Bush sees little chance of change in policy with Fidel Castro gone

As long as Raul Castro is in charge, the embargo will stand, U.S. officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is ruling out any changes in its Cuba policy — including lifting a five-decade trade embargo — deriding Fidel Castro’s brother and heir apparent, Raul, as “dictator lite.”

Despite having openly wished for Castro’s demise and the end of his rule for years, U.S. officials said Tuesday that Castro’s decision to step down on his own terms leaves little hope for real democratic transition in communist Cuba during Bush’s final year in office, although it may open options for his successor in the White House.

Led by President Bush, a chorus of officials expressed hope that Castro’s departure would spark fundamental changes for the Cuban people. But they also said that they doubted that would happen under Raul Castro and that there was little chance the nearly 50-year-old U.S. embargo on Cuba would be lifted.

“They’re the ones who suffered under Fidel Castro,” Bush told a news conference in Rwanda. “They’re the ones who were put in prison because of their beliefs. They’re the ones who have been denied their right to live in a free society. So I view this as a period of transition and it should be the beginning of the democratic transition in Cuba.”

“Eventually, this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections — and I mean free, and I mean fair — not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as true democracy,” Bush said. “The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty.”

Even as U.S. lawmakers suggested Castro’s retirement should set off a review of U.S. policy, senior State Department officials in Washington said there would be no lifting of the embargo, which has been the centerpiece of American policy toward Cuba since it was first imposed in 1960 and strengthened in 1962.

“I can’t imagine that happening any time soon,” said Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

The ailing Castro, 81, who has called the embargo “criminal” and claims its impact has run into the tens of billions of dollars, announced earlier Tuesday he would not accept another term in office when parliament meets to elect a new president this weekend.

Castro outlasted nine U.S. presidents who, with some minor policy adjustments, have steadily ramped up pressure on Cuba. At least two Secretaries of State, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, said publicly while in office that they hoped “the actuarial tables” would catch up with the aging Cuban leader who was a persistent thorn in Washington’s side.

Long-standing U.S. irritation with Castro was evident Tuesday with officials stressing they were not optimistic for any kind of quick change under Raul Castro, to whom Fidel ceded power temporarily in July 2006.

“The changing of the guard is not significant of and by itself,” deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters, repeatedly referring to Raul Castro as “dictator lite” or “Fidel lite.”

Jumping into the fray, the top three U.S. presidential candidates all said Washington should look for ways to encourage democratic reforms in Cuba, steps that could lead to normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba later on.

Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Republican John McCain called for the release of Cuban political prisoners and said the United States should look for ways to encourage democratic reforms in Cuba.

In Congress, more than 100 lawmakers from both sides of the aisle signed a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging a “tough-minded review” of current U.S. policy toward Cuba, which they said had left the United States “without influence at this critical moment” on the island.

Cuban leaders have often expressed willingness to deal with the United States — but only on Cuban terms — conditions that look nothing like the U.S. demands laid down to lift the embargo in the Helms-Burton Act of 1996.

The law grants U.S. presidents broad leeway over how to enforce the embargo but the embargo rules themselves will stand as long as either Raul or Fidel are in power, according to Helms-Burton.