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I'll be pleased if double face antics of there's is exposed.
WikiLeaks Revelations
- Thread starter bhramos
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You maybe right.
But when he was elected, he had, at that time, the power of the US backing him and he could have done another Bush. Inspite of that he started building bridges with the rest of the world and appeared quite sensible without that arrogance that the US and the US Presidents have.
He is no friend of India. Bush was.
Yet, I would like to give the man his due. He is not the archetypal US President and apparently understand the woes of the world, and at the same time, keeps the US interests paramount in a more decent manner.
Which US President has gone hammer and tongs with such a loyal and trusted ally as Israel. While there is no doubt that Israel is under threat of its Arab neighbours and requires the US backing, yet it appears the US is abandoning Israel! Obviously, given the historical support of the US of Israel and the anger over 9/11, the US does not find their President following the US principles of foreign policy. In fact, I wonder if they are too happy with Obama, not airing warlike rhetoric over Iran's nuclearisation or North Korea's antics. He has also not been able to show any drastic improvement of the US economy and instead is pursuing the anathema of US dream - socialism (as perceived by them) and is taken to be a liberal (a cussword in the US even though it is a matter of pride with the rest of the world).
Therefore, he appears to be the face of sanity to the rest of the world, historically bullied by the US, but detested (so to say) by the majority in the US, the voter base being basically of the the likes of the Roughnecks, Hillbillies, the Bible Bashing Baptist and other denomination evangelists!
I will concede that my impression of the American voters and the population may not wholly be correct, but then it is an impression that has been garnered by the gung ho arrogance that manifest itself in the manner the US has projected historically and still projects itself to the world.
The anger in the US is that the bubble of their freewheeling economic model has burst and instead of dictating to the world as they have done ever since the Monroe Doctrine, and close to time, WWII, they find themselves in a position that is near to what the Chinese quaintly say - a Paper Tiger.
And what could be better - a Black President with a Muslim middle name!!
But who caused the economic slump - the white Presidents.
Too hurting for them to blame their own, right?
And believe it or not, people of German descent form the majority of the white US population (as I repeatedly shown the Americans who contest that and are blissfully not aware since they all speak English and think they are the Queen's Own). And the German's like it or not, are racists to the core, even if they don't show it! Why do they not like the Jews? They are Asiatic in origin! And one does not have to delve too deep to conjure reasons for dislike and so people like Hitler ruled the roost. Even Merkel is not washed with Ganges Water, to use an Indian muhavra!
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US Embassy Cables: WikiLeaks on other Countries
US State Department rejects talks with whistle-blower website, says its planned release of confidential American documents is against the law. WikiLeaks is set to release millions of confidential US diplomatic cables on Sunday as governments braced for the potential fallout.
More...
US State Department rejects talks with whistle-blower website, says its planned release of confidential American documents is against the law. WikiLeaks is set to release millions of confidential US diplomatic cables on Sunday as governments braced for the potential fallout.
More...
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My Thoughts on US caution to India about impending Wikileaks
by B.Raman
(November 28, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The media has reported that the US has warned India and other key governments across the world about a new potentially embarrassing release of classified documents by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks which may harm the American interests and create tension in its ties with its "friends". State Department Spokesman P J Crowley has been quoted as saying: ""We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible release of documents."
Naturally, there has been considerable speculation as to what could be the contents of the leaks that could embarrass India. One could only speculate and there is always a danger of speculations in such matters going wrong. Yet, I would make the following observations even at the risk of their proving to be off the mark:
* Most of the Wikileaks till now have been of documents relating to contemporary (post-Cold War) events, particularly relating to Afghanista and Iraq. There has not been much leak of documents of the Cold War period.
* Initially, Wikileaks released thousands of documents relating to Afghanistan. Subsequently, it released documents on Iraq. This showed that the source or sources of Wikileaks in the US Government had access to documents of the State Department and the Pentagon relating to Afghanistan and Iraq and had very little access to documents on other subjects.
* It is, therefore, possible that the documents involving India which have reached Wikileaks relate to India's policies on Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran.
* Among the various events relating to Afghanistan and Iraq in which India figured during this period, four could be sensitive from India's point of view. Firstly, the pressure on the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government by the administration of George Bush to send a Division of the Indian Army to Iraq. By July,2003, the Vajpayee Government had decided to say no to Washington DC, but there was a lot of voices in Delhi in favour of accepting the US request. Secondly, the papers captured by the US intelligence after the occupation of Iraq from the Iraqi Government Departments showing or corroborating the alleged involvement of a leader or leaders of the Congress (I) in contacts with the Saddam Hussein Government for acquiring preferential quotas for the import of oil from Iraq. Thirdly, the pressure exercised by the Bush Administration on the Manmohan Singh Government for voting against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The Government of India succumbed to this pressure as a quid pro quo for the Indo-US civil nuclear co-operation agreement of July,2005. Fourthly, the analysis and assessment made in the State Department and the Pentagon regarding Pakistani allegations of Indian involvement in Balochistan.
Is it possible that Wikileaks might have also got hold of diplomatic cables between the US Embassy in New Delhi and Washinton DC on Indian political leaders, bureaucrats and policy-making? If one goes by the demonstrated access of Wikileaks till now, one would rate this danger as low, but one can never be certain.
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: [email protected] )
by B.Raman
(November 28, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) The media has reported that the US has warned India and other key governments across the world about a new potentially embarrassing release of classified documents by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks which may harm the American interests and create tension in its ties with its "friends". State Department Spokesman P J Crowley has been quoted as saying: ""We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible release of documents."
Naturally, there has been considerable speculation as to what could be the contents of the leaks that could embarrass India. One could only speculate and there is always a danger of speculations in such matters going wrong. Yet, I would make the following observations even at the risk of their proving to be off the mark:
* Most of the Wikileaks till now have been of documents relating to contemporary (post-Cold War) events, particularly relating to Afghanista and Iraq. There has not been much leak of documents of the Cold War period.
* Initially, Wikileaks released thousands of documents relating to Afghanistan. Subsequently, it released documents on Iraq. This showed that the source or sources of Wikileaks in the US Government had access to documents of the State Department and the Pentagon relating to Afghanistan and Iraq and had very little access to documents on other subjects.
* It is, therefore, possible that the documents involving India which have reached Wikileaks relate to India's policies on Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran.
* Among the various events relating to Afghanistan and Iraq in which India figured during this period, four could be sensitive from India's point of view. Firstly, the pressure on the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government by the administration of George Bush to send a Division of the Indian Army to Iraq. By July,2003, the Vajpayee Government had decided to say no to Washington DC, but there was a lot of voices in Delhi in favour of accepting the US request. Secondly, the papers captured by the US intelligence after the occupation of Iraq from the Iraqi Government Departments showing or corroborating the alleged involvement of a leader or leaders of the Congress (I) in contacts with the Saddam Hussein Government for acquiring preferential quotas for the import of oil from Iraq. Thirdly, the pressure exercised by the Bush Administration on the Manmohan Singh Government for voting against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The Government of India succumbed to this pressure as a quid pro quo for the Indo-US civil nuclear co-operation agreement of July,2005. Fourthly, the analysis and assessment made in the State Department and the Pentagon regarding Pakistani allegations of Indian involvement in Balochistan.
Is it possible that Wikileaks might have also got hold of diplomatic cables between the US Embassy in New Delhi and Washinton DC on Indian political leaders, bureaucrats and policy-making? If one goes by the demonstrated access of Wikileaks till now, one would rate this danger as low, but one can never be certain.
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: [email protected] )
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The next leak is probably going to expose how CIA provided logistical support for the perpetrators of 26/11 (2008 Mumbai attacks). That will cause a huge uproar in Indian Parliament, nation-wide protests, which could even throw UPA out of power. The only way UPA can stay in power is wage a war against Pakistan.
India's Wikileaks riddle: Geopolitical game of the US
By M K Bhadrakumar
The United States never shared the Indians' one-dimensional view of the Taliban as representing the forces of darkness.
The highly-combustible Indian imagination has caught fire over the Wikileaks disclosures regarding the curious methods of the Pakistani military in pretending to be the United States' ally and immensely benefiting out the alliance while at the same time keeping its dalliance with the Taliban going.
But the intriguing part is what the US President Barack Obama said, namely, that Wikileaks hasn't brought anything new to the table. Which means, Washington knew all along since 2004 how the smart Pakistani generals operate — especially the then chief of Pakistan's ISI by the name Pervez Kayani — and worse still, kept defraying the latter's 'expense account.'
Something obviously doesn't gel, does it? The Indian strategic community has rushed to judgement that all this happened because the US is in desperate hurry to 'scoot,' as a former chief of the Research Analysis Wing told me. But then, that is appalling naivety. Wikileaks disclosures pertain to the period of the second term of the George W Bush presidency when Washington was so snooty about the war that it was utterly convinced it was winning.
No one was talking about an exit strategy at that point in time that Wikileaks disclosures pertain to. The fact of the matter is that the US and the Pakistani generals have been locked into a deathly dance from Day 1 of the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Few will recollect that the first time the US conceded Pakistan's special interests in Afghanistan was after a visit by the then US secretary of state Colin Powell to Islamabad in mid-October 2001.
