Gingrich: Clinton going soft on Cuba

Published Thursday, April 23, 1998, in the Miami Herald

Gingrich: Clinton going soft on Cuba

TALLAHASSEE -- U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, during a courtesy call on the Florida Legislature, accused the Clinton administration Wednesday of easing pressures on Cuban President Fidel Castro to move toward democracy -- ``either by design or incompetence.''

Speaking before a joint session, the Georgia Republican decried the vote Tuesday by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva that removed Cuba from the list of nations facing U.N. human rights monitoring.

Gingrich implied that the vote marked a failure by the Clinton administration to convince other nations that Cuba continues to pose a threat comparable to Iraq's.

``We have as much evidence about biological and chemical warfare with Fidel Castro as we have with [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein,'' Gingrich said. ``We have as much evidence of the danger from terrorism from Fidel as we have from Saddam.''

-- TOM FIEDLER