HAVANA -- (AP) -- A retired U.S. Army general said Sunday that he talked for 12 hours with President Fidel Castro
                      and encouraged the Cuban leader to release 250 political prisoners in this island's jails in an effort to encourage
                      dialogue with the United States.

                      Gen. Barry McCaffrey, now a university professor visiting the island with the Center for Defense Information, told
                      a news conference that Cuba did not present a military risk to the United States.

                      ''They represent zero threat to the United States,'' he said.

                      The general said he told Cuban authorities during meetings on Saturday that the United States did not present a
                      military risk to the island, either. He said he also met with Castro's younger brother, Gen. Raúl Castro, Cuba's
                      defense minister.

                      McCaffrey said he supported increased cooperation between the United States and Cuba in the areas of drug
                      interdiction and fighting terrorism.

                      ''I see no evidence at all that the Cubans are in any way facilitating drug trafficking,'' the former U.S. drug czar
                      said. ``Indeed, I see good evidence of the opposite. I strongly believe that Cuba is an island of resistance to drug
                      traffic.''

                      Some Cuban exile groups and conservative members of Congress have accused the communist country of
                      involvement in the narcotics trade.

                      McCaffrey said he also did not believe that Cuba was a terrorism threat to the United States, as some Cuban exile
                      groups insist.

                      McCaffrey was chief of the Southern Command from 1994 to 1996, when it was based in Panama, and oversaw
                      the start of the base's move to Florida.

                      Cuba remains on the U.S. State Department's terrorism watch list, primarily because of the presence on the island
                      of some Basque separatists, former members of Puerto Rican nationalist groups and a few American fugitives.