Wikileaks exposure shocks US

[sonicboom]

Wikileaks exposure shocks US


The whistle blower website, Wikileaks, published 219 out of 2.5 lakh classified US documents.

The exposure shows that how US used its diplomats to spy on foreign government.



The Wikileaks data also exposed how Pakistan blackmailed Taliban. According to the latest Wikileak released, Pakistan wanted Taliban to stop talks and keep fighting.



The Wikileaks also released US state department cable, which shows dangerous stand-off with Pakistan over Nuclear fuel.



After 9/11, United States wanted to remove the enrich uranium from Pakistan reactors as America feared that it could be used to make illegal nuclear bombs.



The Wikileaks also reveals that Saudi Arabia urged United States to attack Iran.



WikiLeaks disclosures involve 3000 cables from Delhi to 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 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.

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.




WikiLeaks lays bare nuclear standoff with Pakistan, hacking by China




The secret US diplomatic communications leaked by Wikileaks have exposed a dangerous standoff over the use of highly enriched uranium in Pakistani reactor as America fears the fuel can be used for making illicit nuclear device.



Since 2007, the US 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, said The New York Times, which was given access to the over 250,000 secret memos of the US embassies across the world by the whistle-blowing website.

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".

The diplomatic documents suggest nearly a decade after the attacks of Sep 11, 2001, the dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the US relations with the world.

The documents show that the administration of President Barack Obama has been 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 US consulate.

The US had warned the governments of India, Britian, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Israel in advance of the bombshell release of the classified documents that the leaks would damage the US relationships around the world.

State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley said: "These revelations are harmful to the US and our interests. They are going to create tension in relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world."

The White House Sunday condemned the release of secret documents as "reckless" and "dangerous".



Saudi Arabia urges US attack on Iran
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 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."

Wikileaks exposure shocks US