Pentagon wants Guantánamo fiber-optic cable to someday serve Cuba

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/20/3639244/pentagon-wants-guantanamo-fiber.html



Pentagon wants Guantánamo fiber-optic cable to someday serve Cuba
Posted on Friday, 09.20.13
By CAROL ROSENBERG

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The Pentagon plans to one day extend to the entire island of Cuba its under-construction $40 million fiber-optic cable linking this base to Florida, a senior Defense Department official testified Friday at the war court.

Ronald Bechtold, the chief information officer at the office of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, was talking about Pentagon efforts to shore up computer security for defense attorneys preparing for the Sept. 11 death-penalty trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four accused co-conspirators.

He said the base now relies on slow satellite transmissions to the mainland. But, he added, in “probably two years” the base will be served by a fully functioning, fiber-optic cable funded by the U.S. Southern Command in South Florida — the Pentagon’s outpost for military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“It’s going to be for the entire island in anticipation that one day that they’ll be able to extend it into mainland Cuba,” he testified under questioning by the 9/11 case prosecutor Joanna Baltes, a Department of Justice secrecy expert.