The Best of WikiLeaks

1. 10KUWAIT142 – from the Embassy in Kuwait, the

cable from the Ministry of the Interior of Kuwait voiced his
concern that “Iran is intent upon exporting its revolution and
Shi’ism, has a gameplan, and will only be deterred from
achieving its objectives – including nuclear weapons capability
– by force.” You can also read a similar cable in
10KUWAIT88.
2. 09ABUDHABI736 – another national security cable about Iran.
Timothy Geithner talked to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi,
who expressed “serious concern over Iran’s regional intentions
and pleaded for the U.S. to shorten its decision-making timeline
and develop a ‘Plan B.’” He also described a nuclear armed
Iran as absolutely untenable.
3. 07STATE152317 – President Bush talked with Chinese
President Hu about concerns that China was shipping missile
components to North Korea.
4. 05ANKARA1730 – a confidential memo from 2005 concerning
Turkey. The memo says that Turkey is in a period of policy
drift… having no direction, and the AKP’s parliamentary
majority eroding.
5. 07ANKARA648 – two years later, another memo on the AKP,
the leading political party in Turkey. For two years, they’ve
been pursuing moderate legislation, which has quelled (a little
bit) concerns over them having a “secret Islamist agenda.”

6. 07HARARE638 – from Harare, Zimbabwe, a cable

entitled “The End is Near” (how is that for an eye-catcher?).
Robert Mugabe, the current president of Zimbabwe, “has
survived so long because he is more clever and more ruthless
than any other politician in Zimbabwe.” This cable was from
 2007, and in 2008, Robert Mugabe was almost kicked out of
office in an election, and there was a lot of violence as Mugabe
desperately tried to hold on to the office.
7. 08ASTANA760 – revealing that the U.S. is keeping intelligence
on foreign leaders, a confidential cable from Astana, Kazakhstan
follows the lives of the leaders of Kazakhstan, revealing their
skiing habits, their nightclub habits, them having private
concerts with Elton John (paying 1 million pounds).

8. 10SEOUL272 – from South Korea, concern from the

Vice Foreign Minister that China would not be able to stop
North Korea’s collapse following Kim Jong-Il’s death. He
commented that “China had far less influence on North Korea
‘than most people believe.’” There was also some general
name-calling about a Chinese official, calling him “the most
incompetent official in China,” and wondering how in the world
he had kept his post.

9. 09TELAVIV936 – A codel visited Tel Aviv, and met

with Prime Minister Netanyahu in April 2009. They discussed a
nuclear Iran (Netanyahu said that “learning to live with a
nuclear Iran would be a big mistake which would lead to a
different, more dangerous world”) and Netanyahu’s approach to
the Palestinians (“Reviewing a now familiar formula, Netanyahu
said he will approach the Palestinians on parallel political,
economic and security tracks”).
10. 09LONDON1385 – the only cable (from June 2009) that
mentions Nigeria, which I have a certain bent toward, expresses
concern about Nigeria “punching well below its weight”
because of the illness of President Yar’Adua. That might lead to
a constitutional crisis.
11. The Wikileaks release of internal, often secret, diplomatic cables
is a major setback for the U.S. State Department. American
officials are trying to downplay it and mend fences. Those
 fences need urgent mending.

What was leaked?

American diplomats at foreign embassies issue cables. These are
internal notes meant to advise officials at the embassy, the State
Department in Washington and, ultimately, the president of the
United States.
12. Diplomats are encouraged to write cables. If they don’t
write them, they get a reputation for being lazy. If a diplomat
has a particularly interesting meeting with a foreign politician,
political analyst or even a well-connected journalist, he or she
might write a cable.
13. Diplomats will also write cables to brief officials before an
upcoming visit. If the American secretary of state is visiting
Lebanon to meet the foreign minister, diplomats in Beirut will
prepare a cable in advance to describe what to expect and
include private information and analysis about the parties
involved in the meetings.
14. It was these cables that were stolen and posted by
WikiLeaks. It is a serious blow to the State Department’s
information gathering system.

In journalism, we’d call what is happening “burning a source.”

If I interview someone, and that source gives me information
“off to the record,” context that I am supposed to know, but
asked not to report, and I publish it, I burn the source. If I
publish the information and include the source’s name, I really
burn the source, I flambé him.
15. Journalists will burn a source if they can’t contain
themselves, usually because they think the story is so good, so
juicy, that it will win them kudos and awards, or if they think
what they have learned is of such national importance that it
needs to be made public.
16. If you burn a source, the assumption is that the source will
never work with you again, and will bad-mouth you to other
sources. These are the unwritten rules of the game.
17. Wikileaks just flambéed many of the State Department best
sources.

Far worse than past leaks

The last WikiLeaks document dump was of military
correspondence from Iraq.
18. Those documents were short bursts of information, most of them
in military acronyms. It was essentially a long list of tactical
information and witness reports. It was like a giant police blotter
of events, a shotgun blast of mostly bad news, field reports of
bombings, explosions and shootings. The military was (and
remains) furious because the data was stolen from a classified
system.

