Castro Sets Stage for Power Transition

Cuban students speak close to a portrait of Cuba's President Fidel Castro during a recess at the Sergio Gonzalez Lopez school in Havana, Tuesday, Jan.16,2007. (AP Photo/ Ariana Cubillos) (Ariana Cubillos - AP)

WASHINGTON -- Cuban President Fidel Castro, ailing and out of sight, has been meeting with a trickle of international guests in recent months, a U.S. government official said Tuesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive situation with Cuba, declined to say with whom Castro was meeting. But the meetings, generally with visitors from Latin America, suggest he may be setting the stage for a transition of power that he hopes will protect the government he has built over four decades.

In a review of global threats last week, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said that Castro and his brother Raul, who has taken over as Cuba's temporary leader, are trying to create a "soft landing" during the transfer of control.

"From the point of the United States policy, we don't want to see that happen," Negroponte said. "We want to see the prospects for freedom in that country enhanced as a result of the transition" from Fidel Castro.

Negroponte also said Castro's days "seem to be numbered," a view supported Tuesday by the U.S. government official. That official said U.S. intelligence believes that Castro is likely to die within a month or two, although analysts don't yet know the precise nature of his illness.

That assessment narrowed the life-expectancy estimate of U.S. intelligence agencies, which previously had said Castro was not expected to make it through the end of this year.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday that Castro has had at least three failed operations and is suffering complications from an intestinal infection, leaving him with a "grave prognosis."

The reported rare details about his medical treatment, citing two unidentified sources from Madrid's Gregorio Maranon hospital, which employs surgeon Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido. An expert in the digestive system, Sabrido flew to Cuba in December to treat Castro and returned insisting that the 80-year-old was recovering slowly from a serious operation.

One of the journalists who wrote the article told The Associated Press that Sabrido was not one of the two sources. The journalist, Oriol Guell, said the sources were both doctors at the hospital, but he declined to identify them.

A Cuban diplomat in Madrid said the El Pais report was false. "If anyone has to talk about Castro's illness, it's Havana," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of official policy.

U.S. officials will not disclose how they glean clues to Castro's health. But American spy agencies employ physicians who study images, public statements and other information coming out of Cuba and other countries.

Some intelligence officials believe Castro is suffering from diverticular disease, which can cause bleeding in the lower intestine, especially in people over 60. Others believe that Castro has cancer of the stomach, the colon or perhaps the pancreas.