Maybe the Indian establishment which conferred the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize on Afghan president Hamid Karzai was innocent — and maybe it still is in a blissful state of innocence — but the US administration and ISI certainly weren't — that but for the al-Qaeda strike on 9/11 Karzai was all set to be appointed as the Taliban government's official representative in Washington.
In short, Washington's decision to pitchfork Karzai into power as the head of the interim government in Kabul after the Taliban regime's ouster itself was a calibrated move. So indeed was the appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad who used to be a fervent advocate of the Taliban in Washington in the late 1990s, as the US ambassador in Kabul during the formative period that witnessed the disarray of the Northern Alliance — and predictably, the revival of the Taliban.
To go back a little bit more, does anyone recollect today that for a split-moment even the then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra expressed his sense of exasperation that Washington allowed Pakistani aircraft to evacuate under the very nose of the US Special Forces the Taliban contingents that were besieged by the Northern Alliance forces in the Kunduz region in northern Afghanistan in October 2001?
Combined effort
That is to say, the contrived nature of the 'ouster' of the Taliban regime in Kabul by the US in 2001 was never really in doubt. It is plain common sense that the so-called international community should have taken help from all quarters that were willing to help vanquish the al-Qaeda and its Taliban affiliates from Afghanistan. On the contrary, the US consistently turned down, ignored or has been ambivalent about the role regional countries like Russia, Iran and India were willing to play.
Bush was obsessive that Pakistan had to be the US' privileged partner — 'non-Nato ally' — in this war. And, furthermore, let us not forget that it was Musharraf who arranged Karzai's election victory in 2004 (upon Bush's request), by delivering the votes of the 3-million strong Afghan refugee community living in Pakistan.
How do these various strands add up? One, the US is not quite the bumbling superpower at the mercy of the Pakistani generals, as the Indian strategic community estimates. Plainly put, this has been a symbiotic relationship. Two, the US never shared the Indians' one-dimensional view of the Taliban as representing the forces of darkness. The US played a seminal role in the immaculate conception of the Taliban; its strategies were geopolitical and it visualised the Taliban as a potent instrument for bringing about 'regime change' in Central Asia (including Xinjiang).
Three, the US is not terrified of the Taliban. On the contrary, the Taliban leaders willingly accepted funding by US oil companies in the past and there is no reason why they — including the Haqqanis — shouldn't do so again. Fourth, the core issue is that Taliban should be somehow 'finessed' to play its geopolictical role — something which Washington is convinced only the Pakistani generals can do.
Fifth, the Nato's future is involved as well as the US' trans-Atlantic leadership itself and the US knows that the rising China and the resurgent Russia will never allow the American military presence to be re-established in the strategic Central Asian region if the US forces pack up and leave Afghanistan for good.
A final question: Will the Taliban agree to a Status of Forces Agreement with Nato? Yes, it will — provided the US is willing to reciprocate by accommodating the Taliban's and its mentor's interests as well. Let us remember that the Taliban was always willing to dump al-Qaeda provided the US accorded diplomatic recognition to its regime in Kabul.
Therefore, what the Wikileaks reveal is quintessentially that the 3-way US-Pakistan-Taliban equation that has been maturing over time may well be progressing to its final stage.
By M K Bhadrakumar
The United States never shared the Indians' one-dimensional view of the Taliban as representing the forces of darkness.
The highly-combustible Indian imagination has caught fire over the Wikileaks disclosures regarding the curious methods of the Pakistani military in pretending to be the United States' ally and immensely benefiting out the alliance while at the same time keeping its dalliance with the Taliban going.
But the intriguing part is what the US President Barack Obama said, namely, that Wikileaks hasn't brought anything new to the table. Which means, Washington knew all along since 2004 how the smart Pakistani generals operate — especially the then chief of Pakistan's ISI by the name Pervez Kayani — and worse still, kept defraying the latter's 'expense account.'
Something obviously doesn't gel, does it? The Indian strategic community has rushed to judgement that all this happened because the US is in desperate hurry to 'scoot,' as a former chief of the Research Analysis Wing told me. But then, that is appalling naivety. Wikileaks disclosures pertain to the period of the second term of the George W Bush presidency when Washington was so snooty about the war that it was utterly convinced it was winning.
No one was talking about an exit strategy at that point in time that Wikileaks disclosures pertain to. The fact of the matter is that the US and the Pakistani generals have been locked into a deathly dance from Day 1 of the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Few will recollect that the first time the US conceded Pakistan's special interests in Afghanistan was after a visit by the then US secretary of state Colin Powell to Islamabad in mid-October 2001.
Maybe the Indian establishment which conferred the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize on Afghan president Hamid Karzai was innocent — and maybe it still is in a blissful state of innocence — but the US administration and ISI certainly weren't — that but for the al-Qaeda strike on 9/11 Karzai was all set to be appointed as the Taliban government's official representative in Washington.
In short, Washington's decision to pitchfork Karzai into power as the head of the interim government in Kabul after the Taliban regime's ouster itself was a calibrated move. So indeed was the appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad who used to be a fervent advocate of the Taliban in Washington in the late 1990s, as the US ambassador in Kabul during the formative period that witnessed the disarray of the Northern Alliance — and predictably, the revival of the Taliban.
To go back a little bit more, does anyone recollect today that for a split-moment even the then National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra expressed his sense of exasperation that Washington allowed Pakistani aircraft to evacuate under the very nose of the US Special Forces the Taliban contingents that were besieged by the Northern Alliance forces in the Kunduz region in northern Afghanistan in October 2001?
Combined effort
That is to say, the contrived nature of the 'ouster' of the Taliban regime in Kabul by the US in 2001 was never really in doubt. It is plain common sense that the so-called international community should have taken help from all quarters that were willing to help vanquish the al-Qaeda and its Taliban affiliates from Afghanistan. On the contrary, the US consistently turned down, ignored or has been ambivalent about the role regional countries like Russia, Iran and India were willing to play.
Bush was obsessive that Pakistan had to be the US' privileged partner — 'non-Nato ally' — in this war. And, furthermore, let us not forget that it was Musharraf who arranged Karzai's election victory in 2004 (upon Bush's request), by delivering the votes of the 3-million strong Afghan refugee community living in Pakistan.
How do these various strands add up? One, the US is not quite the bumbling superpower at the mercy of the Pakistani generals, as the Indian strategic community estimates. Plainly put, this has been a symbiotic relationship. Two, the US never shared the Indians' one-dimensional view of the Taliban as representing the forces of darkness. The US played a seminal role in the immaculate conception of the Taliban; its strategies were geopolitical and it visualised the Taliban as a potent instrument for bringing about 'regime change' in Central Asia (including Xinjiang).
Three, the US is not terrified of the Taliban. On the contrary, the Taliban leaders willingly accepted funding by US oil companies in the past and there is no reason why they — including the Haqqanis — shouldn't do so again. Fourth, the core issue is that Taliban should be somehow 'finessed' to play its geopolictical role — something which Washington is convinced only the Pakistani generals can do.
Fifth, the Nato's future is involved as well as the US' trans-Atlantic leadership itself and the US knows that the rising China and the resurgent Russia will never allow the American military presence to be re-established in the strategic Central Asian region if the US forces pack up and leave Afghanistan for good.
A final question: Will the Taliban agree to a Status of Forces Agreement with Nato? Yes, it will — provided the US is willing to reciprocate by accommodating the Taliban's and its mentor's interests as well. Let us remember that the Taliban was always willing to dump al-Qaeda provided the US accorded diplomatic recognition to its regime in Kabul.
Therefore, what the Wikileaks reveal is quintessentially that the 3-way US-Pakistan-Taliban equation that has been maturing over time may well be progressing to its final stage.
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Embarrassment for Coalition as Wikileaks prepares to release secret US papers
By Patrick Hennessy, Political editor 9:00PM GMT 27 Nov 2010
Potentially "embarrassing" comments on the formation of Britain's coalition government are to be revealed this week as millions of leaked US diplomatic documents are made public.
The series of revelations on the Wikileaks website – which are expected to begin tonight – will put a fresh strain on the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States.
The leaked diplomatic cables, dating from January 2009 to June 2010, cover a huge range of issues and include "lively commentaries" sent to Washington about a host of world leaders whose numbers are understood to include David Cameron and Gordon Brown.
Another series of leaks is thought to deal with Canada's "inferiority complex".
Whitehall sources expect them to be "drip fed" out over about a week.
The revelations about what US diplomats reported back on Gordon Brown's final months in power and the formation of the coalition after May's election are thought to be among the earliest to be made public in Britain.
A coalition source described the leaks as likely to be "embarrassing rather than damaging" for the current government.
However, he added: "The last Labour government has a lot more reason to be nervous."
Mr Brown's rocky relationship with President Barack Obama, which included a notorious visit to New York in September 2009 during which the White House was accused of "snubbing" the former prime minister, is almost certain to be mentioned, as is Britain's troop withdrawal from Iraq.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that frank assessments of the likelihood – or unlikelihood – of the coalition lasting are set to be included.
