Attorney General launches criminal investigation into WikiLeaks dossier as Clinton brands it 'an attack on America'
By James Chapman, Gerri Peev and Ian Drury
Daily Mail
30th November 2010
The Obama administration launched a full-bloodied assault on Wikileaks today just hours after the whistle-blowing website plunged the U.S. into an unprecedented diplomatic crisis.
As the White House began a frantic damage limitation exercise, Hillary Clinton said the government was taking 'aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.'
In a defiant press conference in Washington, the Secretary of State said: 'This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests.
'It is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.'
Despite the damage to international relations, Mrs Clinton said she was 'confident' that U.S. partnerships would withstand the diplomatic crisis.
And she joked that one senior U.S. diplomat told her: 'Don't worry, you should see what we say about you.'
Mrs Clinton will be the first American politician to gauge the international reaction to the furore for herself as she is setting off today on a potentially embarrassing tour of central Asia.
She will be at a summit which will also be attended by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and German chancellor Angela Merkel.
And she will end the four-nation tour in Bahrain by delivering a speech to Middle East leaders from many of the countries whose confidences were compromised by the leaks.
Mr Medvedev was portrayed as being the Robin to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s Batman in the Kremlin and his country was described in the leaked cables as being a ‘virtual mafia state.’
Mrs Merkel was portrayed as an unimaginative leader who ‘avoids risk and is rarely creative.’
According to one diplomatic cable, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifah told U.S. general David Petraeus that America must take whatever action was necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mrs Clinton has already apologised to Russia and Germany for the leaks, but aides fear it could still be ‘uncomfortable’ for her during the trip.
She said that she and Barack Obama were confident that the diplomatic partnerships they had built around the world would survive the embarrassing disclosures contained in the cables.
Mrs Clinton will be at a summit which will also be attended by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and German chancellor Angela Merkel.
In what appeared to be co-ordinated retaliation by the Obama administration, the Attorney General today launched a criminal investigation into the WikiLeaks dossier - the biggest intelligence leak in history.
Eric Holder pledged to prosecute those behind the publication of the confidential documents.
He said: 'To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law, they will be held responsible.'
On Capitol Hill, the reaction was less guarded.
Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate homeland security committee, said those responsible for the 'outrageous, reckless and despicable' leaks are going to have blood on their hands'.
He urged the US to do everything it could to shut down the whistle-blowing website.
According to Peter Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House intelligence committee, the documents contained a “whole number of time bombs” and he described the likely breakdown in trust between the US and other countries as a “catastrophic issue”.
Earlier a senior Republican today had urged the Attorney General to designate WikiLeaks a 'foreign terrorist organisation'.
Pete King said the website 'posed a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.'
The WikiLeaks dossier revealed U.S. embassy cables exposing everything from secret discussions on bombing Iran to 'inappropriate behaviour' by a member of the British Royal Family.
The release of the dossier prompted President Obama to order U.S. agencies this morning to urgently review their safeguards on classified information.
But it is likely to be Mrs Clinton who will be forced to bear the brunt of the international backlash.
The Secretary of State leaves Washington today on a four-nation tour of Central Asia and the Middle East - regions that figure prominently in the leaked documents.
Among the most damaging revelations is the file that showed the U.S. had ordered a spying operation on diplomats at the United Nations, in apparent breach of international law.
U.S. staff in embassies around the world were ordered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to obtain frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even iris scans, fingerprints and DNA of foreign officials.
WikiLeaks ignored a last-minute warning from the Obama administration that going ahead with publication of the first tranche of 250,000 classified documents would put 'many lives at risk'.
Yesterday the WikiLeaks website crashed.
In a Twitter statement the organisation said it had suffered a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack - ie an effort to make the site unavailable to users, usually by flooding it with requests for data.
But the damaging disclosures were already being published by international media.
Experts warned the revelation of repeated private calls from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme and 'cut off the head of the snake' risked destablising the Middle East.
President Barack Obama is revealed in one damaging cable as having 'no feelings for Europe' and preferring to 'look East rather than West'.
Others reveal withering assessments of the U.S. of a long list of world leaders.
