Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wikileak Has Really Done It This Time

Talk about a apology tour. This is humiliating and embarrassing. The fallout will be huge!
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President
U.S. in Damage Control After Vast Leak of Diplomatic Cables

Published November 29, 2010
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The release of more than 250,000 classified State Department documents forced the Obama administration into damage control, trying to contain fallout from unflattering assessments of world leaders and revelations about backstage U.S. diplomacy.

The publication of the secret cables on Sunday amplified widespread global alarm about Iran's nuclear ambitions and unveiled occasional U.S. pressure tactics aimed at hot spots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea. The leaks also disclosed bluntly candid impressions from both diplomats and other world leaders about America's allies and foes.

In the wake of the massive document dump by online whistleblower WikiLeaks and numerous media reports detailing their contents, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to address the diplomatic repercussions on Monday. Clinton could deal with the impact first hand after she leaves Washington on a four-nation tour of Central Asia and the Middle East -- regions that figure prominently in the leaked documents.

The cables unearthed new revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing U.S., Israeli and Arab world fears of Iran's growing nuclear program, American concerns about Pakistan's atomic arsenal and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.

None of the disclosures appeared particularly explosive, but their publication could become problems for the officials concerned and for any secret initiatives they had preferred to keep quiet. The massive release of material intended for diplomatic eyes only is sure to ruffle feathers in foreign capitals, a certainty that already prompted U.S. diplomats to scramble in recent days to shore up relations with key allies in advance of the leaks.



Nov. 4: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks during a press conference in Switzerland.
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State TV: Bomb kills Iranian nuclear scientist Comedy Legend Leslie Nielsen Dies At 84 Australian police investigate WikiLeaks founder You Found Someone's Debit Card. Do You Pick it Up? When Picking a Cruise Ship: Is Bigger Better? At Clinton's first stop in Astana, Kazakhstan, she will be attending a summit of officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a diplomatic grouping that includes many officials from countries cited in the leaked cables.

The documents published by The New York Times, France's Le Monde, Britain's Guardian newspaper, German magazine Der Spiegel and others laid out the behind-the-scenes conduct of Washington's international relations, shrouded in public by platitudes, smiles and handshakes at photo sessions among senior officials.

The White House immediately condemned the release of the WikiLeaks documents, saying "such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."

U.S. officials may also have to mend fences after revelations that they gathered personal information on other diplomats. The leaks cited American memos encouraging U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed data about the U.N. secretary general, his team and foreign diplomats -- going beyond what is considered the normal run of information-gathering expected in diplomatic circles.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley played down the diplomatic spying allegations. "Our diplomats are just that, diplomats," he said. "They collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of years."

The White House noted that "by its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often incomplete information. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions."

"Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world," the White House said.

On its website, The New York Times said "the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match."

Le Monde said it "considered that it was part of its mission to learn about these documents, to make a journalistic analysis and to make them available to its readers." Der Spiegel said that in publishing the documents its reporters and editors "weighed the public interest against the justified interest of countries in security and confidentiality."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed the Obama administration was trying to cover up alleged evidence of serious "human rights abuse and other criminal behavior" by the U.S. government. WikiLeaks posted the documents just hours after it claimed its website had been hit by a cyberattack that made the site inaccessible for much of the day.

But extracts of the more than 250,000 cables posted online by news outlets that had been given advance copies of the documents showed deep U.S. concerns about Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs along with fears about regime collapse in Pyongyang.

The Guardian said some cables showed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urging the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program. The newspaper also said officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran's nuclear program to be stopped by any means and that leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran "as 'evil,' an 'existential threat' and a power that 'is going to take us to war,"' The Guardian said.

Those documents may prove the trickiest because even though the concerns of the Gulf Arab states are known, their leaders rarely offer such stark appraisals in public.

The Times highlighted documents that indicated the U.S. and South Korea were "gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea" and discussing the prospects for a unified country if the isolated, communist North's economic troubles and political transition lead it to implode.

The Times also cited diplomatic cables describing unsuccessful U.S. efforts to prod Pakistani officials to remove highly enriched uranium from a reactor out of fear that the material could be used to make an illicit atomic device. And the newspaper cited cables that showed Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, telling U.S. Gen. David Petraeus that his country would pretend that American missile strikes against a local al-Qaida group had come from Yemen's forces.

The paper also cited documents showing the U.S. used hardline tactics to win approval from countries to accept freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. It said Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if its president wanted to meet with President Barack Obama and said the Pacific island of Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees.

It also cited a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that included allegations from a Chinese contact that China's Politburo directed a cyber intrusion into Google's computer systems as part of a "coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws."

Le Monde said another memo asked U.S. diplomats to collect basic contact information about U.N. officials that included Internet passwords, credit card numbers and frequent flyer numbers. They were asked to obtain fingerprints, ID photos, DNA and iris scans of people of interest to the United States, Le Monde said.