The source said: "There could be queries on whether the coalition would survive. But they only cover one month of the current administration."
US officials have warned that the latest tranche of documents will be far the most damaging of Wikileaks's output so far because of the potential harm they could do to relations with America's allies.
Previous leaks have included hundreds of thousands of secret Iraq war logs.
Louis Susman, the US Ambassador to London, has briefed senior British ministers on the content of the latest leaks.
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the first tranche of documents, to be published in full tomorrow after an initial release tonight, are expected to feature "lively commentaries" by US diplomats on world leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, and Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.
Coalition sources say Tuesday's haul will deal with North and South Korea, as well as Guantánamo Bay, while Wednesday's tranche will include comments on Pakistan and counter-piracy operations in Djibouti.
Thursday will see attention focus on the Canadians and their "inferiority complex" while corruption allegations in Afghanistan will be under the spotlight on Friday. Saturday will cover Yemen while next Sunday will see the focus shift to China.
P J Crowley, the US State Department spokesman, said "We are all bracing for what may be coming and condemn Wikileaks for the release of classified material It will place lives and interests at risk. It is irresponsible.
"When this confidence is betrayed and ends up on the front pages of newspapers or lead stories on television or radio, it has an impact," he said.
The State Department "has known all along" that Wikileaks possesses classified documents, but it was not possible to predict exactly what information would be made public and what impact it would make, he said.
"We wish this would not happen, but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will," he added.
By Patrick Hennessy, Political editor 9:00PM GMT 27 Nov 2010
Potentially "embarrassing" comments on the formation of Britain's coalition government are to be revealed this week as millions of leaked US diplomatic documents are made public.
The series of revelations on the Wikileaks website – which are expected to begin tonight – will put a fresh strain on the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States.
The leaked diplomatic cables, dating from January 2009 to June 2010, cover a huge range of issues and include "lively commentaries" sent to Washington about a host of world leaders whose numbers are understood to include David Cameron and Gordon Brown.
Another series of leaks is thought to deal with Canada's "inferiority complex".
Whitehall sources expect them to be "drip fed" out over about a week.
The revelations about what US diplomats reported back on Gordon Brown's final months in power and the formation of the coalition after May's election are thought to be among the earliest to be made public in Britain.
A coalition source described the leaks as likely to be "embarrassing rather than damaging" for the current government.
However, he added: "The last Labour government has a lot more reason to be nervous."
Mr Brown's rocky relationship with President Barack Obama, which included a notorious visit to New York in September 2009 during which the White House was accused of "snubbing" the former prime minister, is almost certain to be mentioned, as is Britain's troop withdrawal from Iraq.
The Sunday Telegraph understands that frank assessments of the likelihood – or unlikelihood – of the coalition lasting are set to be included.
The source said: "There could be queries on whether the coalition would survive. But they only cover one month of the current administration."
US officials have warned that the latest tranche of documents will be far the most damaging of Wikileaks's output so far because of the potential harm they could do to relations with America's allies.
Previous leaks have included hundreds of thousands of secret Iraq war logs.
Louis Susman, the US Ambassador to London, has briefed senior British ministers on the content of the latest leaks.
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the first tranche of documents, to be published in full tomorrow after an initial release tonight, are expected to feature "lively commentaries" by US diplomats on world leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, and Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.
Coalition sources say Tuesday's haul will deal with North and South Korea, as well as Guantánamo Bay, while Wednesday's tranche will include comments on Pakistan and counter-piracy operations in Djibouti.
Thursday will see attention focus on the Canadians and their "inferiority complex" while corruption allegations in Afghanistan will be under the spotlight on Friday. Saturday will cover Yemen while next Sunday will see the focus shift to China.
P J Crowley, the US State Department spokesman, said "We are all bracing for what may be coming and condemn Wikileaks for the release of classified material It will place lives and interests at risk. It is irresponsible.
"When this confidence is betrayed and ends up on the front pages of newspapers or lead stories on television or radio, it has an impact," he said.
The State Department "has known all along" that Wikileaks possesses classified documents, but it was not possible to predict exactly what information would be made public and what impact it would make, he said.
"We wish this would not happen, but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will," he added.
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Gordon Brown 'Weak and Unstable'
Sunday November 28,2010
By Ted Jeory
GORDON Brown and his failing government were described as paranoid, weak and *unstable in secret briefings by US diplomats to President Barack Obama.
Downing Street sources said last night that the imminent release of sensitive diplomatic files by the WikiLeaks whistleblowing website would prove "highly embarrassing" to the former prime minister.
They are thought to contain damaging assessments of Mr Brown's character and leadership skills and of the stability of his crisis-hit regime.
US ambassador Louis Susman has briefed British officials about the likely contents of the files, which are understood to date from 2008 until early this year. They are also thought to contain thoughts about both David Cameron and Nick Clegg while they were Opposition leaders
The Downing Street source said: "We don't think there will be much about the Coalition Government. There might be some slightly embarrassing things about David Cameron's time in opposition but it will be nothing compared with what was said about Brown.
"The diplomatic cables were more about Labour. Brown was seen as paranoid and weak and unstable. These files are going to be embarrassing for him."
It is believed London-based diplomats were shocked by reports of Mr Brown's erratic tantrums.
President Obama witnessed one outburst first hand. At the G20 Summit in London last year, he said to Mr Brown's aides: "Tell your guy to cool it," as the PM threatened to erupt over something that had upset him .
US State Department officials fear the release of such sensitive files could damage relations with their allies.
Millions of assessments of *foreign leaders and foreign policies are expected to be released by WikiLeaks tonight.
Sunday November 28,2010
By Ted Jeory
GORDON Brown and his failing government were described as paranoid, weak and *unstable in secret briefings by US diplomats to President Barack Obama.
Downing Street sources said last night that the imminent release of sensitive diplomatic files by the WikiLeaks whistleblowing website would prove "highly embarrassing" to the former prime minister.
They are thought to contain damaging assessments of Mr Brown's character and leadership skills and of the stability of his crisis-hit regime.
US ambassador Louis Susman has briefed British officials about the likely contents of the files, which are understood to date from 2008 until early this year. They are also thought to contain thoughts about both David Cameron and Nick Clegg while they were Opposition leaders
The Downing Street source said: "We don't think there will be much about the Coalition Government. There might be some slightly embarrassing things about David Cameron's time in opposition but it will be nothing compared with what was said about Brown.
"The diplomatic cables were more about Labour. Brown was seen as paranoid and weak and unstable. These files are going to be embarrassing for him."
It is believed London-based diplomats were shocked by reports of Mr Brown's erratic tantrums.
President Obama witnessed one outburst first hand. At the G20 Summit in London last year, he said to Mr Brown's aides: "Tell your guy to cool it," as the PM threatened to erupt over something that had upset him .
US State Department officials fear the release of such sensitive files could damage relations with their allies.
Millions of assessments of *foreign leaders and foreign policies are expected to be released by WikiLeaks tonight.
Most of the reports basically give the angle that the leaks are damaging to relations between US and its allies.
So for example with Turkey the speculation is that its about US supporting PKK rebels in Iraq.
The same thing is being speculated with India. Maybe its a rehash of US allowing Headley to continue visiting India even after CIA knew who he was working for? It seems to be 24-48hrs that it will be released. But if its really 3 million documents, it will take a while before we know what the info is about.
WikiLeaks to ruin Indo-US ties?
Washington: The United States is bracing for more embarrassment as whistle-blower website WikiLeaks gets set to release around 3 million secret US documents this weekend.
Last month, WikiLeaks exposed some of the damning war crimes by US forces in Iraq and Washington is perhaps yet to recover from its humiliation.
However, this time US is battling to take its allies into confidence as WikiLeaks may release some more secrets that may hit its ties with some of its closest allies, including India. (Read: US warns India about possible WikiLeaks release)
America feels that the documents likely to be released could damage its relationship with allies, including India.
US has already warned India and other key allies like Australia, Britain, Germany, France, Israel, and Russia.
A statement from the US State Department says: "We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible release of documents. We do not know precisely what WikiLeaks has or what it plans to do. We have made our position clear. These documents should not be released."
However, WikiLeaks seems determined to release classified conversations between the US government and its missions across the world.
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British officials fear WikiLeaks will disrupt Iran policy
British officials fear that confidential WikiLeaks cables will reveal details of secret operation to disrupt Iranian smuggling of nuclear materials through the Gulf and Turkey.
Officials involved in overseeing British policy in the region say that diplomatic materials compiled between 2008 and 2010 on Iran contained sensational information that could jeopardise efforts to disrupt the nuclear programme if unveiled on WikiLeaks.
The UK has played a key role on breaking up one network of businessmen in Dubai who had been using the emirate as the "HQ of a worldwide spiders web" to supply equipment to Iran's banned nuclear programme.
"Information was provided to the UAE authorities that was only procured by getting inside this group. It was a very successful effort of disruption carried out at some personal risk by our people," said one Whitehall official. "It would not be good for any of this to come out."
