A U.S. raid is not likely to come from Boca Chica, the officer testified.

 BY RUI FERREIRA
 El Nuevo Herald

 Cuba doesn't need to spy on U.S. military installations in South Florida because a U.S. attack on the island would not be launched from this area, a high-ranking Cuban officer said Tuesday while testifying in the Miami trial of five accused Cuban spies.

 For a raid to originate at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station "wouldn't make any sense,'' said Col. Amel Escalante in a deposition videotaped in October in Havana. The tape was shown in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard.

 Two of the defendants, Antonio Guerrero and Ramón Labañino, have been accused of informing Cuban military authorities about activities at the Boca Chica station near Key West and MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

 According to Escalante, Boca Chica "is an open base, visible from the street, so nothing could be done there in stealth. It wouldn't make any sense for [the Americans] to invade us from there. The most logical thing would be a surprise attack with cruise missiles from a ship or an aircraft carrier.''

 Escalante, 65, a 43-year army veteran who heads Cuba's Center for Strategic Studies, said he was unaware of any Cuban intelligence activities in the United States but acknowledged he regularly receives information about military movements in this country. However, he said, that information does not come from the Cuban armed forces' counterintelligence service.

 "I receive the processed data, and my job is to plan a response,'' he said in response to a question from Labañino's attorney, William Norris.

 When assistant prosecutor Dave Buckner asked Escalante if Cuba could use an agent in Boca Chica, the officer scoffed.

 "I don't know who in the Cuban government might need him, because if I -- who participate in planning operations -- don't need him, who would?'' he replied.

 Buckner then asked if the Cuban government might like to have a spy in the Southern Command's West Miami-Dade County headquarters, where, according to
 prosecutors, Havana attempted to have two agents infiltrate.

 "I wish we had one,'' Escalante answered. "If it were the Southern Command's commander in chief, of course I would. But if it's anyone else, we're not interested.''

 "Not even someone who steals a paper from a desktop?'' Buckner inquired.

 "I would hate to think that the chief of the Southern Command is irresponsible enough to allow someone to steal plans from his desktop,'' Escalante replied.

 The Cuban officer also said the Cuban planners don't need spies to report on U.S. military movements because that information is easily accessible through TV and the Internet.

 "Not even the number of soldiers, officers, equipment and armament in Fort Bragg, for instance?'' Buckner asked.

 "I already have that; I don't need it. Would you like to see it? I have it all written down,'' Escalante said.

                                    © 2001