US: On the eve of his departure to Russia for what is being billed as a major summit with President Putin to set the seal on a new enhanced relationship with the West, President Bush returned yesterday to Cold War mode for some unfinished business.
US: In a White House speech on the 100th anniversary of Cuban independence that had as much to do with domestic politics as with the fate of the island, Mr Bush committed himself to lifting the trade and travel embargo, if President Fidel Castro agreed to enact a broad range of political and economic reforms ahead of next year's National Assembly elections.
Mr Bush flew down later to Little Havana in Miami to support his brother Jeb's re-election campaign for governor of Florida.
Such talk is a far cry from the language being employed about the old enemy, Russia, with which the administration hopes to agree a new "strategic framework" embracing not just military and security co-operation but also enhanced economic co-operation. Mr Bush travels this week for a summit that will also formally endorse their agreement last week on ballistic weapon reductions.
Mr Bush will go on next week to a NATO summit in Rome which will endorse the new Russia-NATO council approved by ministers in Reykjavik.
US officials say they hope the landmark Russian meeting may be the last between the two countries in which the central focus will be armaments controls, although important differences remain on the controversial US plans to create a missile defence system. In that regard the US may try and soften Russian criticism by offering to co-operate with Moscow on the development of the system.
The meeting is also likely to touch on co-operation in the energy field and in the fight against terrorism, while the Russians hope that Mr Bush's weekend visit to Mr Putin's home city of St Petersburg will allow the two men to build on the warm personal relationship displayed when they met last autumn in Crawford, Texas.
In his speech, Mr Bush said if Cuba introduced freedom of organisation, assembly and speech with equal access by all to the media, freed political prisoners, admitted both human rights organisations and international election monitors, and supplemented such moves with genuine moves to marketise the economy "then and only then" would he work with Congress to lift the embargoes.
"Without political reform and economic reform trade would merely enrich Fidel Castro and his cronies," Mr Bush said. "The choice rests with Mr Castro," he added, warning that if the latter did not accept the US offer he would eventually be held to account by the people of Cuba.
The President announced that the US would, however, ease the controls on humanitarian aid by "legitimate" US NGOs and direct assistance and scholarships by the US to human rights campaigners. The US would also provide scholarships to families of political prisoners and negotiate the end of the mail embargo.
Mr Bush's "offer", what he called the "Initiative for a new Cuba", comes in the wake of considerable publicity for ex-president Jimmy Carter's trip to the island last week and his call, backed by an increasing number in Congress, for an abandonment of the trade and travel embargo.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr Bob Graham, has warned that Islamic groups like Hizbullah and Egypt's Islamic Jihad could be planning to attack the US and may be more able to do so than the al-Qaeda network.
Mr Graham told the NBC Today show: "Our enemy is not al-Qaeda alone . . . There are several international terrorist groups which have abilities, in some cases greater abilities than al-Qaeda, and a similar desire to attack the United States."
Vice-President Dick Cheney said on Sunday evidence from intelligence intercepts suggested a new attack on the US was "almost certain".
And the head of the FBI, Mr Robert Mueller, said yesterday the prospect of further suicide attacks was "inevitable".
