Veto Threat Doesn't Deter Vote On Cuba

The House brushed aside a veto threat from President Bush and approved several measures to ease restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba.

"For 42 years we've had the same failed policy," said freshman Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona, who led efforts to break down barriers with the island nation. "Isn't it about time to decide maybe we need a change here?"

Despite endeavors by anti-Castro lawmakers and the administration to link the sanctions against Fidel Castro's Cuba to the war on terrorism, many House members agreed on a series of votes Tuesday.

By a 262-167 margin they approved Flake's amendment to a spending bill that would eliminate restrictions on American tourists traveling to Cuba.

They followed with a 251-177 vote on another Flake measure lifting the cap, now $1,200 a year, on what Cuban-Americans are allowed to remit to their families in Cuba. Additionally, they approved by voice a measure by Jerry Moran, R-Kan., to remove hurdles to the sale of food and medicine to Cuba.

The most aggressive attempt to reverse the four-decade-old policy of isolating Cuba, an amendment by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., to lift the economic embargo, was defeated, but by a narrow 226-204.

The votes were part of an $18.5 billion bill to fund the Treasury Department, the White House and other federal agencies in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The Senate Appropriations Committee has also included an easing of travel restrictions in its version of the bill, increasing the likelihood that Congress will present President Bush a bill that could lead to his first veto.

Flake also succeeded in winning approval of his amendment last year, but it was not included in the final Treasury bill sent to the White House.

Opponents of the bill focused on recent intelligence reports that Cuba was developing biological weapons, and warned that more open relations with Cuba would be detrimental to the war on terrorism.

"Cuba is a known harborer of international terrorists," said Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. "Ending the embargo would assist terrorists in using Cuba as a forward operating base miles off our shore."

The White House, in a statement, threatened a presidential veto if the bill removed sanctions on Cuba. "Lifting the sanctions now would provide a helping hand to a desperate and repressive regime," it said.

Anti-Castro lawmakers sought to head off the Flake measure by promoting an alternative, by House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., that would have lifted travel restrictions only after the president certified that Cuba was not developing biological weapons or providing biological weapons technology to terrorist states and was not providing sanctuary to international terrorists.

"We have ample reason to believe that Castro is developing weapons of mass destruction," said Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

But others argued that American tourists can go to North Korea and Iran, other hostile countries thought to be developing weapons of mass destruction. "It's not about terrorism," said Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif. "It's about trying to destroy the Flake amendment."

Rangel said the United States has treated Cuba differently from other communist states such as China or Vietnam because of the politics of Florida, where anti-Castro Cuban-Americans are a powerful force and President Bush's brother Jeb is governor. "Don't allow your local politics to influence what's in the national interest," he said.

Earlier Tuesday the House overwhelmingly endorsed the president's decision to continue normal trade relations with Vietnam.

President Clinton, after the Pope's March, 1998, visit to Cuba, lifted some restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, but visits have been restricted to businessmen and others with specific purposes, not tourists.