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Wikileaks Diplomatic Cables

Wikileaks's unveiling of cables shows delicate diplomatic balance with Pakistan

The January 2009 cable, posted on the Web site of Der Spiegel, laments that many Pakistanis consider bin Laden "an Islamic hero because the U.S. has named him 'public enemy number one.' " A plan to distribute "wanted" posters and matchbooks depicting bin Laden - presumably advertising the U.S. offer of a reward for his capture - might only increase his stature "as a kind of folk hero," the cable says.

Wikileaks's unveiling of cables shows delicate diplomatic balance with Pakistan
 
Iran's Ahmadinejad dismisses Wikileaks cables release
Iran's president has dismissed as propaganda the leaking of US cables detailing Arab calls for Washington to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the release by the Wikileaks website of thousands of extracts from US diplomatic messages was simply psychological warfare against Iran.

He said the release would not affect Iran's relations with other countries.

The US said the release was "reckless" and put the lives of diplomats at risk.

One Republican congressman called for Wikileaks to be designated a terrorist organisation, and the US Department of Defence says it is making its computer systems more secure to prevent future leaks.

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, said the US authorities were afraid of being held to account.

European nations have roundly criticised the leaks, with France saying they represent a threat to democratic authority.

Pakistan's foreign ministry, meanwhile, condemned what it called "the irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents".

Among the revelations is a report that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had urged the US to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Political goals
Mr Ahmadinejad shrugged off the leaks at a televised news conference on Monday, saying no-one should waste time reviewing the information.

"We don't think this information was leaked," he said. "We think it was organised to be released on a regular basis and they are pursuing political goals."

More: BBC News - Iran's Ahmadinejad dismisses Wikileaks cables release
 
Here is India..............


Washington: The explosive WikiLeaks hit hard the Indo-US ties as one of the disclosures revealed that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called India a ‘self appointed’ UNSC frontrunner and ordered spying of the country’s bid to become a permanent member of the body.

Hillary directed US diplomats to spy: WikiLeaks
 
Netanyahu said no peace with right of return: WikiLeaks
(AFP) 29 November 2010, 3:46 PM
JERUSALEM — The Palestinians will not be a partner for peace until they drop demands for the “right of return,” Benjamin Netanyahu said two years before being elected premier, leaked US cables showed on Monday.

Details of his remarks were catalogued in a diplomatic cable sent by the then US ambassador Richard H. Jones in April 2007 when Netanyahu was leader of the opposition, which was one of hundreds of secret documents released by WikiLeaks late on Sunday.
Netanyahu told the officials that Israel would not have a partner for peace until the Palestinians dropped their demand for refugees to return to homes they either left or were forced out of in the war which accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948.

“Netanyahu noted that he thought dropping the ‘right of return’ was the acid test of Arab intentions and insisted that he would never allow a single Palestinian refugee to return to Israel,” the leaked cable said.

“Israel will only have a peace partner when the Palestinians drop the right of return,” it quoted him as saying, noting Israel’s rejection of the so-called Arab peace initiative because it kept the option for the right of return open.

“Asked whether Israel could accept case-by-case exceptions, Netanyahu insisted not one refugee could ever return. Israel, after all, was not asking for the right of Jews to return to Baghdad or Cairo.”

The issue of refugees is one of the thorniest elements of the conflict, with the Palestinians demanding that Israel recognise the “right of return” of refugees who, with their descendants, now number 4.7 million people.

Israel rejects the demand, saying they should be accommodated within a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu said no peace with right of return: WikiLeaks
 
Iran’s Khamenei has cancer: Wikileaks (Reuters)

