Castro Offers to Talk to U.S.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, the Obama administration ways a new offer by Cuba to break a half century of silence. This hour, President Obama at the Summit of the Americas. We're waiting to hear if he responds to Raul Castro's invitation. Plus, a rescued sea captain finally returning to the United States. We're standing by for Richard Phillips to talk about his ordeal as a hostage of pirates. We're about to carry his homecoming and his remarks. You will see and hear them live, here in THE SITUATION ROOM. And the Environmental Protection Agency sets the stage for possible regulation of global warming. Is it an end run around Congress? I'm Wolf Blitzer in CNN's command center for breaking news, politics, and extraordinary remarks from around the world. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. President Obama has just landed in Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas, where officials are buzzing about one of the region's longstanding outcasts. That would be Cuba. Expectations now are soaring for a thaw on Cuba's relations with the United States, largely frozen since the Cold War. President Raul Castro says he's ready to talk with the Obama administration and put everything on the table. We're standing by for remarks by President Obama. We're going to carry them live. We expect he will be talking in part about his response to what the Cubans are saying. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, had this to say about Cuba's offer...</s>HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: You are all familiar with the administration's general view that engagement is a useful tool to advance our national interests and our goals of promoting human rights, democracy, peace, prosperity, and progress. So we have seen Raul Castro's comments, and we welcome this overture. We are taking a serious look at it and we will consider how we intend to respond.</s>BLITZER: Very, very precise words from the secretary of state on a most, most sensitive issue. Let's get some more on what's going on. Brianna Keilar is here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Stuff is moving very, very rapidly, potentially, in this U.S./Cuban relationship.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is diplomacy on fast forward. And, of course, President Obama getting this all started, allowing Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba, send money to their relatives in Cuba. Also allowing American cell phone companies to do business in Cuba. And now the question is, who takes the next step?</s>KEILAR (voice-over): President Obama says the next move is Havana's.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Having taken the first step, I think it's very much in our interest to see whether Cuba is also ready to change.</s>KEILAR: A quick response from Cuban President Raul Castro.</s>RAUL CASTRO, CUBAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are ready when they want to discuss everything -- human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners. Everything, everything, everything they want to discuss.</s>KEILAR: Castro said this before, but on the heels of the greatest shift in U.S. policy towards Cuba in 50 years, the words have new importance. Even before face-to-face talks, Cuba could send the U.S. a welcome signal by freeing political prisoners, making it easier for Cubans to travel to the U.S., allowing Cubans the freedom to assemble, or opening the Cuban telecommunications market -- Internet, television, cell phone service to U.S. companies. After decades of isolation, experts say aging Cuban leaders realize this may be their last chance to preserve a legacy.</s>JULIA SWEIG, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: I think that Raul Castro can hear the clock ticking within his own country. He has a population, 70 percent of whom were born after the revolution 50 years ago. So young people in Cuba do not have a kind of stake in the revolution as such that the older generation has.</s>KEILAR: Now, while the Obama administration waits on the Castro government, Latin American leaders like Mexican President Calderon, whom the president met with yesterday, say the burden here is really on the U.S. They say that's because 50 years of the trade embargo failed to change Cuba, and that's really something the U.S. needs to deal with.</s>BLITZER: Yes. He's going to come under a lot of pressure at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad to change U.S. policy, lift those sanctions against Cuba, because on this issue, the U.S., right now, at least in the hemisphere, is in the minority. We'll see what happens. We're standing by to hear from the president. We expect that he will address this issue, a response to Raul Castro, the president of Cuba. Thanks very much, Brianna. So, stand by. We're going go back to Trinidad as soon as we hear and see the president. He's going to be speaking. We'll have live coverage of that. There's other stories we're following, including an important one in Vermont right now. A hero's welcome is in the works for the rescued sea captain Richard Phillips. He's due to land very soon at Burlington International Airport, a long-awaited homecoming after being held hostage by those pirates. We're going to carry his arrival, his expected remarks. You will see and hear them live here in THE SITUATION ROOM as well. Let's get some more specifics though on what we can expect from CNN's Deborah Feyerick. She's joining us now live from Vermont. Deb, a lot of reporters, a lot of photographers, and a lot of folks in Vermont very excited, getting ready to greet a hero.