S. interests.
No one in a position of authority was willing to question those assumptions. Bureaucratic inertia prevailed. Where else in the national security establishment do confirmation bias and inertia apply? The results can be tragic.
Secondly, we would do well to remember that the very same regime that employed Ms. Montes continues to rule Cuba with an iron fist and believes that its mission is to wage an unrelenting war to undermine U.S. interests abroad.
Witness the Cuban regime’s campaign to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, voting to support Vladimir Putin in international forums and disseminating pro-Russian propaganda globally.
Moreover, Cuba’s current campaign of weaponizing migration against the United States shows its adeptness at adapting to the moment.
All this comes against the background of the Biden administration’s announcement in the very same week as Ms. Montes’ release that it plans to send a delegation to Havana this month to restart U.S.-Cuba talks on “law enforcement issues” that were halted under former President Donald Trump.
Just as too many in the U.S. government wanted to believe Cuba posed no threat to the U.S. in the case of Ana Montes, so do too many believe that we can find some commonality of interests to reset U.S.-Cuba relations. The fact is, it’s a snipe hunt.
The Cuban regime wants a normal relationship with the U.S. all right, but it must be 100% on Havana’s terms, meaning no change in the way it treats the Cuban people, no change in its ideological war against the U.S.
Instead, it’s we give, they take.
• Jose R. Cardenas served on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council.
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