The U.S. branded France's President Nicola Sarkozy an 'emperor with no clothes' with a 'thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style', Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as an 'alpha dog' and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as 'Hitler'.
Damage control: L-R David Cameron, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the Nato summit in Lisbon on November 19. The new WikiLeaks release is set to put strain on the 'special' relationship
Silvio Berlusconi of Italy's 'wild parties' were described by U.S. diplomats, who called him 'feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader'.
Another dispatch from Rome recorded the view that he was a 'physically and politically weak' leader whose 'frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest'.
Detailed in another document was Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi's fondness for a 'voluptuous' Ukranian blonde he apparently employs as a 'nursing sister' and who accompanies him everywhere.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is damned as 'risk aversive and rarely creative', while Dmitry Medvedev of Russia is a 'pale, hesitant' figure who 'plays Robin to Putin's Batman'.
WHAT AMERICA THINKS OF LEADERS AROUND THE WORLD
French President Nicolas Sarkozy: ‘has a thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style’ and is an ‘emperor with no clothes’
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: ‘feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader’. He is a ‘physically and politically weak’ leader whose ‘frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest’
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: ‘plays Robin to Putin’s Batman’ and is ‘pale and hesitant’
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: an ‘alpha dog’
Chancellor Angela Merkel: ‘avoids risks and is rarely creative’
Iranian President Mahmoud Amhadinejad: like ‘Hitler’
Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi: is ‘strange’ and ‘accompanied by voluptuous blonde Ukranian “nurse”’
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: governs with ‘a cabal of incompetent advisors’
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il: ‘flabby old chap’ who suffers from ‘physical and psychological trauma’
Afghan president, Hamid Karzai: ‘driven by paranoia’ and ‘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’
Zimbabwean tyrant, Robert Mugabe: ‘the crazy old man’
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is said to 'float along on paranoia' and is dismissed 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'.
Kim Jong-il, the ailing dictator of North Korea is described as a 'flabby old chap' who had suffered 'physical and psychological trauma'.
The White House has slammed the decision to publish the information.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama supports open and accountable government, but the WikiLeaks was being 'reckless and dangerous'.
'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,' Gibbs said. 'We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.'
Today desperate efforts were being made on both sides of the Atlantic to shore up the special relationship in the wake of the revelations about the U.S. assessment of Britain.
There were no further details of the claims concerning the member of the British royal family or of the requests for intelligence about MPs, expected to emerge in the days ahead.
Criticism of British operations in Afghanistan were however said to be 'devastating', putting the U.S.-UK alliance under strain.
Remarks concerning Mr Cameron, who was said to have been deemed a 'lightweight' by U.S. President Barack Obama when the two first met, were described as 'serious political criticisms'.
The Obama administration told whistleblower WikiLeaks that its release of classified State Department cables will put 'countless' lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardise U.S. relations with its allies.
The State Department released a letter from Harold Koh, its top lawyer, to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his attorney telling them that publication of the documents would be illegal and demanding that they stop it
He said the move would 'place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals', 'place at risk on-going military operations,'and 'place at risk on-going cooperation between countries.'
'They were provided in violation of U.S. law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action,' he said.
The White House said that the disclosure of confidential diplomatic communications would 'deeply impact' U.S. foreign interests.
In London, the Foreign Office also condemned the leaks and was forced to insist they would not undermine the special relationship between the U.S. and UK.
'We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK,' a spokesman said.
'They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the U.S. have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the U.S. Government. That will continue.'
Italy's foreign minister Franco Frattini said the files would 'blow up the relationship of trust between states', adding: 'It will be the September 11th of world diplomacy.'
The U.S. says it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables. No one has been charged with passing them to the website, but suspicion focuses on Welsh-born U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak.
He told a fellow hacker he would come into work with a CD labelled 'Lady Gaga' and downloaded intelligence in 'possibly the largest data spillage in American history'.
Manning is said to have told a fellow hacker: 'Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain.'
Intended to be read by officials in Washington up to the level of the Secretary of State, the cables are generally drafted by the ambassador or subordinates.
They are marked 'Sipidis' - secret internet protocol distribution - and are classified at various levels. The most sensitive are marked 'SECRET NOFORN' [no foreigners].