29 November 2010, 3:38 PM PARIS -
US diplomatic cables released by online whistle-blower Wikileaks include remarks from an Iran source in 2009 saying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has terminal cancer, French daily Le Monde reported.
The source, a non-Iranian businessman based in Central Asia and travelling often to Tehran, “has learned from one of his contacts that (former president Ali Akbar) Rafsanjani told him Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has terminal stage leukaemia and could die in a few months”, according to an August 2009 cable.
The document, written by a US diplomat, says that Rafsanjani, a critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has expressed sympathies with Iran’s reformist movement, decided on learning of Khamenei’s illness to start preparing himself to be a successor.
As Supreme Leader since 1989 Khamenei has final say on policy in the Islamic Republic, which is locked in a stand-off with key world powers over the nature of its nuclear activities.
The document cited by Le Monde is one of thousands of cables leaked by the Wikileaks website at the weekend that reveal confidential views and information from senior US diplomats overseas that would normally remain confidential for decades. Le Monde, one of a handful of newspapers around the world given access to the cables, said the Iran documents showed Washington relied on a network of Iran-watchers in the Middle East to shed light on a country it sees as an enigma.
The United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran 30 years ago after fundamentalist students in Iran seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held staff there hostage for 444 days.
Iran’s Khamenei has cancer: Wikileaks

---------- Post added at 07:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 PM ----------

Leaked cables won’t strain Afghan-US ties: Karzai (Reuters)

29 November 2010, 3:41 PM KABUL -
Leaked diplomatic cables that describe President Hamid Karzai as “extremely weak” and his brother as a corrupt drug trafficker won’t strain ties with Washington, Karzai’s spokesman said on Wednesday.
The secret messages from Kabul to Washington also allege that a former vice-president fled the country with over $50 million in cash, cables and media reports about the cache of documents say.
Karzai’s spokesman shrugged off comments in the first round of leaks, but acknowledged there was still room for damage.
“It won’t have a noticeable effect on our broader strategic relationship with the US,” spokesman Waheed Omer told a news conference in Kabul.
“There is not much in the documents to surprise us and we don’t see anything substantive that will strain our relationship, but there is more still to come.”
Only a handful of over 250,000 documents given to a small group of international media have been released so far, but they paint a particularly negative picture of the President’s half brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, a major power broker in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
“While we must deal with AWK as the head of the Provincial Council, he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker,” says one confidential cable from Kabul, dated October 2009 and signed off by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.
The president himself appears to be dismissed as ineffectual prone to believing conspiracy theories.
“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,” Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted one undated cable description saying of the man who has ruled Afghanistan for nearly a decade.
Rifts well known
The US embassy in Kabul condemned the release but like Karzai said it would not affect the relationship.
“Our shared goals do not change based on the release of purported diplomatic reporting from the past,” Eikenberry said in a statement on Monday.
The harsh comments are unlikely to come as a surprise to many in Kabul, where tensions with the US are well known.
The most recent rift came ahead of the Lisbon summit earlier this month, when Karzai called for an end to NATO night raids. Top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus said the comments seriously undermined the war effort.
But their publication may shake up the Kabul government.
“The documents are very important and sensitive in terms of governance in Afghanistan and will raise many questions,” said Wahid Mujhda, a Kabul-based political analyst and author.
The cables also accuse the younger Karzai, who has extensive business ties as well as his official post and has long been accused of amassing a fortune from the drugs trade, of lying.
“While he presented himself as a partner to the United States and is eager to be seen as helping the coalition, he also demonstrated that he will dissemble when it suits his needs,” a cable sent after a meeting in February this year said.
“He appears not to understand the level of our knowledge of his activities, and that the coalition views many of his activities as malign,” the report added.
Ahmad Wali Karzai referred comment on the cables to a lawyer who did not immediately respond. He has always strongly denied any involvement with narcotics and the Afghan president says the accusations against him have never been proved.
Leaked cables won’t strain Afghan-US ties: Karzai
 
Iran's Ahmadinejad dismisses Wikileaks cables release
Iran's president has dismissed as propaganda the leaking of US cables detailing Arab calls for Washington to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the release by the Wikileaks website of thousands of extracts from US diplomatic messages was simply psychological warfare against Iran.

He said the release would not affect Iran's relations with other countries.

The US said the release was "reckless" and put the lives of diplomats at risk.

One Republican congressman called for Wikileaks to be designated a terrorist organisation, and the US Department of Defence says it is making its computer systems more secure to prevent future leaks.

The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, said the US authorities were afraid of being held to account.

European nations have roundly criticised the leaks, with France saying they represent a threat to democratic authority.

Pakistan's foreign ministry, meanwhile, condemned what it called "the irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents".