Cables written at the time that were also passed on to the Americans dealt with Iran's efforts to use Turkish banks and trading companies to fund its overseas activities, including financing terrorism and paying North Korean scientists involved in the building of secret nuclear plants.
North Korea last week unveiled a new uranium enrichment plant built with the same equipment and production design as Iranian facilities.
American diplomats made strenuous diplomatic representations to Turkey to curtail Iran's activity in the Nato country and presented evidence that Turkish government officials were taking backhanders to allow Iranians to use Turkish businesses as a front.
Further detailed descriptions of the role played by British embassy staff and businessmen with contacts in the embassy in the aftermath of last year's rigged presidential election expose individuals to the risk of persecution.
Eight local employees of the embassy were arrested after the election last year. The Iranian government accused the embassy staff of helping to organise the large protests that called for the overturning of the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In fact British officials were much closer to the high level power struggle at the top levels of the Islamic regime between Mr Ahmadinejad, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament.
"We always believed that Ahmadinejad had won the election but that the result was exaggerated. The embarrassing thing for Britain would be to have the depth of our contacts within the factions trying to oust Ahmadinejad exposed. The embassy in Tehran did place its bets on other side winning in Tehran," the official said.
It is believed the strong British role played during the infighting in Tehran prompted the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to issue a strong denunciation of "evil" British policy in Tehran during a high profile speech in June 2009, when he declared the election was over.
The Foreign Office has always maintained the accusations of interference were unwarranted.
British officials fear that confidential WikiLeaks cables will reveal details of secret operation to disrupt Iranian smuggling of nuclear materials through the Gulf and Turkey.
Officials involved in overseeing British policy in the region say that diplomatic materials compiled between 2008 and 2010 on Iran contained sensational information that could jeopardise efforts to disrupt the nuclear programme if unveiled on WikiLeaks.
The UK has played a key role on breaking up one network of businessmen in Dubai who had been using the emirate as the "HQ of a worldwide spiders web" to supply equipment to Iran's banned nuclear programme.
"Information was provided to the UAE authorities that was only procured by getting inside this group. It was a very successful effort of disruption carried out at some personal risk by our people," said one Whitehall official. "It would not be good for any of this to come out."
Cables written at the time that were also passed on to the Americans dealt with Iran's efforts to use Turkish banks and trading companies to fund its overseas activities, including financing terrorism and paying North Korean scientists involved in the building of secret nuclear plants.
North Korea last week unveiled a new uranium enrichment plant built with the same equipment and production design as Iranian facilities.
American diplomats made strenuous diplomatic representations to Turkey to curtail Iran's activity in the Nato country and presented evidence that Turkish government officials were taking backhanders to allow Iranians to use Turkish businesses as a front.
Further detailed descriptions of the role played by British embassy staff and businessmen with contacts in the embassy in the aftermath of last year's rigged presidential election expose individuals to the risk of persecution.
Eight local employees of the embassy were arrested after the election last year. The Iranian government accused the embassy staff of helping to organise the large protests that called for the overturning of the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In fact British officials were much closer to the high level power struggle at the top levels of the Islamic regime between Mr Ahmadinejad, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament.
"We always believed that Ahmadinejad had won the election but that the result was exaggerated. The embarrassing thing for Britain would be to have the depth of our contacts within the factions trying to oust Ahmadinejad exposed. The embassy in Tehran did place its bets on other side winning in Tehran," the official said.
It is believed the strong British role played during the infighting in Tehran prompted the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to issue a strong denunciation of "evil" British policy in Tehran during a high profile speech in June 2009, when he declared the election was over.
The Foreign Office has always maintained the accusations of interference were unwarranted.
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Speculation and denial as nations await WikiLeaks expose
Scanned front page of Monday's Der Spiegel quotes officials calling Ahmadinejad 'Hitler'; Turkey rejects Al-Hayat report it aided Al-Qaida.
Tension has been building around the world ahead of a massive leak of a reported 250,000 diplomatic cables by whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks later Sunday, with media sources around the world estimating the content and potential gravity of the classified information.
A first glimpse of the soon-to-be-published material was gleaned as the scanned version of the front cover of the German daily Der Spiegel – one of three major newspapers around the world, along with the New York Times and the Guardian, set to release the material – leaked online ahead of schedule.
The cover, originating from advance copies accidently released in Basel, Switzerland, depict the images of world leaders along with captions which may hint at the potentially embarrassing information disclosed in the confidential communiqués.
A quote placed by the picture of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for example, nicknamed the Iranian leader "Hitler," while French President Nikola Sarkozy is called "an emperor without clothes." Afghani President Hamid Karzai is, on the other hand, described as "driven by paranoia."
According to tweets from the French based blog, OWNI, the Der Spiegel report includes such observations from the WikiLeaks report as "Obama prefers to look East than West," and "The U.S. sees the world as a confrontation between 2 superpowers. The EU plays a secondary role."
In a testament to the tense atmosphere preceding the report's release, Italy's foreign minister said that the report will be "the September 11th of world diplomacy."
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, on a trip to Qatar, said he did not know the content of the files to be released but warned they would "blow up the relationship of trust between states", according to Italian news agencies.
Another possible indication of the contents of the massive WikiLeaks exposé came Friday, as Turkish newspaper Hurriyet quoted Turkish Foreign Ministry officials as denying allegations potential originating from the yet-to-be-released material alleging that Turkey supported Al-Qaida cells in Iraq.
The rejection came in the wake of an Al Hayat report a day earlier, which claimed that information held by WikiLeaks and which is set for release later Sunday hints at a link between Akara and the international terror group.
"Turkey has never given support to any terrorist organization. Fighting against terror is our priority and we don't make differentiations between terrorist organizations. Turkey has launched many operations against al-Qaeda," an official told the Hurriyet.
Asked about the allegations that the U.S. helped the outlawed PKK, the same official said, "Turkey and the U.S. are carrying out an efficient cooperation in the fight against the PKK."
"We will evaluate the issue when the documents are released and contact U.S. officials about the issue if needed," another diplomatic source was quoted as saying.
The Hurriyet also quoted Deborah Guido, spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Ankara, as saying that U.S. government's policy "has never been nor will ever be in support of the PKK. Anything that implies otherwise is nonsense."
Relating to the possibility that material concerning Israel could also be released on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed reports that Israel and the United States may be embarrassed by the WikiLeaks report, saying that "Israel is not the center of international attention."
The premier added that Jerusalem had not "been updated by the Americans about specific sensitive materials to be disclosed regarding Israel."
Scanned front page of Monday's Der Spiegel quotes officials calling Ahmadinejad 'Hitler'; Turkey rejects Al-Hayat report it aided Al-Qaida.
Tension has been building around the world ahead of a massive leak of a reported 250,000 diplomatic cables by whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks later Sunday, with media sources around the world estimating the content and potential gravity of the classified information.
A first glimpse of the soon-to-be-published material was gleaned as the scanned version of the front cover of the German daily Der Spiegel – one of three major newspapers around the world, along with the New York Times and the Guardian, set to release the material – leaked online ahead of schedule.
The cover, originating from advance copies accidently released in Basel, Switzerland, depict the images of world leaders along with captions which may hint at the potentially embarrassing information disclosed in the confidential communiqués.
A quote placed by the picture of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for example, nicknamed the Iranian leader "Hitler," while French President Nikola Sarkozy is called "an emperor without clothes." Afghani President Hamid Karzai is, on the other hand, described as "driven by paranoia."
According to tweets from the French based blog, OWNI, the Der Spiegel report includes such observations from the WikiLeaks report as "Obama prefers to look East than West," and "The U.S. sees the world as a confrontation between 2 superpowers. The EU plays a secondary role."
In a testament to the tense atmosphere preceding the report's release, Italy's foreign minister said that the report will be "the September 11th of world diplomacy."
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, on a trip to Qatar, said he did not know the content of the files to be released but warned they would "blow up the relationship of trust between states", according to Italian news agencies.
Another possible indication of the contents of the massive WikiLeaks exposé came Friday, as Turkish newspaper Hurriyet quoted Turkish Foreign Ministry officials as denying allegations potential originating from the yet-to-be-released material alleging that Turkey supported Al-Qaida cells in Iraq.
The rejection came in the wake of an Al Hayat report a day earlier, which claimed that information held by WikiLeaks and which is set for release later Sunday hints at a link between Akara and the international terror group.
"Turkey has never given support to any terrorist organization. Fighting against terror is our priority and we don't make differentiations between terrorist organizations. Turkey has launched many operations against al-Qaeda," an official told the Hurriyet.
Asked about the allegations that the U.S. helped the outlawed PKK, the same official said, "Turkey and the U.S. are carrying out an efficient cooperation in the fight against the PKK."
"We will evaluate the issue when the documents are released and contact U.S. officials about the issue if needed," another diplomatic source was quoted as saying.
The Hurriyet also quoted Deborah Guido, spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Ankara, as saying that U.S. government's policy "has never been nor will ever be in support of the PKK. Anything that implies otherwise is nonsense."
