---------- From: John Clancy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 14:46:54 -0700 --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Tony Ryan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 08:40:49 -0700 Subject: U.S. May Attack April 15, 2001 Cuba Official: U.S. May Attack By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS -Filed at 5:24 p.m. ET VARADERO, Cuba (AP) -- Cuba believes that the United States has not abandoned the idea of a military attack on the island, the nation's defense minister said Sunday. Because of that, Cuba is full of subterranean tunnels, some of which can hold large quantities of troops, said Gen. Raul Castro, President Fidel Castro's younger brother. Raul Castro spoke to reporters after he and the president traveled to this beach resort say good-bye to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who left Cuba Sunday morning. ``You think the United States has abandoned'' the idea of military action against Cuba?'' he said. ``Of course not.'' He said Cuba's army had dwindled by tens of thousands of troops since the 1980s, but ``we still have armed forces very large for the size of our country and for our economy.'' The defense minister once again insisted that Washington should work out its political differences with Cuba while his brother is still alive, because the elder Castro has ``the power to convince'' the Cuban people. He first made that suggestion in January. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company ================================= Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ******** from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subject: China: US pepares to resume flights Tuesday, April 17, 2001 (via Sydney smh ) World Article Navy on standby as US prepares to resume flights. Ready for action fighter jets land on the deck of USS Kitty Hawk - By Thomas Ricks in Washington A United States aircraft carrier may be moved to the South China Sea where it could launch fighter jets to protect US reconnaissance flights off China's coast when the flights resume, navy officials say. Flights might resume as early as Thursday in international airspace about 80 kilometres off the Chinese coast, they said. Depending on the Chinese reaction, the addition of US warplanes could lead to new confrontations or signal the resumption of routine military operations. US and Chinese officials are scheduled to meet in Beijing tomorrow to discuss the flights, which the Chinese Government says come too close to their airspace, but which the US says are routine missions conducted in international airspace. The meeting was scheduled as part of the diplomatic negotiations that led to last Wednesday's release of the 24 crew members of a US Navy EP- 3E. The plane had made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island after a mid-air collision with a Chinese fighter aircraft on April 1. At the Beijing meeting China was expected to request that the spy flights be stopped or moved farther off its coast, the Defence Department said. But the US planned to respond that it intended to continue the flights, the department said. USS Kitty Hawk, which carries about 70 aircraft, passed Singapore and sailed through the southern Philippines on Sunday en route to Guam, the navy said on Sunday night. By the time the Beijing meeting occurred, the ship could be ready to send up fighters to support the reconnaissance flights, but only if it soon received an order to reverse course, the navy said. Admiral Dennis Blair, US military commander for the Pacific, last week suggested three possible courses of action to the Bush adminis- tration, an official said: send the Kitty Hawk on a slow, northward track through the South China Sea; tell it to linger farther south of the Philippines; or keep it on its planned course towards Guam. A Pentagon official confirmed that account, saying: "[Admiral] Blair recommended different options that could or could not send a message, depending on how they wanted to play it." Admiral Blair had not recommended that F-14s and F/A-18 fighters escort the US reconnaissance aircraft, another official said. The navy said that was because the US wanted to underscore its view that the flights were not acts of underhanded espionage, but legal and overt movements through international airspace."Our view is that the flights are so benign they don't need escorts," a navy spokesman said. Alternatively, providing the White House approved, he said, the navy fighters would fly farther off the Chinese coast than the reconnaissance aircraft, perhaps 160 kilometres away. "The thinking isn't to intercept the interceptors," another official emphasised. China has again rejected US claims that Wang Wei, the Chinese pilot killed in the April 1 incident, was responsible for the crash. "They must assume their responsibility," said Wang Zhen, China's ambassador to Venezuela, where China's President Jiang Zemin was making the last stop of a Latin American tour. "They crashed into us; our pilot is dead and the family of this poor pilot is crying every day. Who is responsible? The US.'' The Washington Post " JC