Wikileaks claimed last night it had come under attack from a computer-hacking operation ahead of the release of secret U.S. documents.
'We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack,' it said on its Twitter feed.
Hillary Clinton's orders to U.S. diplomats to spy on UN
Hillary Clinton ordered American officials to spy on high ranking UN diplomats, including British representatives.
Top secret cables revealed that Mrs Clinton, the Secretary of State, even ordered diplomats to obtain DNA data – including iris scans and fingerprints - as well as credit card and frequent flier numbers.
All permanent members of the security council – including Russia, China, France and the UK – were targeted by the secret spying mission, as well as the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon.
Work schedules, email addresses, fax numbers, website identifiers and mobile numbers were also demanded by Washington.
The US also wanted ‘biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives’.
The request could break international law and threatens to derail any trust between the US and other powerful nations.
Requests for IT related information – such as details of passwords, personal encryption keys and network upgrades - could also raise suspicions that the US was preparing to mount a hacking operation.
It is set to lead to international calls for Mrs Clinton to resign.
MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS: ARAB CALLS FOR U.S. TO ATTACK IRAN
Arab leaders urged the U.S. to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons programme.
Saudi Arabia 'frequently exhorted' Washington to launch an air strike against the regime in Tehran, according to leaked documents.
In a report of a 2008 meeting with U.S. General David Petraeus, the Saudi ambassador to Washington said King Abdullah wanted the White House 'to cut the head off the snake' before Iran developed nuclear weapons and threatened its neighbours in the Middle East.
The secret document revealed that the Saudis demanded 'severe U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending'.
It added that 'the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out'.
King Abdullah was backed by the King of Bahrain who warned in a cable: 'The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.'
And the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed, told the U.S. that he believed that Iran's tyrannical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 'going to take us to war'.
The revelations will reverberate around the world and are likely to ratchet up tension in the Middle East.
The statements will bolster the case of Israeli and U.S. hawks who believe an attack against Iran will be necessary during the near future.
But they will also provoke President Ahmadinejad - referred to in one missive as 'Hitler' - to press on with his nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed earlier this year that Iran had produced its first small batch of higher-grade enriched uranium - stoking fears it was secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons capacity.
The cables also included a U.S. assessment that Iran was attempting to adapt rockets from North Korea for use as long-range ballistic missiles that could strike capitals in Western European.
The fishing expedition was ordered by Mrs Clinton in July 2009, but followed similar demands made by her predecessor, Condoleeza Rice.
Mrs Clinton called for biometric details ‘on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders’.
She also wanted intelligence on Ban Ki-Moon’s ‘management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat’.
Cables were sent to US embassies in the UN, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
America has always handed over information about top foreign officials to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
But the request by Mrs Clinton paves the way for officials to be more closely spied upon, with even their travel plans tracked by US diplomats.
In what could discredit the US’s role in the Middle East peace process, missions in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were asked to gather biometric information ‘on key Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders and representatives, to include the young guard inside Gaza, the West Bank’.
Details of the US spying mission were sent to the CIA, the US Secret Service and the FBI under the heading ‘collection requirements and tasking’.
International treaties ban spying at the UN.
The 1946 UN convention on privileges and immunities states: ‘The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action.’
The American ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman said he ‘condemned’ the disclosures and that the US government was ‘taking steps to prevent future security breaches’.
He also claimed the disclosures had 'the very real potential to harm innocent people" but insisted the cables ‘should not be seen as representing US policy on their own’.
He said the leaks were ‘harmful to the US and our interests’ adding, ‘However, I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the UK will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values.
US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mrs Clinton had warned leaders in Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and China about the cables, revealed by investigators at the Wikileaks website.
Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland had also been warned.
THE 'HOT-HEADED LONER': BRADLEY MANNING
The prime suspect for the latest leaks is U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning, a 'hot-headed loner' who grew up in Britain.
The 23-year-old military intelligence officer was arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier disclosure to WikiLeaks.
American prosecutors have accused Private First Class Manning of leaking a copy of a classified video showing a U.S. helicopter gunship attack in Baghdad in July 2007 which killed two journalists and a civilian.