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And they've actually pulled back the gate just so that everyone here can get a clear shot of that plane landing. It is expected to touch down at about 4:20 this afternoon. The family arrived here just before 4:00, so they're in the building, just here to my right. We are told that two FBI agents did travel with Captain Richard Phillips. There was no formal briefing, we are told, by a Maersk spokesperson. But it was a very long flight, 18.5 hours, that those two FBI agents were with the captain. So chances are pretty good that, in fact, the topic of his captivity did come up at one or two points. Again, he was on the water in the Gulf of Aden with four pirates for five days before being rescued by those three Navy SEALs. So, again, he's scheduled to touch down here about 4:20. We're told that the initial arrival, the initial greeting, will actually be pretty low key. Once the plane does touch down here, Customs agents will board the private jet plane, they'll do a search. The family will also go on board. And then we're told everyone will come out, except for the FBI agents, come to the podium, where the captain can talk about what his ordeal was like. A lot of questions. Were the pirates hostile towards him? How did they treat him? What happened when he tried to escape? All of these things, hopefully, we'll hear from the captain's own mouth. Again, 4:20 he's supposed to land. We're told the family's going to get a police escort to their home. It will be a very simple dinner. A friend is bringing over some chicken pot pie. His mom has made brownies, and some of his good friends are going to bring over his favorite beer. So at least something to look forward to for the captain once he arrives -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: It all sounds delicious. And we'll have live coverage. These are his first public remarks since his release as a captive of those pirates. And you'll see and hear them live, here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Deb, stand by for that. Two events. Two events, live events. We're waiting for the arrival of Captain Phillips in Vermont and the remarks by President Obama in Trinidad responding to this latest statement from the Cuban government. In the meantime, let's check in with Jack Cafferty right now. He has "The Cafferty File" -- Jack.</s>JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: You got your dancing shoes on?</s>BLITZER: Yes. We're going to be tiptoeing all over this.</s>CAFFERTY: Yes. We've got a lot of stuff going on, right?</s>BLITZER: Yes.</s>CAFFERTY: President Obama being criticized for his decision to release those Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques. Conservatives say releasing them damages our national security by telling the terrorists what we do. Michael Hayden, who led the CIA under President Bush, says that CIA officers will now be more timid and our allies will be less likely to share sensitive intelligence. Human rights groups aren't happy either that the president promised the CIA that officers who conducted these interrogations will not be prosecuted if they use techniques that were authorized at the time. The president says there's nothing to be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. I'm not sure I agree with that. President Obama spent a month deciding whether or not to release this stuff. Consulting numerous officials, he reportedly weighed the sanctity of covert operations and what impact it could have on national security against the law and his belief in transparency. And in the end, it was transparency that won. The documents themselves quite revealing. They show the CIA used waterboarding, sleep deprivation, slapping, keeping detainees naked and in some cases in a diaper, putting detainees on a liquid diet, and using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls. The memos also authorized keeping suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, who apparently is afraid of insects, in a dark, confined space and then putting bugs in the box with him and telling him that they were in there and that they were going to bite him. President Obama banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques that some call torture soon after he took office. And he's pledged to make sure the actions described in these memos "never take place again." So the question is this: Is the release of the Bush-era interrogation memos a mistake? Go to cnn.com/caffertyfile and post a comment on my blog -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: A huge, huge debate unfolding since the release yesterday of these. And we're going to have extensive coverage of that here in THE SITUATION ROOM, as well. Jack, good question. Thank you. And don't forget, Jack, we're standing by. Two live events here in THE SITUATION ROOM. In the coming moments, the return of the captain who was freed from those pirates, Richard Phillips. Expecting him to land in Vermont very, very soon. You'll hear from him for the first time. Also, the president of the United States expected to respond to the latest statements from the Cuban government about a potential thaw in U.S./Cuban relations. What the president of the United States is about to say, you'll see that live here in THE SITUATION ROOM as well. The Obama administration, meanwhile, is setting some limits today on embryonic stem-cell research just weeks after easing restrictions on federal funding for it. Plus, a new step toward regulating greenhouse gases that are believed to cause global warning. The science and the politics coming up. And the man who ran John McCain's presidential campaign now challenging Republicans to stop fighting same-sex marriage and to support it.