By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Bush yesterday endorsed a major package of recommendations to support political dissidents in Cuba, tighten the flow of money into the island and prepare for the day when Fidel Castro's regime is swept from power.
    The recommendations, contained in a 423-page report produced by a commission Mr. Bush formed in October, come as he and Democratic challenger John Kerry vie for the anti-Castro Cuban-American vote in the critical swing state of Florida in the presidential election in November.
    "We're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom, we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba," Mr. Bush declared yesterday after receiving the report from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who led the interagency panel, formally known as the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.
    The administration plan calls for spending up to $59 million in new and redirected funds in the next two years. About a third of the money would be used for a permanent airborne U.S. station to broadcast radio and television programs to the island, programs that Cuban authorities routinely jam.
    About $36 million would go for "democracy-building" programs, from support and scholarships for the families of jailed dissidents to funding for Cuban and third-country nongovernmental organizations working for political pluralism in Cuba.
    The commission kept the $1,200 limit on annual remittances from residents of the United States to their families in Cuba. Anti-Castro activists wanted the amount cut, while U.S. opponents of the 44-year embargo on Cuba had hoped to see the ceiling raised.
    Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said the U.S. government plans to tighten restrictions on who can receive the remittances, excluding members of the Cuban Communist Party and other regime supporters.
    "I would expect there will be a contraction on the amount of remittances that reach the island," Mr. Noriega said while briefing reporters after the president's remarks,.
    The administration also will cut the amount U.S. residents on family visits to Cuba can spend, from $164 a day to $50, and limit family visits to once every three years.
    Mr. Kerry, in an interview this week with Hispanic TV, said he favored continuing the embargo but would ease restrictions on travel to Cuba.
    U.S. remittances, estimated at about $3 billion annually, are a major source of income for the island, but Mr. Noriega made no apologies for the tougher conditions.
    He appealed to other countries in the hemisphere to join the U.S. policy of isolating Mr. Castro.
    "Those people who continue to do business with and travel to Cuba are prolonging the misery of the people of Cuba," he said.
    Significantly, the report calls on the U.S. government to make clear to Havana that replacing 78-year-old Mr. Castro with his younger brother Raul at the helm -- as is widely thought to be the plan -- would be unacceptable.
    "There can be no Castroism after Castro," Mr. Noriega said.
    Leading anti-Castro groups generally applauded the Bush program, while opponents of the embargo said Mr. Bush had missed a chance to set U.S.-Cuban relations on a more productive course.
    Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a former ambassador to the United Nations and board member of the anti-Castro Center for a Free Cuba, said Mr. Bush's blueprint would "inspire and fortify the Cuban people's desire for freedom."
    But Sarah Stephens, director of the anti-embargo Freedom to Travel Campaign, said the new measures "would do nothing to weaken the government of President Castro, but will further weaken our moral standing at a time of challenge for our nation's foreign policy."