The video - dubbed 'Collateral Murder' - was the first big scoop for the whistleblowers' website. It was among 200,000 secret cables leaked.
Pfc Manning, who was assigned to a support battalion with the U.S. 10th Mountain Division in Iraq, has been charged with 'transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system' and 'communicating, transmitting and delivering national defence information to an unauthorized source'.
Held at Quantico Marine Barracks in Virginia, he faces a maximum 52 years in jail.
U.S. believe Pfc Manning was behind the leaks of war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the top secret State Department missives.
It is a far cry from the 'quiet nerd' who went to school in Haverfordwest, in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where his seriously-ill mother Susan still lives.
Mrs Manning had moved to the U.S in 1979 after marrying Bradley's father Brian Manning, a former serviceman who was based at Cawdor Barracks, near the Welsh town.
Her son was born in Oklahoma but after the couple divorced acrimoniously in 2001 she moved back to Wales with him. He sat GCSEs at the Tasker Milward secondary school in Haverfordwest.
Former classmates described him as 'hot-headed' and a computer nerd'.
One, Jenna Morris, a 23-year-old sales manager, said: 'He was a quiet lad and he'd had a tough upbringing.
'He had a tough time when he came back here with his mum because moving to another country after a break-up was hard. He was quite a loner and he didn’t really have a lot of friends. He had quite a bit of trouble at school and was picked on.'
He returned to America after dropping out of school, moving in with his father and getting a job as a £4.14-an-hour greeter at an Incredible Pizza restaurant. He later joined the U.S. Army.
Deployed to Iraq, he posted a series of downbeat musings on the Facebook website.
On January 12, he wrote: 'Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast.'
In an apparent swipe at the U.S. Army, he also wrote: 'Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment.'
He was arrested in June after American journalist Adrian Lamo told the authorities that Pfc Manning, with whom he had been talking, was the source of the leaks. Lamo said he had come forward as an act of conscience.
THE 'INFORMATION ACTIVIST': JULIAN ASSANGE
He describes himself as an ‘information activist’ who performs a vital public duty by placing powerful organisations, including governments, defence departments and big businesses, under the cold stare of scrutiny.
But the elusive Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing website, has met a storm of protest this year over his controversial decision to disclose countless secret U.S. documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Assange, 39, himself admits his uncompromising stance means WikiLeaks may end up with ‘blood on our hands’. But this concern has not stopped him.
He was born in Townsville, Queensland, northern Australia, in 1971, to two peace activists who met at a demonstration against the Vietnam War.
He had an unstable childhood, attending 37 different schools as a child, moving often because his mother ran a touring theatre and puppet company.
By the time he was 16, he had developed an obsession with computers and had joined a group of hackers who called themselves the International Subversives, who broke into the Nasa and U.S. Department of Defence’s databases.
He first ran into trouble with the authorities for his online activities in 1995 when he pleaded guilty to hacking activities in Australia, receiving a small fine.
Eleven years later Mr Assange, who studied pure maths and physics at the University of Melbourne, began WikiLeaks with a group of like-minded people.
Possessing no offices nor paid employees, it was a web-based ‘dead-letterbox’ for would-be leakers. Key members - except the increasingly high-profile Mr Assange - are known by code letters.
Information sent to its website is directed to a computer in Sweden, then bounced to another internet server in Belgium, before being downloaded at other locations. It is designed to make the origin of the leaks untraceable.
It claims to be funded by ‘human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public’.
Recognisable by his shock of white hair, Assnage is convinced he is under surveillance by the U.S. authorities and refuses to travel to America for fear of arrest.
Despite his recent public appearances, he is rarely seen in public. Something of a nomad, he has no home address and prefers lodging with fellow activists. He carries a blue rucksack containing mobile phones, computer equipment and clothes.
He is believed to live in Britain but has popped up in Iceland and Sweden, where internet anonymity is enshrined in law. But a visit to Sweden in August led to unsavoury allegations he had raped and sexually assaulted two women.
Last week a court in Stockholm rejected his appeal against a detention order in the cases.
Mr Assange insists the claims are part if a smear campaign. London lawyer Mark Stephens has said the claims are ‘false and without basis’.