Relating to the possibility that material concerning Israel could also be released on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed reports that Israel and the United States may be embarrassed by the WikiLeaks report, saying that "Israel is not the center of international attention."
The premier added that Jerusalem had not "been updated by the Americans about specific sensitive materials to be disclosed regarding Israel."
Text of U.S. State Department letter to Wikileaks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Text of a letter from the State Department to Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, and his lawyer Jennifer Robinson concerning its intended publication of classified State Department documents. The letter, dated Nov. 27, was released by the department.
More...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Text of a letter from the State Department to Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, and his lawyer Jennifer Robinson concerning its intended publication of classified State Department documents. The letter, dated Nov. 27, was released by the department.
More...
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WikiLeaks releases 250,000 diplo cables: NY Times
WASHINGTON: US State Department documents released by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks provided candid views of foreign leaders and sensitive information on terrorism and nuclear proliferation, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
The documents show Saudi donors remain chief financiers of militant groups like al-Qaida and that Chinese government operatives have waged a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage targeting the United States and its allies, according to a review of the WikiLeaks documents published in the Times.
The WikiLeaks documents also show US Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes any military strike on Iran would only delay its pursuit of a nuclear weapon by one to three years, the Times reported on its website on Sunday.
The Pentagon immediately condemned WikiLeaks' "reckless" dump of classified State Department documents and said it was taking steps to bolster security of US military networks.
"The (Defense) Department has undertaken a series of actions to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
The White House said the leak of the diplomatic cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders and may put at risk the lives of named individuals living "under oppressive regimes."
The pending documents release had been widely reported for more than a week and expected on Sunday.
The US government, which was informed in advance of the contents, has contacted governments around the world, including in Russia, Europe and the Middle East, to try to limit any damage. Sources familiar with the documents say they include corruption allegations against foreign leaders and governments.
WikiLeaks had reported earlier on Sunday that its website was under attack, but said later that media outlets would publish some of the classified documents it had released even if the group's website crashed.
"El Pais, Le Monde, Speigel, Guardian & NYT will publish many US embassy cables tonight, even if WikiLeaks goes down," the website said in a Twitter posting an hour after it tweeted that its site was under attack.
The State Department had warned WikiLeaks that the expected release would endanger countless lives, jeopardize American military operations and hurt international cooperation on global security issues.
The department's top lawyer urged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a letter on Saturday to keep classified documents off the website, remove records of them from its database and return any material to the US government.
Read more: WikiLeaks releases 250,000 diplo cables: NY Times - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...Y-Times/articleshow/7006944.cms#ixzz16bhnDndE
The documents show Saudi donors remain chief financiers of militant groups like al-Qaida and that Chinese government operatives have waged a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage targeting the United States and its allies, according to a review of the WikiLeaks documents published in the Times.
The WikiLeaks documents also show US Defense Secretary Robert Gates believes any military strike on Iran would only delay its pursuit of a nuclear weapon by one to three years, the Times reported on its website on Sunday.
The Pentagon immediately condemned WikiLeaks' "reckless" dump of classified State Department documents and said it was taking steps to bolster security of US military networks.
"The (Defense) Department has undertaken a series of actions to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
The White House said the leak of the diplomatic cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders and may put at risk the lives of named individuals living "under oppressive regimes."
The pending documents release had been widely reported for more than a week and expected on Sunday.
The US government, which was informed in advance of the contents, has contacted governments around the world, including in Russia, Europe and the Middle East, to try to limit any damage. Sources familiar with the documents say they include corruption allegations against foreign leaders and governments.
WikiLeaks had reported earlier on Sunday that its website was under attack, but said later that media outlets would publish some of the classified documents it had released even if the group's website crashed.
"El Pais, Le Monde, Speigel, Guardian & NYT will publish many US embassy cables tonight, even if WikiLeaks goes down," the website said in a Twitter posting an hour after it tweeted that its site was under attack.
The State Department had warned WikiLeaks that the expected release would endanger countless lives, jeopardize American military operations and hurt international cooperation on global security issues.
The department's top lawyer urged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a letter on Saturday to keep classified documents off the website, remove records of them from its database and return any material to the US government.
Read more: WikiLeaks releases 250,000 diplo cables: NY Times - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...Y-Times/articleshow/7006944.cms#ixzz16bhnDndE
smartindian
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smartindian
Regular Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2010
- Messages
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- Likes
- 59
Report from NYTimes !!!!
Cables Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels
WASHINGTON — A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.
State's Secrets
Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking diplomatic cables and other classified documents to WikiLeaks.
Some of the cables, made available to The New York Times and several other news organizations, were written as recently as late February, revealing the Obama administration's exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents. WikiLeaks intends to make the archive public on its Web site in batches, beginning Sunday.
The anticipated disclosure of the cables is already sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could conceivably strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. On Saturday, the State Department's legal adviser, Harold Hongju Koh, wrote to a lawyer for WikiLeaks informing the organization that the distribution of the cables was illegal and could endanger lives, disrupt military and counterterrorism operations and undermine international cooperation against nuclear proliferation and other threats.
The cables, a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates, amount to a secret chronicle of the United States' relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism. Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:
¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons,' he argued."
¶ Gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would "help salve" China's "concerns about living with a reunified Korea" that is in a "benign alliance" with the United States.
¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal." Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be "a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe."
¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan's vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money "a significant amount" that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, "was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money's origin or destination." (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
¶ A global computer hacking effort: China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.
¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the "worst in the region" in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar's security service was "hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals," the cable said.
¶ An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including "lavish gifts," lucrative energy contracts and a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoys supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he is undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignores his edicts.
Arms deliveries to militants: Cables describe the United States' failing struggle to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel. One week after President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send "new" arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group. ¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official "that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
The 251,287 cables, first acquired by WikiLeaks, were provided to The Times by an intermediary on the condition of anonymity. Many are unclassified, and none are marked "top secret," the government's most secure communications status. But some 11,000 are classified "secret," 9,000 are labeled "noforn," shorthand for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and noforn.
Many more cables name diplomats' confidential sources, from foreign legislators and military officers to human rights activists and journalists, often with a warning to Washington: "Please protect" or "Strictly protect."
The Times has withheld from articles and removed from documents it is posting online the names of some people who spoke privately to diplomats and might be at risk if they were publicly identified. The Times is also withholding some passages or entire cables whose disclosure could compromise American intelligence efforts.
Terrorism's Shadow
The cables show that nearly a decade after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States' relations with the world. They depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, adding Australians who have disappeared in the Middle East to terrorist watch lists, and assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in Lahore, Pakistan, was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the American Consulate.
They show American officials managing relations with a China on the rise and a Russia retreating from democracy. They document years of painstaking effort to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon — and of worry about a possible Israeli strike on Iran with the same goal.
Even when they recount events that are already known, the cables offer remarkable details.
For instance, it has been previously reported that the Yemeni government has sought to cover up the American role in missile strikes against the local branch of Al Qaeda. But a cable's fly-on-the-wall account of a January meeting between the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the American commander in the Middle East, is nonetheless breathtaking.
"We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," Mr. Saleh said, according to the cable sent by the American ambassador, prompting Yemen's deputy prime minister to "joke that he had just 'lied' by telling Parliament" that Yemeni forces had carried out the strikes.
Mr. Saleh, who at other times resisted American counterterrorism requests, was in a lighthearted mood. The authoritarian ruler of a conservative Muslim country, Mr. Saleh complains of smuggling from nearby Djibouti, but tells General Petraeus that his concerns are drugs and weapons, not whiskey, "provided it's good whiskey."
Likewise, press reports detailed the unhappiness of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, when he was not permitted to set up his tent in Manhattan or to visit ground zero during a United Nations session last year.
But the cables add to the tale a touch of scandal and alarm. They describe the volatile Libyan leader as rarely without the companionship of "his senior Ukrainian nurse," described as "a voluptuous blonde." They reveal that Colonel Qaddafi was so upset by his reception in New York that he balked at carrying out a promise to return dangerous enriched uranium to Russia. The American ambassador to Libya told Colonel Qaddafi's son "that the Libyan government had chosen a very dangerous venue to express its pique," a cable reported to Washington.
The cables also disclose frank comments behind closed doors. Dispatches from early this year, for instance, quote the aging monarch of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, as speaking scathingly about the leaders of Iraq and Pakistan.
Speaking to another Iraqi official about Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, King Abdullah said, "You and Iraq are in my heart, but that man is not." The king called President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan the greatest obstacle to that country's progress. "When the head is rotten," he said, "it affects the whole body."
The American ambassador to Eritrea reported last year that "Eritrean officials are ignorant or lying" in denying that they were supporting the Shabab, a militant Islamist group in Somalia. The cable then mused about which seemed more likely.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html
Cables Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels
WASHINGTON — A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.
State's Secrets
Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking diplomatic cables and other classified documents to WikiLeaks.
Some of the cables, made available to The New York Times and several other news organizations, were written as recently as late February, revealing the Obama administration's exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents. WikiLeaks intends to make the archive public on its Web site in batches, beginning Sunday.
