Contrary to common sense, The number of cables from Nepal and Colombo each equal those from Pukistan. This signals western-missionary backing of Maoists and LTTE.
Quote:WikiLeaks exposes US, shows India kept out of key meet
November 30, 2010 6:29:53 AM
IANS | Washington
A cache of a quarter-million US cables released by WikiLeaks has exposed secret back-room manoeuvring by the US and has dramatically revealed how India was kept out of a key meeting on Afghanistan that was held in Turkey.
Among the State Department cables released by WikiLeaks, 3,038 are from the US embassy in India. Other cables pertain to communications from US missions in Islamabad, Colombo and Kathmandu.
India was one of the countries reached out by top US diplomats before the much anticipated release of what the New York Times described as "an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders".
"We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible release of documents," State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley said ahead of their publication Sunday, triggering condemnation from the White House and congressional leaders.
The US had warned WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange that publishing the papers would be illegal and endanger peoples' lives.
A secret cable from the US embassy in Ankara showed that India was kept out of the Jan 25 meeting held in Turkey on Afghanistan to appease Pakistan, though Islamabad was of the view that excluding India from such regional structures would be a mistake.
At a meeting with US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, then Turkey's deputy under secretary for Bilateral Political Affairs, responsible for the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, Rauf Engin Soysal, said Turkey had not invited India to the Afghanistan Neighbours Summit "in deference to Pakistani sensitivities".
"He (Soysal) said Turkey had not invited India to the neighbours summit in deference to Pakistani sensitivities; however, he claimed, Pakistan understands attempting to exclude India from the nascent South Asian regional structures would be a mistake," Guardian quoted the message dated Feb 25, 2010 as saying.
Zardari met Turkish President Abdullah Gul and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai at an international conference in Istanbul that kicked off Jan 25 this year.
"He (Soysal) reported Indian Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh had requested (Turkish) President (Abdullah) Gul's assistance with Pakistan during the latter's visit to New Delhi the previous week. Acting on that request, Gul had phoned Pakistani President Zardari, who was sceptical of Indian intentions. Gul is planning to visit Pakistan later this year."
"Soysal said Iran is proposing a quadrilateral summit, which would include Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but that proposal had yet to generate enthusiasm," the secret cable said.
Among the 251,287 cables provided by WikiLeaks to The New York Times, 2,278 cables are from the US mission in Kathmandu, 3,325 from Colombo and 2,220 from Islamabad.
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 labelled "noforn", shorthand for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and "noforn".
Publishing the documents would jeopardise "our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government", White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel and a global computer hacking effort by China are among the revelations laid bare by WikiLeaks.
The cables show that nearly a decade after the Sep 11, 2001 attacks, terrorism still dominates the US' relations with the world, said the Times.
"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," the Times said.
Detailing "a dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel" revealed by WikiLeaks, the Times said: "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, (US) 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."
Another cable said a Chinese contact told the American embassy in Beijing in January that China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country.
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, it said.
They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.
Quote:WikiLeaks bares world leaders' personal details
November 30, 2010 6:29:55 AM
IANS | Washington
Thousands of US diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblower site WikiLeaks bares personal details of world leaders and what US diplomats think of them in private, a media report said on Monday.
According to the Washington Post, a memo describes Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi having an intense dislike of staying above the first floor of hotels. The cables say that Gaddafi's fear of flying creates logistical headaches for his staff, who make great attempts to avoid long flights over water.
And Gaddafi is reportedly obsessively dependent on travelling with a Ukrainian nurse described as a "voluptuous blonde" because she alone "knows his routine".
The details on Gaddafi were included in a State Department cable in September 2009 during the leader's visit to New York for the UN General Assembly.
In the cable, Gene A. Cretz, US ambassador to Tripoli, says: "While it is tempting to dismiss his many eccentricities as signs of instability, Qadhafi is a complicated individual who has managed to stay in power for forty years through a skillful balancing of interests and realpolitik methods."
This is one of the hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables made available online and select media outlets in the US and Europe by the website. Quotes from the more than 250,000 cables obtained by the WikiLeaks website were also circulating on the Twitter.