Daily Mail
30th November 2010
The Obama administration launched a full-bloodied assault on Wikileaks today just hours after the whistle-blowing website plunged the U.S. into an unprecedented diplomatic crisis.
As the White House began a frantic damage limitation exercise, Hillary Clinton said the government was taking 'aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.'
In a defiant press conference in Washington, the Secretary of State said: 'This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests.
'It is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.'
Despite the damage to international relations, Mrs Clinton said she was 'confident' that U.S. partnerships would withstand the diplomatic crisis.
And she joked that one senior U.S. diplomat told her: 'Don't worry, you should see what we say about you.'
Mrs Clinton will be the first American politician to gauge the international reaction to the furore for herself as she is setting off today on a potentially embarrassing tour of central Asia.
She will be at a summit which will also be attended by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and German chancellor Angela Merkel.
And she will end the four-nation tour in Bahrain by delivering a speech to Middle East leaders from many of the countries whose confidences were compromised by the leaks.
Mr Medvedev was portrayed as being the Robin to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s Batman in the Kremlin and his country was described in the leaked cables as being a ‘virtual mafia state.’
Mrs Merkel was portrayed as an unimaginative leader who ‘avoids risk and is rarely creative.’
According to one diplomatic cable, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifah told U.S. general David Petraeus that America must take whatever action was necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mrs Clinton has already apologised to Russia and Germany for the leaks, but aides fear it could still be ‘uncomfortable’ for her during the trip.
She said that she and Barack Obama were confident that the diplomatic partnerships they had built around the world would survive the embarrassing disclosures contained in the cables.
Mrs Clinton will be at a summit which will also be attended by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and German chancellor Angela Merkel.
In what appeared to be co-ordinated retaliation by the Obama administration, the Attorney General today launched a criminal investigation into the WikiLeaks dossier - the biggest intelligence leak in history.
Eric Holder pledged to prosecute those behind the publication of the confidential documents.
He said: 'To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law, they will be held responsible.'
On Capitol Hill, the reaction was less guarded.
Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate homeland security committee, said those responsible for the 'outrageous, reckless and despicable' leaks are going to have blood on their hands'.
He urged the US to do everything it could to shut down the whistle-blowing website.
According to Peter Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House intelligence committee, the documents contained a “whole number of time bombs” and he described the likely breakdown in trust between the US and other countries as a “catastrophic issue”.
Earlier a senior Republican today had urged the Attorney General to designate WikiLeaks a 'foreign terrorist organisation'.
Pete King said the website 'posed a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.'
The WikiLeaks dossier revealed U.S. embassy cables exposing everything from secret discussions on bombing Iran to 'inappropriate behaviour' by a member of the British Royal Family.
The release of the dossier prompted President Obama to order U.S. agencies this morning to urgently review their safeguards on classified information.
But it is likely to be Mrs Clinton who will be forced to bear the brunt of the international backlash.
The Secretary of State leaves Washington today on a four-nation tour of Central Asia and the Middle East - regions that figure prominently in the leaked documents.
Among the most damaging revelations is the file that showed the U.S. had ordered a spying operation on diplomats at the United Nations, in apparent breach of international law.
U.S. staff in embassies around the world were ordered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to obtain frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even iris scans, fingerprints and DNA of foreign officials.
WikiLeaks ignored a last-minute warning from the Obama administration that going ahead with publication of the first tranche of 250,000 classified documents would put 'many lives at risk'.
Yesterday the WikiLeaks website crashed.
In a Twitter statement the organisation said it had suffered a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack - ie an effort to make the site unavailable to users, usually by flooding it with requests for data.
But the damaging disclosures were already being published by international media.
Experts warned the revelation of repeated private calls from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme and 'cut off the head of the snake' risked destablising the Middle East.
President Barack Obama is revealed in one damaging cable as having 'no feelings for Europe' and preferring to 'look East rather than West'.
Others reveal withering assessments of the U.S. of a long list of world leaders.
The U.S. branded France's President Nicola Sarkozy an 'emperor with no clothes' with a 'thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style', Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as an 'alpha dog' and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as 'Hitler'.
