FBI/REX TILLERSON/STATE: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will order a special panel to investigate the U.S. response to mysterious illnesses that have stricken American diplomats and their relatives in Havana.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department have been probing the incidents in recent months after the administration said they resulted from attacks.
Now, Mr. Tillerson will take the further step of establishing an independent board of the same type that was set up after the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a senior diplomat told lawmakers on Tuesday [1-9-18]. The board is required to be convened when people are seriously injured at a diplomatic facility to assess security procedures.
The incident has strained relations between the U.S. and Cuba after President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raúl Castro re-established diplomatic ties in 2015 after 54 years. President Donald Trump has reimposed some trade and travel curbs on Cuba that Mr. Obama had loosened.
The U.S. hasn’t been able to identify the perpetrator or means of the apparent attacks, Francisco Palmieri, principal deputy assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee…
The U.S. hasn’t blamed Cuba for the illnesses but Mr. Tillerson has held its leaders responsible for not having prevented them. Steve Goldstein, undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs, said on Tuesday the U.S. believes Cuba has information about what happened that it has withheld. American officials have been to Havana four times to probe the illnesses and will soon return.”
-Felicia Schwartz, “Tillerson Orders Review of U.S. Response to Mysterious Illnesses in Cuba,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 9, 2018 05:40pm