Among the revelations is a report that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had urged the US to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

Political goals
Mr Ahmadinejad shrugged off the leaks at a televised news conference on Monday, saying no-one should waste time reviewing the information.

"We don't think this information was leaked," he said. "We think it was organised to be released on a regular basis and they are pursuing political goals."

More: BBC News - Iran's Ahmadinejad dismisses Wikileaks cables release

Finally a shut up call for many wise guns and tanks.
 
Here is India..............

Washington: The explosive WikiLeaks hit hard the Indo-US ties as one of the disclosures revealed that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called India a ‘self appointed’ UNSC frontrunner and ordered spying of the country’s bid to become a permanent member of the body.

Hillary directed US diplomats to spy: WikiLeaks

:lol:

I like Hillary.
 
It is soooo true though haha.

Speaking of the group that's seaking UNSC permanent membership, Brazil has a bigger economy than India and better democracy (if democracy must be used as a standard to evaluate a country). Also South America is not yet represented in the UNSC council. So by all means, Brazil should be the front runner.

Here is India..............


Washington: The explosive WikiLeaks hit hard the Indo-US ties as one of the disclosures revealed that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called India a ‘self appointed’ UNSC frontrunner and ordered spying of the country’s bid to become a permanent member of the body.

Hillary directed US diplomats to spy: WikiLeaks
 
It is soooo true though haha.

Speaking of the group that's seaking UNSC permanent membership, Brazil has a bigger economy than India and better democracy (if democracy must be used as a standard to evaluate a country). Also South America is not yet represented in the UNSC council. So by all means, Brazil should be the front runner.

neither is Africa & Muslim world :woot:
 
Where the leaked cables came from
Most of the diplomatic messages released by Wikileaks have been traced to a US defence department network, known as Siprnet, used for the exchange of classified information, media reports say.

Ironically, Siprnet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network), which was set up in the 1990s, was expanded as part of moves after 9/11 to allow classified information to be shared more easily and prevent failures of communication between different intelligence agencies.

It is designed for exchange of information up to "secret" level - the level for information that would cause "serious damage" to national security.

It is thought about 2.5 million US military and civilian personnel have access to the network.

However, Siprnet is not recommended for distribution of top-secret information.

Only 6% (more than 15,000) of the documents have been classified as secret. Another 40% were "confidential", while the rest were unclassified.

Easier access

Siprnet was identified as the source of the leaked messages because they had the tag "Sipdis", meaning Siprnet Distribution, as part of address codes that headed them.

Siprnet uses the same technology as the internet, but has dedicated and encrypted lines that are separate from all other communications systems, according to a defence department users' guide.

The system is protected by a series of security measures, the guide adds:

-All users must be approved and registered
-Passwords are complex, and must be changed every 150 days
-Only accessible from specially enabled computers in secure location
-Computers must not be left unattended
-No linking to civilian internet without prior approval
-Media storage devices become classified at secret level once connected to Siprnet-enabled computers
-Audit trail of all users, including identity of all persons accessing Siprnet

However, the guide says that technological advances in storage devices have made it easier to remove classified information from secure areas.

Meanwhile the network has become easier to access around the world since 9/11.

The attacks led to the State Department setting up the net centric diplomacy initiative, allowing its own information to be shared on Siprnet.

The vast majority of US embassies are now connected up to Siprnet.

Speaking to BBC News in July, US intelligence analyst Catherine Lotrionte said data-sharing was necessary for effective intelligence work, and the risk that it might make large data breaches easier was simply "the cost of doing business - the downside is that someone may break the rules".

Military suspect
No-one has been charged with passing the diplomatic files to Wikileaks but suspicion has fallen on US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak of classified US documents.

Wikileaks has in the past denied that it received any documents from Pfc Manning, and says it is technically impossible to know if he is indeed their source.

It is alleged that an online security system to detect suspicious use of Siprnet was switched off on computers used by the US military in Iraq following complaints that it had inconvenienced them, the UK's Guardian newspaper reports.

Also, analysts say the possibility that someone in a base in Iraq could potentially access cables about Iceland violated the principle of "need to know" in intelligence, on which the Siprnet security system is supposedly based.
BBC News - Siprnet: Where the leaked cables came from
 
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