Damage control: L-R David Cameron, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the Nato summit in Lisbon on November 19. The new WikiLeaks release is set to put strain on the 'special' relationship
Silvio Berlusconi of Italy's 'wild parties' were described by U.S. diplomats, who called him 'feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader'.
Another dispatch from Rome recorded the view that he was a 'physically and politically weak' leader whose 'frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest'.
Detailed in another document was Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi's fondness for a 'voluptuous' Ukranian blonde he apparently employs as a 'nursing sister' and who accompanies him everywhere.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is damned as 'risk aversive and rarely creative', while Dmitry Medvedev of Russia is a 'pale, hesitant' figure who 'plays Robin to Putin's Batman'.
WHAT AMERICA THINKS OF LEADERS AROUND THE WORLD
French President Nicolas Sarkozy: ‘has a thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style’ and is an ‘emperor with no clothes’
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: ‘feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader’. He is a ‘physically and politically weak’ leader whose ‘frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest’
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: ‘plays Robin to Putin’s Batman’ and is ‘pale and hesitant’
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: an ‘alpha dog’
Chancellor Angela Merkel: ‘avoids risks and is rarely creative’
Iranian President Mahmoud Amhadinejad: like ‘Hitler’
Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi: is ‘strange’ and ‘accompanied by voluptuous blonde Ukranian “nurse”’
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: governs with ‘a cabal of incompetent advisors’
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il: ‘flabby old chap’ who suffers from ‘physical and psychological trauma’
Afghan president, Hamid Karzai: ‘driven by paranoia’ and ‘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’
Zimbabwean tyrant, Robert Mugabe: ‘the crazy old man’
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is said to 'float along on paranoia' and is dismissed 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'.
Kim Jong-il, the ailing dictator of North Korea is described as a 'flabby old chap' who had suffered 'physical and psychological trauma'.
The White House has slammed the decision to publish the information.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama supports open and accountable government, but the WikiLeaks was being 'reckless and dangerous'.
'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,' Gibbs said. 'We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.'
Today desperate efforts were being made on both sides of the Atlantic to shore up the special relationship in the wake of the revelations about the U.S. assessment of Britain.
There were no further details of the claims concerning the member of the British royal family or of the requests for intelligence about MPs, expected to emerge in the days ahead.
Criticism of British operations in Afghanistan were however said to be 'devastating', putting the U.S.-UK alliance under strain.
Remarks concerning Mr Cameron, who was said to have been deemed a 'lightweight' by U.S. President Barack Obama when the two first met, were described as 'serious political criticisms'.
The Obama administration told whistleblower WikiLeaks that its release of classified State Department cables will put 'countless' lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardise U.S. relations with its allies.
The State Department released a letter from Harold Koh, its top lawyer, to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his attorney telling them that publication of the documents would be illegal and demanding that they stop it
He said the move would 'place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals', 'place at risk on-going military operations,'and 'place at risk on-going cooperation between countries.'
'They were provided in violation of U.S. law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action,' he said.
The White House said that the disclosure of confidential diplomatic communications would 'deeply impact' U.S. foreign interests.
In London, the Foreign Office also condemned the leaks and was forced to insist they would not undermine the special relationship between the U.S. and UK.
'We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK,' a spokesman said.
'They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the U.S. have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the U.S. Government. That will continue.'
Italy's foreign minister Franco Frattini said the files would 'blow up the relationship of trust between states', adding: 'It will be the September 11th of world diplomacy.'
The U.S. says it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables. No one has been charged with passing them to the website, but suspicion focuses on Welsh-born U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak.
He told a fellow hacker he would come into work with a CD labelled 'Lady Gaga' and downloaded intelligence in 'possibly the largest data spillage in American history'.
Manning is said to have told a fellow hacker: 'Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain.'
Intended to be read by officials in Washington up to the level of the Secretary of State, the cables are generally drafted by the ambassador or subordinates.
They are marked 'Sipidis' - secret internet protocol distribution - and are classified at various levels. The most sensitive are marked 'SECRET NOFORN' [no foreigners].
Wikileaks claimed last night it had come under attack from a computer-hacking operation ahead of the release of secret U.S. documents.
'We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack,' it said on its Twitter feed.