Frank and often private descriptions of world leaders include US diplomats quoting sources to describe North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as a "flabby old chap" and someone who had suffered "physical and psychological trauma" as a result of his stroke.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy, in the view of US diplomats in Paris, has a "thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style" because of his tendency to rebuke his team and the French prime minister.
An official at the US Embassy in Moscow wrote in 2008 about the relationship between Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that Medvedev "plays Robin to Putin's Batman".
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is "feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader", according to a US official in Rome. Another cable remarked on Berlusconi's "frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard".
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, said the New York Times, one of the media organisations that had access to the leaked cables.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is described in one cable from Kabul as "an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him".
In 2007 Christopher W. Dell, the then US ambassador to Zimbabwe, calls Robert Mugabe, the authoritarian ruler of the African country, "a brilliant tactician" but mocked "his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics)".
The US government has termed the unauthorised release of classified documents "reckless" and "dangerous".
Quote:WikiLeaks expose: Saudi Arabia urged US attack on Iran
November 30, 2010 6:29:56 AM
IANS | London
Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region urged US to attack Iran and destroy its nuclear facilities, The Guardian reported citing the secret US diplomatic communications leaked on Sunday by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
The revelations of secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was recorded as having "frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme", said the paper which was among the few media outlets that have been given access to the over 250,000 diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks.
"He told you (Americans) to cut off the head of the snake," the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.
King Abdullah warned the Americans that if Iran developed nuclear weapons "everyone in the region would do the same, including Saudi Arabia".
The documents also describe how other Arab allies of the US have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.
Israel's defence minister Ehud Barak estimated in June 2009 that there was a window of "between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable". After that, Barak said, "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage."
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned in February that if diplomatic efforts failed, "we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both".
Israeli's military intelligence chief, Major General Amos Yadlin, warned last year: "Israel is not in a position to underestimate Iran and be surprised like the US was on Sep 11 2001."
"If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.
The US embassy reported: "The IDF (Israeli Defence Force), however, strikes us as more inclined than ever to look toward a military strike, whether launched by Israel or by us, as the only way to destroy or even delay Iran's plans."
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US officials in May last year that he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, agreed that a nuclear Iran would lead others in the region to develop nuclear weapons, resulting in "the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis".
The leaked US cables say that officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran's nuclear programme to be stopped by any means, including military.
Leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt termed Iran as "evil", an "existential threat" and a power that "is going to take us to war".
In a conversation with a US diplomat, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain "argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their (Iran's) nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it."
Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: "Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter."
In talks with US officials, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed favoured action against Iran, sooner rather than later. "I believe this guy is going to take us to war ... It's a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad. He is young and aggressive."
Quote:US wanted to remove uranium from Pakistani reactor: WikiLeaks
November 30, 2010 6:29:58 AM
IANS/AKI | Washington
US diplomatic cables released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks show that since 2007 the US has been engaged in an effort to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani research reactor.
According to the documents released Sunday, the US administration authorised this because American officials feared the material could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device.
In May 2009, US ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson reported to the State Department 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 US taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons."
Cables sent by the US embassy in Islamabad to the US State Department also talk of "grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme" amid growing instability.
They depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, and "assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in the eastern city of Lahore was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the American consulate".
WikiLeaks has exposed thousands of US diplomatic cables, thanks to an anti-war activist who got access to the secret files due to a glitch in the computer system.
Quote:WikiLeaks lays bare nuclear standoff with Pakistan, hacking by China
November 30, 2010 6:30:00 AM
IANS | Washington
A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel and a global computer hacking effort by China are among the revelations laid bare by a cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables released by whistleblower site WikiLeaks.
The New York Times, one of the newspapers provided advanced access to the papers, Sunday offered a preview of the revelations from a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates that it intends to detail in the coming days.
The cables show that nearly a decade after the Sep 11, 2001 attacks, the dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States' relations with the world, said the Times.
"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," the Times said.