The leak of the diplomatic cables is far worse. The cables

discuss on-going policy and conversations with major, usually
sensitive, powerful and occasionally vain, world leaders. They
are also written in clear English, not military bullet points, and
at times were sprinkled with sarcasm and irony.

One cable included a colorful description of the Kazakh defense

minister.

“Kazakhstan’s political elites also have recreational tastes that

are not so exotic. Some, in fact, prefer to relax the old-fashioned
way. Defense Minister Akhmetov, a self-proclaimed
workaholic, appears to enjoy loosening up in the tried and true
‘homo sovieticus’ style – i.e., drinking oneself into a stupor.”

Another took a swipe at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Khalid bin

Faisal, Governor of Asir. Prince Khalid is “known for being
extremely cheap.”

Another cable described Saudi King Abdullah as having little

faith in the Iraqi and Pakistani presidents. The cable may also
foreshadow the Saudi reaction to the WikiLeaks scandal.
 “Once the king has lost trust in a counterpart, as has been the
case with Nouri Al-Maliki or Asif Zardari, his personal
antipathy can become a serious obstacle to bilateral relations.”

The cable described the Saudi king as particularly suspicious of

Iran: “(King Abdullah) described Iran as ‘adventurous in the
negative sense,’ and declared ‘may God prevent us from falling
victim to their evil’…Summarizing his history with Iran,
Abdullah concluded: ‘We have had correct relations over the
years, but the bottom line is that they cannot be trusted.’”

It is a powerful exchange, and one the Saudi king undoubtedly

expected would remain private. In the Middle East trust takes a
long time to build and once it is lost, is difficult to regain.

Why it hurts
Foreign diplomats already have a hard enough time gathering
information. In many cities there are two diplomatic
communities: the Americans and everyone else.
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22. I’ve seen this play out countless times from Baghdad to
Kabul, Beirut to Cairo. If a French, Spanish or Polish diplomat
for example wants to meet a politician or author, the two go to a
restaurant or a private home, have a few drinks, and discuss
whatever the subject may be.
23. America embassies, however, these days are generally like
little (or sometimes really big) fortresses. Security restrictions
on American diplomats often make it difficult for them to
mingle, especially in cities where the threat of terrorism or
kidnapping is considered high.
24. To travel, American diplomats often have to fill out travel
requests, sometimes days in advance, to schedule a meeting and
set up a security escort. To make it easier, American diplomats
often ask sources to visit them at embassies, which can be
inconvenient (going through checkpoints, metal detectors,
 leaving mobile phones outside) and demeaning, if officials feel
they are being summoned.
25. Now, however, there may be a major change. Sources
might ask themselves, why bother? Why go through all the
effort to meet with the Americans if they can’t keep a secret?
26. In many counties, officials and analysts don’t want their
peers, and certainly not the general public, to know they meet
with American embassy officials. People who were on the fence
already, not sure if they should go in and advise an American
diplomat, could determine that it’s simply not worth the risk.

“None of us are at all happy about it,” a senior American

diplomat said to me about the leaks.
“It will certainly setback efforts to build relations of confidence
with foreign officials and influential actors.”
27. Gosh, very hard to keep up with all the dramatic leaked
info from the Wikileaks saga. So I have distilled some of the
best leaks at the links below:
28. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6f5MQ-
ngH8&feature=related
29.
30. Leader of Burma’s Military Junta Tried to Buy
Manchester United
31. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-burma-
manchester-united-takeover
32. Shell Oil’s Infiltration of Nigeria’s Government
33. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-
cables-shell-nigeria-spying?intcmp=239
34. Saudi Princes In Sex, Drugs and Alcohol Parties
35. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-cables-
saudi-princes-parties
36. Nigeria Feared Military Coup During Yar’Adua’s Illness
37. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-cables-
nigeria-president-death
38. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i7yewwPTYk
39. Saudi Arabian Funding of Al-Qaeda
40. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8182847
/Wikileaks-Saudis-chief-funders-of-al-Qaeda.html
41. Key Global Sites for Security/Terror
42. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8183136
/Wikileaks-US-identifies-key-sites-around-world-for-
security.html
43. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpAfhJH5CzY
44. Al-Jazeera Used as Bargaining Chip by Qatar
45. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8183115
/WikiLeaks-al-Jazeera-used-as-bargaining-tool-by-Qatar.html
46. US diplomats gathering intelligence and biomatric info on
UN officials and foreign leaders:
47. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-cia-united-nations
48. US Referred to Russia as a “Mafia State”
49. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-russia-mafia-
kleptocracy
50. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Urged America to Attack Iran
51. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-saudis-iran
52. Gordon Brown an “Abysmal” Prime Minister
53. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-gordon-brown-abysmal-
prime-minister
54. Interview with Julian Assange
55. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks
56. Download key data on US Embassy cables
57. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-data
58. New British Conservative Party Government Offered “Pro American” Policies to
Americans
59. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-cables-us-special-
relationship
60. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBmdgsE2M7M