Hillary Clinton's orders to U.S. diplomats to spy on UN
Hillary Clinton ordered American officials to spy on high ranking UN diplomats, including British representatives.
Top secret cables revealed that Mrs Clinton, the Secretary of State, even ordered diplomats to obtain DNA data – including iris scans and fingerprints - as well as credit card and frequent flier numbers.
All permanent members of the security council – including Russia, China, France and the UK – were targeted by the secret spying mission, as well as the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon.
Work schedules, email addresses, fax numbers, website identifiers and mobile numbers were also demanded by Washington.
The US also wanted ‘biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives’.
The request could break international law and threatens to derail any trust between the US and other powerful nations.
Requests for IT related information – such as details of passwords, personal encryption keys and network upgrades - could also raise suspicions that the US was preparing to mount a hacking operation.
It is set to lead to international calls for Mrs Clinton to resign.
MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS: ARAB CALLS FOR U.S. TO ATTACK IRAN
Arab leaders urged the U.S. to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons programme.
Saudi Arabia 'frequently exhorted' Washington to launch an air strike against the regime in Tehran, according to leaked documents.
In a report of a 2008 meeting with U.S. General David Petraeus, the Saudi ambassador to Washington said King Abdullah wanted the White House 'to cut the head off the snake' before Iran developed nuclear weapons and threatened its neighbours in the Middle East.
The secret document revealed that the Saudis demanded 'severe U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending'.
It added that 'the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out'.
King Abdullah was backed by the King of Bahrain who warned in a cable: 'The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.'
And the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed, told the U.S. that he believed that Iran's tyrannical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 'going to take us to war'.
The revelations will reverberate around the world and are likely to ratchet up tension in the Middle East.
The statements will bolster the case of Israeli and U.S. hawks who believe an attack against Iran will be necessary during the near future.
But they will also provoke President Ahmadinejad - referred to in one missive as 'Hitler' - to press on with his nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed earlier this year that Iran had produced its first small batch of higher-grade enriched uranium - stoking fears it was secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons capacity.
The cables also included a U.S. assessment that Iran was attempting to adapt rockets from North Korea for use as long-range ballistic missiles that could strike capitals in Western European.
The fishing expedition was ordered by Mrs Clinton in July 2009, but followed similar demands made by her predecessor, Condoleeza Rice.
Mrs Clinton called for biometric details ‘on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders’.
She also wanted intelligence on Ban Ki-Moon’s ‘management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat’.
Cables were sent to US embassies in the UN, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
America has always handed over information about top foreign officials to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
But the request by Mrs Clinton paves the way for officials to be more closely spied upon, with even their travel plans tracked by US diplomats.
In what could discredit the US’s role in the Middle East peace process, missions in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were asked to gather biometric information ‘on key Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders and representatives, to include the young guard inside Gaza, the West Bank’.
Details of the US spying mission were sent to the CIA, the US Secret Service and the FBI under the heading ‘collection requirements and tasking’.
International treaties ban spying at the UN.
The 1946 UN convention on privileges and immunities states: ‘The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action.’
The American ambassador to Britain, Louis Susman said he ‘condemned’ the disclosures and that the US government was ‘taking steps to prevent future security breaches’.
He also claimed the disclosures had 'the very real potential to harm innocent people" but insisted the cables ‘should not be seen as representing US policy on their own’.
He said the leaks were ‘harmful to the US and our interests’ adding, ‘However, I am confident that our uniquely productive relationship with the UK will remain close and strong, focused on promoting our shared objectives and values.
US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Mrs Clinton had warned leaders in Britain, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan and China about the cables, revealed by investigators at the Wikileaks website.
Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland had also been warned.
THE 'HOT-HEADED LONER': BRADLEY MANNING
The prime suspect for the latest leaks is U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning, a 'hot-headed loner' who grew up in Britain.
The 23-year-old military intelligence officer was arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier disclosure to WikiLeaks.
American prosecutors have accused Private First Class Manning of leaking a copy of a classified video showing a U.S. helicopter gunship attack in Baghdad in July 2007 which killed two journalists and a civilian.
