U.S. makes Cuba staffing cuts permanent in wake of "health attacks"
WASHINGTON -- The United States said Friday it was making permanent its decision last year to withdraw 60 percent of its diplomats from Cuba, citing a need to protect American personnel from what the State Department calls "health attacks" that remain unexplained. "We still do not have definitive answers on the source or cause of the attacks, and an investigation into the attacks is ongoing," the State Department said Friday in a statement.
In October, the department ordered non-essential personnel and all family members to leave Havana, arguing the U.S. could not protect diplomats from unexplained illnesses that have harmed at least 24 Americans. But by law, the department can only order diplomats to leave for six months before either sending them back or making the reductions permanent.
The six months expire Sunday. So the State Department said it was setting a new, permanent staffing plan that maintains the lower level of roughly two-dozen people -- "the minimum personnel necessary to perform core diplomatic and consular functions." The department also said that the embassy in Havana would operate as an "unaccompanied post," meaning diplomats posted there will not be allowed to have their spouses or children live with them in the country.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed off on the permanent plan for reduced staffing out of concern for "the health, safety and well-being of U.S. government personnel and family members," the department said in its statement.
Cuba has repeatedly denied either involvement in or knowledge of any attacks, and has said its own investigation into the illnesses has turned up no evidence of deliberate action. The United States has not accused Cuba of perpetrating the attacks but has said Havana holds responsibility nonetheless, arguing that such incidents could not have occurred on the small, communist-run island without the knowledge of Cuban officials.
One of the Americans injured by the unexplained attacks told CBS News last year the U.S. response to injured embassy personnel was handled "poorly" and that their complaints were ignored by senior embassy leadership and top officials at the State Department in Washington for months. The person, who was not authorized to talk to reporters, was the first victim to speak publicly about the attacks since they began in 2016, CBS News' Steve Dorsey reported.
The victim said the State Department pressured some U.S. embassy officials injured by the attacks to remain on the island, instead of curtailing their assignments, and waited to too long to withdraw non-essential staff and all families from Havana on September 29.
"Why did it take so long to draw down, to get spouses and children out of there?" the individual who suffered the attack said.
The person also criticized the initial treatment to victims offered by doctors at the University of Miami in the U.S. and also in Havana as cursory and incomplete. Victims were later treated by neurologists at the University of Pennsylvania after complaining about headaches, an inability to recall common words and phrases, hearing loss, vision problems and other health issues.
The University of Miami's school of medicine had declined to comment. The State Department insisted it has taken the incidents seriously.
"Our focus from the beginning of these incidents has been on the health and well-being of our personnel," a State Department spokesperson for Western Hemisphere Affairs told CBS News last year. "They remain our priority."