The Times said another batch of documents raised questions about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his relationship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. One cable said Berlusconi "appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin" in Europe, the Times reported.

Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Sunday called the release the "Sept. 11 of world diplomacy," in that everything that had once been accepted as normal has now changed.

Der Spiegel reported that the cables portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in unflattering terms. It said American diplomats saw Merkel as risk-averse and Westerwelle as largely powerless.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, meanwhile, was described as erratic and in the near constant company of a Ukrainian nurse who was described in one cable as "a voluptuous blonde," according to the Times.

WikiLeaks' action was widely condemned.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it was an "irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents," while Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the document release "unhelpful and untimely."

In Australia, Assange's home country, Attorney General Robert McClelland said law enforcement officials were investigating whether WikiLeaks broke any laws.

The U.S. State Department's top lawyer warned Assange late Saturday that lives and military operations would be put at risk if the cables were released. Legal adviser Harold Koh said WikiLeaks would be breaking the law if it went ahead. He also rejected a request from Assange to cooperate in removing sensitive details from the documents.

At this point, all Assange can do is try to one-up his latest treason, so as to stay as high-profile as possible, and delay the dirt-nap.

Isn't he up on sexual assault charges, or is that Chicago politics trying to needle him.

In a rEALLY odd case, he is being charged for sexual assault by SWEDEN!!!! Given the Swedes rather expansive viewpoints on sex, he musta REALLY chit his copybook!!

What could possibly motivate someone to do such a thing?

250,000 messages. That's incredible. This has got to be the ultimate computer hack.

It will be intesting to see just what the fallout is and I sincerely hope there aren't any lives lost because of this. I'm not seeing anything earth shattering in the brief details cited but somewhere in the 250,000 I'm sure there is.

Assange is not a US Citizen, so he can't be brought up on treason charges.

Espionage maybe, or better yet, just have him wacked. Where the hell is the CIA these days, when you need some wet work done?

Never said "charges", just dirt nap.

He's leaking stuff related to Israel now, I believe.

The Mossad should step in anytime now.

Let him release anything related to Russia, and it'll be done. Fast... and ugly.

Perfect. Have him whacked (no pun intended) and they can "bobbitt" him, and set the blame on a disgruntled lover...

From indications, the Swedish charges are essentially two counts (two different women) of forcible sodomy.

And if there's any creative imagination in the federal gummitup, there ought to be some very clever counter-intelligence tactics being applied now or soon. For example �

� "Salted" documents cleverly released that'll have disastrous effects in Al Quaeda's and Taliban's upper echelons (indicating, for example, that certain trusted leaders therein are CIA plants).

� Cleverly implanted documents, identical to Wikileaks' releases, that can be identified as fakes � allegedly by Wikileaks.

Some of Washington's proven skills in creative chicanery ought to be applied in our national interest, to our national benefit. But I'm not holding my breath or sleeping soundly in blithe, blind trust.

Truer words...

If I was concerned about my own well-being and wanted to look forward to a long and happy life, Isreal and Russia would be among the last countries that I would want to tick off!

Sadly, we should be in that list.


Frankly, all it takes is one soldier killed from this guys actions and he should lay along side the honored dead.

It is beyond understanding, that an outfit such as wiki leaks, doing so much damage to America, is not touched because to do so would be politically incorrect.

Where is our National will to survive? The sort of releases done by this outfit would have caused a war in the not so distant past.

Well, it's because we have the Great BALL-LESS ONE in charge..

I'm sure he's arranging an apology meet even as I type this..

Two more YEARS of this dickhead.....ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!

IIUC, Assange is but one of Wikileaks' five directors.

Mossad and the Russians would not limit their corrective measures to him alone.

Exactly.

I recall reading an article where the other 4 have had some "internal turmoil" regarding the leaks progress on this.

They're probably feeling in touch with the icy grip of the grim reaper a little moreso than this individual...

We are in that list--just way at the other end from Isreal and Russia.

(which is pathetic, I know...)

Here is a news flash. Just because a civilian does not see any truly damaging intel in all the information leaked does not mean it is not there. Hard working .gov employees and contractors who do the majority of intel gathering are immediately in danger when this kind of crap happens. The public never sees the true fallout.

Something as simple as placing a person at a physical location at time X can be huge. Not to mention a myriad of other issues.

On a separate note, Diplomats in general are the bitchiest and most back stabbing group of self absorbed government employees I have ever had the displeasure of having to deal with. It seems the smaller the embassy post, the more pompous and ridiculous their antics are.

while i'm in general agreement with the gist or tone of most of the posts here, i do believe there's more to it.

in an age of the internet, i'm sure a lot of folks was just waiting for this to happen. the internet and it's availability has opened the door to the "antics" of the individual.

an individual downloaded the stuff, another individual held it awhile before forwarding to a news outlet. the news outlet chose to publish it.

welcome to the age of the internet.