The anticipated disclosure of the cables is already sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could conceivably strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. On Saturday, the State Department's legal adviser, Harold Hongju Koh, wrote to a lawyer for WikiLeaks informing the organization that the distribution of the cables was illegal and could endanger lives, disrupt military and counterterrorism operations and undermine international cooperation against nuclear proliferation and other threats.
The cables, a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates, amount to a secret chronicle of the United States' relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism. Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:
¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons,' he argued."
¶ Gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would "help salve" China's "concerns about living with a reunified Korea" that is in a "benign alliance" with the United States.
¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal." Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be "a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe."
¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan's vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money "a significant amount" that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, "was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money's origin or destination." (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
¶ A global computer hacking effort: China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.
¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the "worst in the region" in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar's security service was "hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals," the cable said.
¶ An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including "lavish gifts," lucrative energy contracts and a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoys supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he is undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignores his edicts.
Arms deliveries to militants: Cables describe the United States' failing struggle to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel. One week after President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send "new" arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group. ¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official "that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
The 251,287 cables, first acquired by WikiLeaks, were provided to The Times by an intermediary on the condition of anonymity. Many are unclassified, and none are marked "top secret," the government's most secure communications status. But some 11,000 are classified "secret," 9,000 are labeled "noforn," shorthand for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and noforn.
Many more cables name diplomats' confidential sources, from foreign legislators and military officers to human rights activists and journalists, often with a warning to Washington: "Please protect" or "Strictly protect."
The Times has withheld from articles and removed from documents it is posting online the names of some people who spoke privately to diplomats and might be at risk if they were publicly identified. The Times is also withholding some passages or entire cables whose disclosure could compromise American intelligence efforts.
Terrorism's Shadow
The cables show that nearly a decade after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States' relations with the world. They depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, adding Australians who have disappeared in the Middle East to terrorist watch lists, and assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in Lahore, Pakistan, was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the American Consulate.
They show American officials managing relations with a China on the rise and a Russia retreating from democracy. They document years of painstaking effort to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon — and of worry about a possible Israeli strike on Iran with the same goal.
Even when they recount events that are already known, the cables offer remarkable details.
For instance, it has been previously reported that the Yemeni government has sought to cover up the American role in missile strikes against the local branch of Al Qaeda. But a cable's fly-on-the-wall account of a January meeting between the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the American commander in the Middle East, is nonetheless breathtaking.
"We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," Mr. Saleh said, according to the cable sent by the American ambassador, prompting Yemen's deputy prime minister to "joke that he had just 'lied' by telling Parliament" that Yemeni forces had carried out the strikes.
Mr. Saleh, who at other times resisted American counterterrorism requests, was in a lighthearted mood. The authoritarian ruler of a conservative Muslim country, Mr. Saleh complains of smuggling from nearby Djibouti, but tells General Petraeus that his concerns are drugs and weapons, not whiskey, "provided it's good whiskey."
Likewise, press reports detailed the unhappiness of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, when he was not permitted to set up his tent in Manhattan or to visit ground zero during a United Nations session last year.
But the cables add to the tale a touch of scandal and alarm. They describe the volatile Libyan leader as rarely without the companionship of "his senior Ukrainian nurse," described as "a voluptuous blonde." They reveal that Colonel Qaddafi was so upset by his reception in New York that he balked at carrying out a promise to return dangerous enriched uranium to Russia. The American ambassador to Libya told Colonel Qaddafi's son "that the Libyan government had chosen a very dangerous venue to express its pique," a cable reported to Washington.
The cables also disclose frank comments behind closed doors. Dispatches from early this year, for instance, quote the aging monarch of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, as speaking scathingly about the leaders of Iraq and Pakistan.
Speaking to another Iraqi official about Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, King Abdullah said, "You and Iraq are in my heart, but that man is not." The king called President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan the greatest obstacle to that country's progress. "When the head is rotten," he said, "it affects the whole body."
The American ambassador to Eritrea reported last year that "Eritrean officials are ignorant or lying" in denying that they were supporting the Shabab, a militant Islamist group in Somalia. The cable then mused about which seemed more likely.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html
smartindian
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WikiLeaks: Clinton Told Diplomats To Spy
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told American diplomats to spy on other countries' diplomats at the UN, whistleblower website WikiLeaks will reveal.
Thousands of potentially embarrassing US documents are due to be published by the organisation, which has said it is under cyber attack
And newspapers working in partnership with the website have begun to reveal some of the 'confidential' papers.
The secret files - believed to be the first batch of up to 2.7 million documents to be published - are expected to be released in their entirety this evening.
But Wikileaks wrote on Twitter: "We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack."
But the Guardian newspaper, among those working with the website on the disclosures, has begun publishing the classified documents.
The papers are said to include communications between Washington and US embassies around the world.
President Barack Obama's government has said the move will put countless lives at risk, threaten global counter-terrorism operations and jeopardise US relations with its allies.
The US State Department's top lawyer has warned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to stop the "illegal" publication.
The letter was sent as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top American officials reached out to numerous world leaders about the imminent release.
The confidential cables are thought to include candid assessments of foreign leaders and their policies, and could erode trust in the US as a diplomatic partner.
US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mrs Clinton has spoken to leaders in Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and China.
Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland have also been warned.
Sky News' foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall said: "Potentially this is diplomatic dynamite.
"We think that three leaders might be in the firing line, because we know the Americans have criticised (Afghan president) Hamid Karzai, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, of Russia.
"Those are just three names that we're hearing that may be criticised. There are many, many more and it is very embarrassing for the Americans."
And Sky News' Washington correspondent Robert Nisbet said US ambassadors across the globe were bracing themselves for the fallout.
"(The leaks) are bound to touch on the personalities of leaders, of government officials and perhaps would-be leaders, and I think that is the concern here," he said.
Reports suggest the files will reveal an unflattering assessment of Prime Minister David Cameron and former prime minister Gordon Brown.
Guardian journalist Simon Hoggart said: "There is going to be some embarrassment certainly for Gordon Brown but even more so for David Cameron who was not very highly regarded by the Obama administration or by the US ambassador here."
Meanwhile, there are reports of UK Government fears about the impact of "anti-Islamic" views that could be expressed in the documents.
Sky News' political correspondent Peter Spencer said: "The greatest anxiety is that these leaks will reveal remarks of a hostile nature towards various Islamic leaders and Islamic state policies.
"The danger, of course, is that Brits living in some Islamic states could find themselves the victims of a backlash - that is a genuine concern."
WikiLeaks said its latest release of files, thought to date between January 2006 and June 2010, will be seven times the size of its October leak of 400,000 Iraq war documents.
American ambassador to the UK Louis Susman said he "condemned" the disclosures and that the US government was "taking steps to prevent future security breaches".
He also claimed the disclosures had "the very real potential to harm innocent people" but insisted the cables "should not be seen as representing US policy on their own".
He said the leaks were "harmful to the US and our interests".
"However, I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the UK will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values," he said.
"Releasing documents of this kind place at risk the lives of innocent individuals - from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers and diplomats.
"It is reprehensible for any individual or organisation to attempt to gain notoriety at the expense of people who had every expectation of privacy in sharing information."
The US has said it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables, but no one has been charged with passing them to the website.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wo..._UN_Among_Secret_US_Files_Released_By_Website
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told American diplomats to spy on other countries' diplomats at the UN, whistleblower website WikiLeaks will reveal.
Thousands of potentially embarrassing US documents are due to be published by the organisation, which has said it is under cyber attack
And newspapers working in partnership with the website have begun to reveal some of the 'confidential' papers.
The secret files - believed to be the first batch of up to 2.7 million documents to be published - are expected to be released in their entirety this evening.
But Wikileaks wrote on Twitter: "We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack."
But the Guardian newspaper, among those working with the website on the disclosures, has begun publishing the classified documents.
The papers are said to include communications between Washington and US embassies around the world.
President Barack Obama's government has said the move will put countless lives at risk, threaten global counter-terrorism operations and jeopardise US relations with its allies.
The US State Department's top lawyer has warned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to stop the "illegal" publication.
The letter was sent as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top American officials reached out to numerous world leaders about the imminent release.
The confidential cables are thought to include candid assessments of foreign leaders and their policies, and could erode trust in the US as a diplomatic partner.
US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mrs Clinton has spoken to leaders in Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and China.
Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland have also been warned.
Sky News' foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall said: "Potentially this is diplomatic dynamite.
"We think that three leaders might be in the firing line, because we know the Americans have criticised (Afghan president) Hamid Karzai, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, of Russia.
"Those are just three names that we're hearing that may be criticised. There are many, many more and it is very embarrassing for the Americans."
And Sky News' Washington correspondent Robert Nisbet said US ambassadors across the globe were bracing themselves for the fallout.
"(The leaks) are bound to touch on the personalities of leaders, of government officials and perhaps would-be leaders, and I think that is the concern here," he said.
Reports suggest the files will reveal an unflattering assessment of Prime Minister David Cameron and former prime minister Gordon Brown.
Guardian journalist Simon Hoggart said: "There is going to be some embarrassment certainly for Gordon Brown but even more so for David Cameron who was not very highly regarded by the Obama administration or by the US ambassador here."
