🇺🇸🇺🇸 ❌🇨🇺🛠 — NYT: C.I.A. Sets Up Secret Cuba Task Force as Trump Pressures Havana
➡️ The C.I.A. has secretly established a Cuba task force, setting in motion plans for a more concerted campaign to pressure the Cuban government to make the economic, political and leadership changes demanded by President Trump, according to people briefed on the action.
➡️ The creation of the task force will allow the agency to quickly direct more financial, human and technical resources at Cuba, they said.
➡️ The task force has begun adding case officers who recruit and manage spies, intelligence analysts, officers who conduct cyberoperations and officers who specialize in covert influence operations, the people said.
📆 In 1960, the C.I.A. established an earlier Cuba task force, whose members oversaw the failed, agency-backed invasion of Cuba the next year known as the Bay of Pigs.
➡️ The people briefed on the new task force said its mandate is more limited: to create fissures among the Cuban political elite, in hope of pressuring the Cubans to replace perceived anti-American hard-liners with more practical leaders more amenable to Mr. Trump’s demands.