Castro suggests Washington fails to stop attacks on US soil to justify war on terror

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/16/news/CB-GEN-Cuba-Castro.php

Castro suggests Washington fails to stop attacks on US soil to justify war on terror

HAVANA: Fidel Castro suggested that Washington has deliberately failed to stop terrorist attacks against Americans because it needed to "deliver a bang" that would justify its war on terror.

In the latest in a series of essays that Cuba's 80-year-old Maximum leader has begun writing every few days, Castro on Sunday seized on U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's comments this past week expressing a "gut feeling" that the United States faces an increased risk of attack this summer.

"The government of the United States sees and hears all, with or without legal authority," Castro wrote. "They can prevent any attack on their people, unless there is some imperial need to deliver a bang so that they can carry on with and justify the brutal war which has been declared against the culture, religion, economy and independence of other peoples."

The accusation came at the end of an essay titled "Bush, Health and Education," in which Castro claimed Cubans are better cared for than Americans, and that his poor island nation and its legions of doctors working around Latin America have done more for the region than the U.S. ever will.

Published in the Communist Party youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde, the essay criticized U.S. President George W. Bush for suggesting that recent U.S. initiatives have provided quality medical care to Latin Americans.

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"Bush knows that he is lying and that his tall tales are hard to swallow, but he doesn't care," Castro wrote. "He is confident that if he repeats it a thousand times, many will finally believe him."