[News] US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis

[Anti-Imperialist News]

US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis

• More than 250,000 dispatches reveal US foreign strategies
• Diplomats ordered to spy on allies as well as enemies
• Hillary Clinton leads frantic 'damage limitation'

The release of more than 250,000 US embassy 
cables reveals previously secret information on 
American intelligence gathering, and political 
and military strategy. Photograph: Rex Features

The <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa>United 
States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic 
crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian 
and other international media of more than 
250,000 classified cables from its embassies, 
many sent as recently as February this year.

At the start of a series of daily extracts from 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables>the 
US embassy cables – many designated "secret" – 
the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are 
privately urging an air strike on Iran and that 
US officials have been instructed to spy on the 
UN leadership. These two revelations alone would 
be likely to reverberate around the world. But 
the secret dispatches which were obtained by 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/wikileaks>WikiLeaks, 
the whistleblowers' website, also reveal 
Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

These include a shift in relations between China 
and North Korea, high level concerns over 
Pakistan's growing instability and details of 
clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.

Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

• Grave fears in Washington and London over the 
security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, 
with officials warning that as the country faces 
economic collapse, government employees could 
smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

• Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan 
government, with one cable alleging that vice 
president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash 
when he was stopped during a visit to the United 
Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.

• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to 
quit China in January were orchestrated by a 
senior member of the Politburo who typed his own 
name into the global version of the search engine 
and found articles criticising him personally.

• The extraordinarily close relationship between 
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and 
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, 
which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables 
detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative 
energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a 
"shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between.

• Allegations that Russia and its intelligence 
agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out 
criminal operations, with one cable reporting 
that the relationship is so close that the 
country has become a "virtual mafia state".

• Devastating criticism of the UK's military 
operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the 
Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. 
The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the 
failure to impose security around Sangin – the 
town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.

• Inappropriate remarks by a member of the 
British royal family about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.

The US has particularly intimate dealings with 
Britain, and some of the dispatches from the 
London embassy in Grosvenor Square will make 
uncomfortable reading in Whitehall and 
Westminster. They range from political criticisms 
of David Cameron to requests for specific intelligence about individual MPs.

The cables contain specific allegations of 
corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US 
embassy staff of their host governments, from 
Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The 
material includes a reference to Putin as an 
"alpha-dog", Hamid Karzai as being "driven by 
paranoia" while Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids 
risk and is rarely creative". There is also a 
comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.

The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest 
financiers of terror groups, and provide an 
extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement 
between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use 
of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable 
records that during a meeting in January with 
General David Petraeus, then US commander in the 
Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh 
said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."

Other revelations include a description of a near 
"environmental disaster" last year over a rogue 
shipment of enriched uranium, technical details 
of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations 
in Geneva, and a profile of Libya's Muammar 
Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere 
by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise 
this weekend as Washington prepared foreign 
governments for the revelations, contacting 
leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.

US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed 
to brief their hosts in advance of the release of 
unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank 
accounts of transactions with the US which they 
had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now 
faces a difficult task in convincing contacts 
around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.

As the cables were published the White House 
released a statement condemning their release. 
"Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, 
intelligence professionals, and people around the 
world who come to the US for assistance in 
promoting democracy and open government. By 
releasing stolen and classified documents, 
WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of 
human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals."

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "We 
condemn any unauthorised release of this 
classified information, just as we condemn leaks 
of classified material in the UK. They can damage 
national security, are not in the national 
interest and, as the US have said, may put lives 
at risk. We have a very strong relationship with 
the US Government. That will continue".

The state department's legal adviser has written 
to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his 
London lawyer, warning that the cables were 
obtained illegally and that publication would 
place at risk "the lives of countless innocent 
individuals 
 ongoing military operations 
 and cooperation between countries".

The electronic archive of embassy dispatches from 
around the world was allegedly downloaded by a US 
soldier earlier this year and passed to 
WikiLeaks. Assange made them available to the 
Guardian and four other news organisations: the 
<http://www.nytimes.com/>New York Times, 
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/>Der Spiegel 
in Germany, <http://www.lemonde.fr/>Le Monde in 
France and <http://www.elpais.com/global/>El País 
in Spain. All five plan to publish extracts from 
the most significant cables, but have decided 
neither to "dump" the entire dataset into the 
public domain, nor to publish names that would 
endanger innocent individuals. WikiLeaks says 
that, contrary to the state department's fears, 
it also initially intends to post only limited 
cable extracts, and to redact identities.

