What report? Providing some context

I'd previously noted the call to refrain from interfering with the baton handoff from ailing Fidel Castro, presumably to his brother (and vice president) Raul Castro, found over at Not the Country Club.

One of the key quotations in the petition calling for recognition of Cuba's sovereignty--apparently intended to underscore the threat that the US would actively interfere (militarily) in Cuba, was this one, which I've left embedded in context:

Already the "Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba", presided over by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, pointed out in a report issued in June "the urgency of working today to ensure that the Castro regime's succession strategy does not succeed" and President Bush indicated that this document "demonstrates that we are actively working for change in Cuba, not simply waiting for change". The Department of State has emphasized that the plan includes measures that will remain secret "for reasons of national security" and to assure its "effective implementation".

It is not difficult to imagine the character of such measures and the "announced assistance" if one considers the militarization of the foreign policy of the present American administration and its performance in Iraq.
(source)

This blog has been a dead giveaway that I'm sensitive to the issue of quoting properly and in context. Partial quotations such as those above tend to draw my interest, especially where the source is not specified. In this case the source for the initial quotation is mentioned sufficiently to assist in tracking down the report in question, found here, and here's the quotation with its context (I recommend reading the entire section, which I am only partially transcribing here):

Yet at the same time that we see hope and growth in Cuban civil society, Fidel Castro and his inner circle have begun a gradual but intrinsically unstable process of succession. The regime is unquestionably attempting to insulate itself from the consequences of Fidel Castro's incapacitation, death, or ouster. The regime continues to harden its edges and is feverishly working to forestall any opportunity for a genuine democratic transition on the island.

The current regime in Havana is working with like-minded governments, particularly Venezuela, to build a network of political and financial support designed to forestall any external pressure to change. This state of affairs highlights the urgency of working today to ensure that the Cuban succession strategy does not succeed.

It is against this back-drop that the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba again assembles and looks at the question of how to help the Cuban people hasten and ensure a genuine democratic transition on the island. This is a time for bold, decisive action and clarity of message.

Recommendations to hasten the end of the Castro dictatorship include: measures to empower the Cuban people to prepare for change by strengthening support to civil society; breaking the regime's information blockade; a diplomatic strategy to undermine the regime's succession strategy by supporting the Cuban people's right right to determine their future; and measures to deny revenue to the Castro regime that is used to strengthen its repressive security apparatus and to bolster the regime against pressure for change.
(source)

The petition version tends to encourage the reader to see sinister motives in the words from the report and from the president, while utterly ignoring the issues (such as the controls on information sustained by the Castro regime) discussed in the report itself. Sure, one could assume that the report is just a bunch of lies and propaganda put forth by the US government, but if that were the case then there would be little point in quoting US government sources as proof of the sinister intent. Without some coherent method for distinguishing between the truth and the lie, one is poised to indulge in the type of reasoning common to crackpot conspiracy theorists (where all of the information, regardless of content, may be used to support the desired thesis).
So, is Cuba politically oppressive as things stand? Human Rights Watch appears to think so:

Despite the release in 2004 of fourteen of the seventy-five political dissidents, independent journalists, and human rights advocates prosecuted in April 2003, human rights conditions in Cuba have not improved. The Cuban government systematically denies its citizens basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, movement, and a fair trial. It restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent, and uses police warnings, surveillance, short-term detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment as methods of enforcing political conformity.
(Human Rights Watch)

In fact, the HRW page from which I quoted advocates specific external pressures to induce change in the Castro regime.

Maybe the external pressures considered by the US are evil? Let's consider the evidence, aside from the recommendation to use one's imagination while thinking about the war in Iraq.

What about those secret measures mentioned in the text of the petition?
First, allow me to supply the missing context to the quoted material: "This is an unclassified report. For reasons of national security and effective implementation, some recommendations are contained in a separate classified annex." [bold emphasis added, italics in the original]
Is it strange that a document concerning foreign policy might touch on classifed information and thus a public version would omit some of the recommendations? I'm not an expert on foreign policy, but it does not seem suspicious to me. Indeed, if the phrasing above refers particularly to military/CIA activities, I probably wouldn't even mention it in the public document if I were in charge. In short, I don't see good evidence here for supposing opposition of the Castro succession other than through diplomacy, albeit there is such a thing as hardball diplomacy.

Finally, I thought I'd provide the context of the Bush quotation.

Today I approved the second report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. I also approved a Compact with the People of Cuba, which outlines how the United States will support the Cuban people as they transition from the repressive control of the Castro regime to freedom and a genuine democracy. The report demonstrates that we are actively working for change in Cuba, not simply waiting for change. I call on all our democratic friends and allies around the world to join us in supporting freedom for the Cuban people. I applaud the work of the Commission, co-chaired by Secretary Rice and Secretary Gutierrez.
(whitehouse.gov)

Here is the compact of which he speaks.