WikiLeaks Releases U.S. Embassy Cables
The Washington Post reports:
A vast trove of secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks expose the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy and offer bluntly candid assessments of American diplomats, according to news organizations granted advance access to the more than 250,000 confidential documents.
The documents suggest American diplomats were ordered to engage in low-level spying by obtaining personal information on foreign diplomats such as frequent flier and credit card numbers, presumably to better track their movements. The documents expose the trade-offs and diplomatic deals needed to win last year's new round of sanctions on Iran, as well as new information on how North Korea has aided Iran's missile program.
Many of the insights gleaned from the documents are not surprising by themselves. Newspapers have long reported that Arab nations are privately much more concerned about Iran's nuclear program than they admit publicly, and the cables document such concerns. But such analysis rarely has the imprimatur of a U.S. government document, and the cables quote Arab officials by name expressing concerns they would deny in public. One cable, for instance, details an offer by Saudi Arabia to supply China with oil if it supported sanctions against Iran-a rumored transaction that was always officially denied.
In what could prove deeply embarrassing to the Obama administration, the documents also contain unvarnished opinions and gossip on foreign officials. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is an "alpha-dog", Afghan president Hamid Karzai is "driven by paranoia," German Chancellor Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative," while Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.
The documents also reveal how U.S. embassies rely on foreign government officials for insight into policy. The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that "Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg tattled on his colleague German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, telling the U.S. ambassador that Westerwelle was the real barrier to the Americans' request for an increase in the number of German troops in Afghanistan."
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