The cables published today reveal how the US uses 
its embassies as part of a global espionage 
network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just 
information from the people they meet, but 
personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, 
credit card details and even DNA material.

Classified "human intelligence directives" issued 
in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, 
Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather 
information on military installations, weapons 
markings, vehicle details of political leaders as 
well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.

The most controversial target was the UN 
leadership. That directive requested the 
specification of telecoms and IT systems used by 
top officials and their staff and details of 
"private VIP networks used for official 
communication, to include upgrades, security 
measures, passwords, personal encryption keys".

PJ Crowley, the state department spokesman in 
Washington, said: "Let me assure you: our 
diplomats are just that, diplomats. They do not 
engage in intelligence activities. They represent 
our country around the world, maintain open and 
transparent contact with other governments as 
well as public and private figures, and report 
home. That's what diplomats have done for hundreds of years."

The acting deputy spokesman for Ban Ki Moon, 
Farhan Haq, said the UN chief had no immediate 
comment: "We are aware of the reports."

The dispatches also shed light on older 
diplomatic issues. One cable, for example, 
reveals, that Nelson Mandela was "furious" when a 
top adviser stopped him meeting Margaret Thatcher 
shortly after his release from prison to explain 
why the ANC objected to her policy of 
"constructive engagement" with the apartheid 
regime. "We understand Mandela was keen for a 
Thatcher meeting but that [appointments secretary 
Zwelakhe] Sisulu argued successfully against it," 
according to the cable. It continues: "Mandela 
has on several occasions expressed his eagerness 
for an early meeting with Thatcher to express the 
ANC's objections to her policy. We were 
consequently surprised when the meeting didn't 
materialise on his mid-April visit to London and 
suspected that ANC hardliners had nixed Mandela's plans."

The US embassy cables are marked "Sipdis" – 
secret internet protocol distribution. They were 
compiled as part of a programme under which 
selected dispatches, considered moderately secret 
but suitable for sharing with other agencies, 
would be automatically loaded on to secure 
embassy websites, and linked with the military's Siprnet internet system.

They are classified at various levels up to 
"secret noforn" [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 
are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn.

More than 3 million US government personnel and 
soldiers, many extremely junior, are cleared to 
have potential access to this material, even 
though the cables contain the identities of 
foreign informants, often sensitive contacts in 
dictatorial regimes. Some are marked "protect" or "strictly protect".

Last spring, 22-year-old 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bradley-manning>intelligence 
analyst Bradley Manning was charged with leaking 
many of these cables, along with a gun-camera 
video of an Apache helicopter crew mistakenly 
killing two Reuters news agency employees in 
Baghdad in 2007, which was subsequently posted by 
WikiLeaks. Manning is facing a court martial.

In July and October WikiLeaks also published 
thousands of leaked military reports from 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-war-logs>Afghanistan 
and 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraq-war-logs>Iraq. 
These were made available for analysis beforehand 
to the Guardian, along with Der Spiegel and the New York Times.

A former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who reported 
Manning to the US authorities, said the soldier 
had told him in chat messages that the cables 
revealed "how the first world exploits the third, in detail".

He also said, according to Lamo, that Clinton 
"and several thousand diplomats around the world 
are going to have a heart attack when they wake 
up one morning and find an entire repository of 
classified foreign policy is available in 
searchable format to the public 
 everywhere 
there's a US post 
 there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed".

Asked why such sensitive material was posted on a 
network accessible to thousands of government 
employees, the state department spokesman told 
the Guardian: "The 9/11 attacks and their 
aftermath revealed gaps in intra-governmental 
information sharing. Since the attacks of 9/11, 
the US government has taken significant steps to 
facilitate information sharing. These efforts 
were focused on giving diplomatic, military, law 
enforcement and intelligence specialists quicker 
and easier access to more data to more effectively do their jobs."

He added: "We have been taking aggressive action 
in recent weeks and months to enhance the 
security of our systems and to prevent the leak of information."


US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis

This article was published on 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/>guardian.co.uk at 
18.13 GMT on Sunday 28 November 2010. A version 
appeared on p1 of the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/nov/29/mainsection>Main 
section section of 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>the 
Guardian on 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/nov/29>Monday 
29 November 2010. It was last modified at 22.16 
GMT on Sunday 28 November 2010.




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