Detailing "a dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel" revealed by Wikileaks, the Times said: "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, (US) 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."
Dispatches from early this year quote the 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 Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari the greatest obstacle to that country's progress, the Times said citing a cable. "When the head is rotten," he said, "it affects the whole body."
Another cable cited by the Times said a Chinese contact told the American embassy in Beijing in January that China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country.
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, it said.
They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.
The White House was quick to "condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorised disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information."
It would jeopardise "our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"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."
Quote:Turkey did not invite India on Afghan meet to appease Pak
November 30, 2010 6:30:02 AM
PTI | Washington
India was deliberately kept out of the Turkey-sponsored meeting on Afghanistan earlier this year to address the "sensitivities" of Pakistan, according to WikiLeaks cable.
Reflecting Islamabad's insistence at every international fora that New Delhi be kept out of any meeting on Afghanistan, a top Turkish diplomat told US officials early this year that India was kept out to address the concerns of Pakistan, WikiLeaks said.
At a meeting with the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, William Burns; Rauf Engin Soysal who then was the Turkey's Deputy Under-Secretary for Bilateral Political Affairs responsible for the Middle East, South Asia and Africa; said Turkey had not invited India to the Afghan neighbours summit in deference to Pak sensitivities.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, Afghan President Hamid Karzai met in Istanbul for a Turkish-sponsored talks to discuss cooperation against extremists in Afghanistan earlier this year.
"He (Soysal) said Turkey had not invited India to the neighbours summit in deference to Pakistani sensitivities; however, he claimed, Pakistan understands attempting to exclude India from the nascent South Asian regional structures would be a mistake," says the confidential State Department cable dated February 25, 2010.
Soysal, a former Turkish Ambassador to the Pakistan from 2007 to 2009, and his countryââ¬â¢s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in September was appointment by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, as the Special Envoy for Assistance to Pakistan.
"He (Soysal) reported Indian Prime Minister Singh had requested (Turkish) President Gul's assistance with Pakistan during the latter's visit to New Delhi the previous week.
Acting on that request, Gul had phoned Pakistani President Zardari, who was skeptical of Indian intentions.
Gul is planning to visit Pakistan later this year," the cable said.
"Soysal said Iran is proposing a quadrilateal summit, which would include Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but that proposal had yet to generate enthusiasm," it said.
Soysal, according to the cable, said the Pakistani military, though displeased with the President, Asif Ali Zardari, remains unwilling to intervene; nevertheless, senior officers' patience may not be infinite.
"Zardari needs to increase the democratic legitimacy of Parliament. Soysal offered. Nawaz Sharif has become a much more constructive player," said the State Department cable as released by WikiLeaks.
Quote:WikiLeaks disclosures involve 3000 cables from Delhi to Washington
November 30, 2010 6:30:04 AM
IANS | Washington
Among a cache of a quarter-million State Department cables released by WikiLeaks, 3,038 are from the US embassy in India, but no details were immediately available on the whistleblower website. Other cables pertain to communications from US missions in Islamabad, Colombo and Kathmandu.
India was one of the countries reached out by top US diplomats before the much anticipated release of what the New York
Times described as "an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders."
"We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible release of documents," State Department Spokesman P J Crowley said ahead of their publication Sunday, spawning condemnation from the White House and congressional leaders.
The United States had warned WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange that publishing the papers would be illegal and endanger peoples' lives.
Among the 251,287 cables provided by WikiLeaks to The Times [color="#FF0000"]2,278 cables are from the US mission in Kathmandu, 3,325 from Colombo and 2,220 from Islamabad.[/color]
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 labelled "noforn," shorthand for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and 'noforn'.
Publishing the documents would jeopardise "our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Senator John Kerry, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the disclosure "reckless."
"This is not an academic exercise about freedom of information and it is not akin to the release of the Pentagon Papers, which involved an analysis aimed at saving American lives and exposing government deception," Kerry said in a statement.
Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, on Sunday called on the Obama administration to prosecute Assange.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder King said WikiLeaks has provided "material support to terrorist organizations" by releasing the documents.