The video - dubbed 'Collateral Murder' - was the first big scoop for the whistleblowers' website. It was among 200,000 secret cables leaked.
Pfc Manning, who was assigned to a support battalion with the U.S. 10th Mountain Division in Iraq, has been charged with 'transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system' and 'communicating, transmitting and delivering national defence information to an unauthorized source'.
Held at Quantico Marine Barracks in Virginia, he faces a maximum 52 years in jail.
U.S. believe Pfc Manning was behind the leaks of war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the top secret State Department missives.
It is a far cry from the 'quiet nerd' who went to school in Haverfordwest, in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where his seriously-ill mother Susan still lives.
Mrs Manning had moved to the U.S in 1979 after marrying Bradley's father Brian Manning, a former serviceman who was based at Cawdor Barracks, near the Welsh town.
Her son was born in Oklahoma but after the couple divorced acrimoniously in 2001 she moved back to Wales with him. He sat GCSEs at the Tasker Milward secondary school in Haverfordwest.
Former classmates described him as 'hot-headed' and a computer nerd'.
One, Jenna Morris, a 23-year-old sales manager, said: 'He was a quiet lad and he'd had a tough upbringing.
'He had a tough time when he came back here with his mum because moving to another country after a break-up was hard. He was quite a loner and he didn’t really have a lot of friends. He had quite a bit of trouble at school and was picked on.'
He returned to America after dropping out of school, moving in with his father and getting a job as a £4.14-an-hour greeter at an Incredible Pizza restaurant. He later joined the U.S. Army.
Deployed to Iraq, he posted a series of downbeat musings on the Facebook website.
On January 12, he wrote: 'Bradley Manning didn't want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast.'
In an apparent swipe at the U.S. Army, he also wrote: 'Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment.'
He was arrested in June after American journalist Adrian Lamo told the authorities that Pfc Manning, with whom he had been talking, was the source of the leaks. Lamo said he had come forward as an act of conscience.
THE 'INFORMATION ACTIVIST': JULIAN ASSANGE
He describes himself as an ‘information activist’ who performs a vital public duty by placing powerful organisations, including governments, defence departments and big businesses, under the cold stare of scrutiny.
But the elusive Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowing website, has met a storm of protest this year over his controversial decision to disclose countless secret U.S. documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Assange, 39, himself admits his uncompromising stance means WikiLeaks may end up with ‘blood on our hands’. But this concern has not stopped him.
He was born in Townsville, Queensland, northern Australia, in 1971, to two peace activists who met at a demonstration against the Vietnam War.
He had an unstable childhood, attending 37 different schools as a child, moving often because his mother ran a touring theatre and puppet company.
By the time he was 16, he had developed an obsession with computers and had joined a group of hackers who called themselves the International Subversives, who broke into the Nasa and U.S. Department of Defence’s databases.
He first ran into trouble with the authorities for his online activities in 1995 when he pleaded guilty to hacking activities in Australia, receiving a small fine.
Eleven years later Mr Assange, who studied pure maths and physics at the University of Melbourne, began WikiLeaks with a group of like-minded people.
Possessing no offices nor paid employees, it was a web-based ‘dead-letterbox’ for would-be leakers. Key members - except the increasingly high-profile Mr Assange - are known by code letters.
Information sent to its website is directed to a computer in Sweden, then bounced to another internet server in Belgium, before being downloaded at other locations. It is designed to make the origin of the leaks untraceable.
It claims to be funded by ‘human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public’.
Recognisable by his shock of white hair, Assnage is convinced he is under surveillance by the U.S. authorities and refuses to travel to America for fear of arrest.
Despite his recent public appearances, he is rarely seen in public. Something of a nomad, he has no home address and prefers lodging with fellow activists. He carries a blue rucksack containing mobile phones, computer equipment and clothes.
He is believed to live in Britain but has popped up in Iceland and Sweden, where internet anonymity is enshrined in law. But a visit to Sweden in August led to unsavoury allegations he had raped and sexually assaulted two women.
Last week a court in Stockholm rejected his appeal against a detention order in the cases.
Mr Assange insists the claims are part if a smear campaign. London lawyer Mark Stephens has said the claims are ‘false and without basis’.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 12:07 PM
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