Meanwhile, there are reports of UK Government fears about the impact of "anti-Islamic" views that could be expressed in the documents.
Sky News' political correspondent Peter Spencer said: "The greatest anxiety is that these leaks will reveal remarks of a hostile nature towards various Islamic leaders and Islamic state policies.
"The danger, of course, is that Brits living in some Islamic states could find themselves the victims of a backlash - that is a genuine concern."
WikiLeaks said its latest release of files, thought to date between January 2006 and June 2010, will be seven times the size of its October leak of 400,000 Iraq war documents.
American ambassador to the UK Louis Susman said he "condemned" the disclosures and that the US government was "taking steps to prevent future security breaches".
He also claimed the disclosures had "the very real potential to harm innocent people" but insisted the cables "should not be seen as representing US policy on their own".
He said the leaks were "harmful to the US and our interests".
"However, I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the UK will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values," he said.
"Releasing documents of this kind place at risk the lives of innocent individuals - from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers and diplomats.
"It is reprehensible for any individual or organisation to attempt to gain notoriety at the expense of people who had every expectation of privacy in sharing information."
The US has said it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables, but no one has been charged with passing them to the website.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wo..._UN_Among_Secret_US_Files_Released_By_Website
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2009
- Messages
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Saudi king urged US to attack Iran: Leaked US documents
LONDON: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to US documents revealed by WikiLeaks, published by the Guardian newspaper Sunday. A cable to Washington from the US embassy in Riyadh recorded the king's "frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program." The memo said that the king told the Americans to "cut off the head of the snake," and said that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq was "a strategic priority for the king and his government."
The document, taken from WikiLeaks and published by Britain's Guardian newspaper, said that Washington believed Saudi attitudes towards Iraq were "marked by skepticism and suspicion."
WikiLeaks on Sunday released around 250,000 classified cables -- some sent as recently as February this year -- to several media outlets worldwide.
Earlier Sunday, the US ambassador to Britain Louis Susman condemned the document release. "Any unauthorized disclosure of classified information by WikiLeaks has the very real potential to harm innocent individuals as well as efforts to advance objectives we share with the United Kingdom and nations around the world," he said.
"I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the United Kingdom will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values."
The Guardian reported that the documents were allegedly downloaded by a US soldier and passed on to the website.
WikiLeaks chief said, Julian Assange, said the released documents addressed "every major issue in every country in the world".
Read more: Saudi king urged US to attack Iran: Leaked US documents - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...cuments/articleshow/7007143.cms#ixzz16bwESCwt
The document, taken from WikiLeaks and published by Britain's Guardian newspaper, said that Washington believed Saudi attitudes towards Iraq were "marked by skepticism and suspicion."
WikiLeaks on Sunday released around 250,000 classified cables -- some sent as recently as February this year -- to several media outlets worldwide.
Earlier Sunday, the US ambassador to Britain Louis Susman condemned the document release. "Any unauthorized disclosure of classified information by WikiLeaks has the very real potential to harm innocent individuals as well as efforts to advance objectives we share with the United Kingdom and nations around the world," he said.
"I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the United Kingdom will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values."
The Guardian reported that the documents were allegedly downloaded by a US soldier and passed on to the website.
WikiLeaks chief said, Julian Assange, said the released documents addressed "every major issue in every country in the world".
Read more: Saudi king urged US to attack Iran: Leaked US documents - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...cuments/articleshow/7007143.cms#ixzz16bwESCwt
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/Saudi-king-urged-US-to-attack-Iran-Leaked-US-documents/articleshow/7007143.cms#ixzz16bwAId9I
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2009
- Messages
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- Likes
- 5,772
A Superpower's View of the World
By SPIEGEL Staff
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US President Barack Obama: Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information.
251,000 State Department documents, many of them secret embassy reports from around the world, show how the US seeks to safeguard its influence around the world. It is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy.
What does the United States really think of German Chancellor Angela Merkel? Is she a reliable ally? Did she really make an effort to patch up relations with Washington that had been so damaged by her predecessor? At most, it was a half-hearted one.
The tone of trans-Atlantic relations may have improved, former US Ambassador to Germany William Timken wrote in a cable to the State Department at the end of 2006, but the chancellor "has not taken bold steps yet to improve the substantive content of the relationship." That is not exactly high praise.
And the verdict on German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle? His thoughts "were short on substance," wrote the current US ambassador in Berlin, Philip Murphy, in a cable. The reason, Murphy suggested, was that "Westerwelle's command of complex foreign and security policy issues still requires deepening."
Such comments are hardly friendly. But in the eyes of the American diplomatic corps, every actor is quickly categorized as a friend or foe. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? A friend: Abdullah can't stand his neighbors in Iran and, expressing his disdain for the mullah regime, said, "there is no doubt something unstable about them." And his ally, Sheikh bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi? Also a friend. He believes "a near term conventional war with Iran is clearly preferable to the long term consequences of a nuclear armed Iran."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emissaries also learn of a special "Iran observer" in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku who reports on a dispute that played out during a meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. An enraged Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari allegedly got into a heated argument with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and slapped him in the face because the generally conservative president had, surprisingly, advocated freedom of the press.
A Political Meltdown
Such surprises from the annals of US diplomacy will dominate the headlines in the coming days when the New York Times, London's Guardian, Paris' Le Monde, Madrid's El Pais and SPIEGEL begin shedding light on the treasure trove of secret documents from the State Department. Included are 243,270 diplomatic cables filed by US embassies to the State Department and 8,017 directives that the State Department sent to its diplomatic outposts around the world. In the coming days, the participating media will show in a series of investigative stories how America seeks to steer the world. The development is no less than a political meltdown for American foreign policy.
Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them.
For example, one can learn that German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the Germany's most beloved politician according to public opinion polls, openly criticizes fellow cabinet member Guido Westerwelle in conversations with US diplomats, and even snitches on him. Or that Secretary of State Clinton wants her ambassadors in Moscow and Rome to inform her whether there is anything to the rumors that Italian President Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin have private business ties in addition to their close friendship -- whispers that both have vehemently denied.
America's ambassadors can be merciless in their assessments of the countries in which they are stationed. That's their job. Kenya? A swamp of flourishing corruption extending across the country. Fifteen high-ranking Kenyan officials are already banned from traveling to the United States, and almost every single sentence in the embassy reports speaks with disdain of the government of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Weighing Public Interest against Confidentiality
Turkey hardly comes away any less scathed in the cables. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the cables allege, governs with the help of a cabal of incompetent advisors. Ankara Embassy officials depict a country on a path to an Islamist future -- a future that likely won't include European Union membership.
As with the close to 92,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan at the end of July and the almost 400,000 documents on the Iraq war recently released, the State Department cables have also been leaked to the WikiLeaks whistleblower platform -- and they presumably came from the same source. As before, WikiLeaks has provided the material to media partners to review and analyze them.
With a team of more than 50 reporters and researchers, SPIEGEL has viewed, analyzed and vetted the mass of documents. In most cases, the magazine has sought to protect the identities of the Americans' informants, unless the person who served as the informant was senior enough to be politically relevant. In some cases, the US government expressed security concerns and SPIEGEL accepted a number of such objections. In other cases, however, SPIEGEL felt the public interest in reporting the news was greater than the threat to security. Throughout our research, SPIEGEL reporters and editors weighed the public interest against the justified interest of countries in security and confidentiality.
It is now possible to view many political developments around the world through the lens of those who participated in those events. As such, our understanding of those events is deeply enriched. That alone is often enough to place transparency ahead of national regulations regarding confidentiality.
Following the leaks of military secrets from Afghanistan and Iraq, these leaks now put US diplomats on the hot seat. It is the third coup for WikiLeaks within six months, and it is one that is likely to leave Washington feeling more than a bit exposed. Around half of the cables that have been obtained aren't classified and slightly less, 40.5 percent, as classified as "confidential." Six percent of the reports, or 16,652 cables, are labelled as "secret;" and of those, 4,330 are so explosive that they are labelled "NOFORN," meaning access should not be made available to non-US nationals. Taken together, the cables provide enough raw text to fill 66 years worth of weekly SPIEGEL magazines.
Gossip and the Unvarnished Truth
Much in the material was noted and sent because those compiling the reports or their dialogue partners believed, with some certainty, that their transcripts would not be made public for the next 25 years. That may also explain why the ambassadors and emissaries from Washington were so willing to report gossip and hearsay back to State Department headquarters. One cable from the Moscow Embassy on Russian first lady Svetlana Medvedev, for example, states that she is "generating tensions between the camps and remains the subject of avid gossip." It then goes on to report that President Medvedev's wife had already drawn up a list of officials who should be made to "suffer" in their careers because they had been disloyal to Medvedev. Another reports that the wife of Azerbaijan leader Ilham Aliyev has had so much plastic surgery that it is possible to confuse her for one of her daughters from a distance, but that she can barely still move her face.
What makes the documents particularly appealing, though, is that many politicians speak the unvarnished truth, confident as they are that their musings will never be made public.
