Cuba 'slams door' on better ties: Ex-US drug czar

Cuba's leadership has "slammed the door" on improving relations with the United States by fiercely and publicly attacking president Barack Obama, a retired US general who backs better ties with Havana said on Monday.

General Barry McCaffrey, a former head of the US military Southern Command and former White House drug czar in the Clinton administration, said he was disappointed by a recent barrage of high-level official Cuban criticism of Obama, who last year pledged to seek a new beginning in US-Cuban ties.

"It was an opportunity for the Cubans to come out of the box, get back into the community of nations ... They walked away from it," the retired four-star general told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Citing Cuba's "shallow and vitriolic" criticism, McCaffrey, who has advocated dismantling the longtime US embargo against the communist-ruled Caribbean island and increasing contacts, last month cancelled a planned January 3-6 visit to Havana. This would have discussed ways of improving cooperation and ties.

McCaffrey's visit to Cuba was to have been sponsored by the Washington-based Center for International Policy think tank, which has backed greater engagement with Cuba.

In a sign that an apparent initial "honeymoon" between Cuba's rulers and Obama had come to an end, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez last month called the US president "imperial, arrogant" and accused him of lying during the UN global climate change conference in Copenhagen.

This capped recent increasing public criticism of Obama and his administration by Cuban president Raul Castro and former leader Fidel Castro, now 83, who after early praise for the much younger US leader has now reverted to calling him "the Yankee president" and the "imperial chief."

"I find it unbelievable that they would attack the first president that was 92% probable to get them out of the box," McCaffrey said, referring to Obama's assertions last year that he wanted to reset long hostile US-Cuban ties.

"They (the Cubans) slammed the door," added McCaffrey, who now runs his own Virginia-based consulting firm.

After initially welcoming Obama's inauguration last year, Cuba's leadership has accused him of not doing enough to change Washington's Cuba policy, and especially of not lifting longstanding US economic sanctions.

Obama, who last year slightly eased some aspects of the US embargo, in turn urged Cuba's rulers to reciprocate by improving human rights and introducing greater political freedom. Havana said this was meddling in its affairs.

McCaffrey, who met both Raul and Fidel Castro during a 2002 visit to Cuba in which he urged Havana and Washington to cooperate against drug-trafficking, said the "1960s rhetoric" coming from Cuba was a "bad signal" for US-Cuban relations.

He said the recent attacks on Obama by the top public figures of the Cuban leadership appeared to be a deliberate policy aimed at scotching rapprochement at a time when the US leader faced multiple domestic and foreign policy challenges.

McCaffrey said the Castros and other Cuban leaders had opted against reform openings. "In my view, I fear, they have decided they have got to lock down the island," he said.

McCaffrey also faulted the Obama administration for not moving more quickly and doing more to build better relations.

He said the Obama administration should have unilaterally lifted US restrictions against Cuba not subject to formal Congress oversight and also closed down the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

In a possible further hiccup to improved ties, Cuba last month arrested a US government contractor it said was supplying opposition groups with satellite communication equipment. President Castro said it showed Washington had not given up on trying to destroy Cuba's socialist system.