What, though, do the thousands of documents prove? Do they really show a US which has the world on a leash? Are Washington's embassies still self-contained power centers in their host countries?
In sum, probably not. In the major crisis regions, an image emerges of a superpower that can no longer truly be certain of its allies -- like in Pakistan, where the Americans are consumed by fear that the unstable nuclear power could become precisely the place where terrorists obtain dangerous nuclear material.
There are similar fears in Yemen, where the US, against its better judgement, allows itself to be instrumentalized by an unscrupulous leader. With American military aid that was intended for the fight against al-Qaida, Ali Abdullah Saleh is now able to wage his battle against enemy tribes in the northern part of the country.
Insult to Injury
Even after the fall of Saddam Hussein, it still remained a challenge for the victorious power to assert its will on Iraq. In Baghdad, which has seen a series of powerful US ambassadors -- men the international press often like to refer to as American viceroys -- it is now up to Vice President Joe Biden to make repeated visits to allied Iraqi politicians in an effort to get them to finally establish a respectable democracy. But the embassy cables make it very clear that Obama's deputy has made little headway.
Instead, the Americans are forced to endure the endless tirades of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, who claims to have always known that the Iraq war was the "biggest mistake ever committed" and who advised the Americans to "forget about democracy in Iraq." Once the US forces depart, Mubarak said, the best way to ensure a peaceful transition is for there to be a military coup. They are statements that add insult to injury.
On the whole, the cables from the Middle East expose the superpower's weaknesses. Washington has always viewed it as vital to its survival to secure its share of energy reserves, but the world power is often quickly reduced to becoming a plaything of diverse interests. And it is drawn into the animosities between Arabs and Israelis, Shiites and Sunnis, between Islamists and secularists, between despots and kings. Often enough, the lesson of the documents that have now been obtained, is that the Arab leaders use their friends in Washington to expand their own positions of power.
By SPIEGEL Staff
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US President Barack Obama: Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information.
251,000 State Department documents, many of them secret embassy reports from around the world, show how the US seeks to safeguard its influence around the world. It is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy.
What does the United States really think of German Chancellor Angela Merkel? Is she a reliable ally? Did she really make an effort to patch up relations with Washington that had been so damaged by her predecessor? At most, it was a half-hearted one.
The tone of trans-Atlantic relations may have improved, former US Ambassador to Germany William Timken wrote in a cable to the State Department at the end of 2006, but the chancellor "has not taken bold steps yet to improve the substantive content of the relationship." That is not exactly high praise.
And the verdict on German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle? His thoughts "were short on substance," wrote the current US ambassador in Berlin, Philip Murphy, in a cable. The reason, Murphy suggested, was that "Westerwelle's command of complex foreign and security policy issues still requires deepening."
Such comments are hardly friendly. But in the eyes of the American diplomatic corps, every actor is quickly categorized as a friend or foe. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? A friend: Abdullah can't stand his neighbors in Iran and, expressing his disdain for the mullah regime, said, "there is no doubt something unstable about them." And his ally, Sheikh bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi? Also a friend. He believes "a near term conventional war with Iran is clearly preferable to the long term consequences of a nuclear armed Iran."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emissaries also learn of a special "Iran observer" in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku who reports on a dispute that played out during a meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. An enraged Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari allegedly got into a heated argument with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and slapped him in the face because the generally conservative president had, surprisingly, advocated freedom of the press.
A Political Meltdown
Such surprises from the annals of US diplomacy will dominate the headlines in the coming days when the New York Times, London's Guardian, Paris' Le Monde, Madrid's El Pais and SPIEGEL begin shedding light on the treasure trove of secret documents from the State Department. Included are 243,270 diplomatic cables filed by US embassies to the State Department and 8,017 directives that the State Department sent to its diplomatic outposts around the world. In the coming days, the participating media will show in a series of investigative stories how America seeks to steer the world. The development is no less than a political meltdown for American foreign policy.
Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information -- data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America's partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public -- as have America's true views of them.
For example, one can learn that German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the Germany's most beloved politician according to public opinion polls, openly criticizes fellow cabinet member Guido Westerwelle in conversations with US diplomats, and even snitches on him. Or that Secretary of State Clinton wants her ambassadors in Moscow and Rome to inform her whether there is anything to the rumors that Italian President Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin have private business ties in addition to their close friendship -- whispers that both have vehemently denied.
America's ambassadors can be merciless in their assessments of the countries in which they are stationed. That's their job. Kenya? A swamp of flourishing corruption extending across the country. Fifteen high-ranking Kenyan officials are already banned from traveling to the United States, and almost every single sentence in the embassy reports speaks with disdain of the government of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
Weighing Public Interest against Confidentiality
Turkey hardly comes away any less scathed in the cables. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the cables allege, governs with the help of a cabal of incompetent advisors. Ankara Embassy officials depict a country on a path to an Islamist future -- a future that likely won't include European Union membership.
As with the close to 92,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan at the end of July and the almost 400,000 documents on the Iraq war recently released, the State Department cables have also been leaked to the WikiLeaks whistleblower platform -- and they presumably came from the same source. As before, WikiLeaks has provided the material to media partners to review and analyze them.
With a team of more than 50 reporters and researchers, SPIEGEL has viewed, analyzed and vetted the mass of documents. In most cases, the magazine has sought to protect the identities of the Americans' informants, unless the person who served as the informant was senior enough to be politically relevant. In some cases, the US government expressed security concerns and SPIEGEL accepted a number of such objections. In other cases, however, SPIEGEL felt the public interest in reporting the news was greater than the threat to security. Throughout our research, SPIEGEL reporters and editors weighed the public interest against the justified interest of countries in security and confidentiality.
It is now possible to view many political developments around the world through the lens of those who participated in those events. As such, our understanding of those events is deeply enriched. That alone is often enough to place transparency ahead of national regulations regarding confidentiality.
Following the leaks of military secrets from Afghanistan and Iraq, these leaks now put US diplomats on the hot seat. It is the third coup for WikiLeaks within six months, and it is one that is likely to leave Washington feeling more than a bit exposed. Around half of the cables that have been obtained aren't classified and slightly less, 40.5 percent, as classified as "confidential." Six percent of the reports, or 16,652 cables, are labelled as "secret;" and of those, 4,330 are so explosive that they are labelled "NOFORN," meaning access should not be made available to non-US nationals. Taken together, the cables provide enough raw text to fill 66 years worth of weekly SPIEGEL magazines.
Gossip and the Unvarnished Truth
Much in the material was noted and sent because those compiling the reports or their dialogue partners believed, with some certainty, that their transcripts would not be made public for the next 25 years. That may also explain why the ambassadors and emissaries from Washington were so willing to report gossip and hearsay back to State Department headquarters. One cable from the Moscow Embassy on Russian first lady Svetlana Medvedev, for example, states that she is "generating tensions between the camps and remains the subject of avid gossip." It then goes on to report that President Medvedev's wife had already drawn up a list of officials who should be made to "suffer" in their careers because they had been disloyal to Medvedev. Another reports that the wife of Azerbaijan leader Ilham Aliyev has had so much plastic surgery that it is possible to confuse her for one of her daughters from a distance, but that she can barely still move her face.
What makes the documents particularly appealing, though, is that many politicians speak the unvarnished truth, confident as they are that their musings will never be made public.
What, though, do the thousands of documents prove? Do they really show a US which has the world on a leash? Are Washington's embassies still self-contained power centers in their host countries?
In sum, probably not. In the major crisis regions, an image emerges of a superpower that can no longer truly be certain of its allies -- like in Pakistan, where the Americans are consumed by fear that the unstable nuclear power could become precisely the place where terrorists obtain dangerous nuclear material.
There are similar fears in Yemen, where the US, against its better judgement, allows itself to be instrumentalized by an unscrupulous leader. With American military aid that was intended for the fight against al-Qaida, Ali Abdullah Saleh is now able to wage his battle against enemy tribes in the northern part of the country.
Insult to Injury
Even after the fall of Saddam Hussein, it still remained a challenge for the victorious power to assert its will on Iraq. In Baghdad, which has seen a series of powerful US ambassadors -- men the international press often like to refer to as American viceroys -- it is now up to Vice President Joe Biden to make repeated visits to allied Iraqi politicians in an effort to get them to finally establish a respectable democracy. But the embassy cables make it very clear that Obama's deputy has made little headway.
Instead, the Americans are forced to endure the endless tirades of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, who claims to have always known that the Iraq war was the "biggest mistake ever committed" and who advised the Americans to "forget about democracy in Iraq." Once the US forces depart, Mubarak said, the best way to ensure a peaceful transition is for there to be a military coup. They are statements that add insult to injury.
On the whole, the cables from the Middle East expose the superpower's weaknesses. Washington has always viewed it as vital to its survival to secure its share of energy reserves, but the world power is often quickly reduced to becoming a plaything of diverse interests. And it is drawn into the animosities between Arabs and Israelis, Shiites and Sunnis, between Islamists and secularists, between despots and kings. Often enough, the lesson of the documents that have now been obtained, is that the Arab leaders use their friends in Washington to expand their own positions of power.
