US Embassy Secrets

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Wikileaks Releases U.S. Diplomatic Cables

November 2010

Amerian military intelligence analyst gave secret files to Wikileaks. He is under arrest.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that U.S. military officer Bradley Manning who copied millions of secret document is 'unparalleled hero'.

U.S. Lawmakers want Wikileaks to be placed on terror list for aiding terrorists.

But Iran said WikiLeaks reports are 'worthless'. President Ahmadinejad dismissed the documents released saying its all 'mischief" which would not affect Tehran's relations with its Arab neighbours.

FULL COVERAGE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables

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ITN - 28 Nov 2010 8pm GMT

Wikileaks bombshell sparks diplomatic crisis

Thousands of confidential US State Department documents have been released by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

The explosive revelations contained in 250,000 diplomatic cables are threatening to start a global diplomatic crisis.

The leak of the material has been strongly condemned by the US and British governments.

The Guardian is one of five newspapers to have had access to the cables, along with the New York Times, Der Spiegel in Germany, Le Monde in France and El Pais in Spain.

The Guardian said that the newspapers which had seen the leaks planned to publish extracts from the most significant cables but did not intend to "dump" the entire database into the public domain or to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals.

The White House said that the disclosure of confidential diplomatic communications on the front pages of newspapers around the world would "deeply impact" US foreign interests.

"To be clear - such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

He added: "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."

The Foreign Office said: "We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK".

"They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the US have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the US Government. That will continue."


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Wikileaks: the claims

According to newspaper websites, the classified US Government documents released by WikiLeaks include claims of:

- "Inappropriate behaviour" by a member of the Royal Family.

- Requests for "specific intelligence" about British MPs.

- "Devastating" criticisms of British operations in Iraq.

- "Serious political criticisms" of Prime Minister David Cameron.

- US diplomats pressuring countries to resettle former Guantanamo detainees.

- "Grave fears" in London and Washington over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

- "Harsh" criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, including Russia and China.

- Alleged links between the Russian government and organised crime.

- Details of countries involved in financing terrorist groups.

- Reports of a near environmental "disaster" involving a rogue shipment of enriched uranium.

- Technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva.

- Secret US efforts to combat al-Qaeda in Yemen.

- A description of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who is said to be accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.

- Reports that the King of Bahrein and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urged the Americans to take military action to halt Iran's nuclear programme.

- US assessments that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could enable it to strike European capitals.

- Secret - and so far unsuccessful - US efforts to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani research reactor amid fears it could be diverted for use in an illegal nuclear device.

- Conversations between American and South Korean officials over the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead it to "implode".

- A global campaign of computer sabotage by Chinese government agents.

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WikiLeaks: US 'urged to strike Iran'

Arab rulers secretly lobbied America to launch air strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.

Details from 250,000 leaked United States embassy cables obtained by the WikiLeaks whistleblowers website have been published by a number of newspapers given advance sight of the material, including The Guardian.

The newspaper said it would be publishing details later in the week of cables relating to the UK - including allegations of "inappropriate behaviour" by a member of the Royal Family which was said to have "startled" US diplomats.

There was no immediate response from Buckingham Palace to a report that the member of the Royal Family involved in allegations of "inappropriate behaviour" was the Duke of York.

The WikiLeaks documents are also said to include "serious political criticism" of David Cameron and "devastating criticism" of British military operations in Afghanistan.

Potentially most seriously of all for the UK, The Guardian said that the cables included requests for "specific intelligence" about British MPs.

Both the British and US governments have strongly condemned the leaks while insisting that they would not damage relations between the two countries.

The most striking of the initial disclosures is that Arab leaders have been privately urging the US to take military action to halt Iran's nuclear programme before it is too late.

The King of Bahrain was quoted as telling US diplomats that Tehran's nuclear drive "must be stopped". In another cable, he was said to have warned: "The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it".

He was said to have been backed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who was said to have repeatedly urged Washington to "cut off the head of the snake" while there was still time.

The cables were also said include "harsh" criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, including Russia and China, and unflattering pen portraits of world leaders.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin is described as "alpha dog" and the cables are said to detail alleged links between the government in Moscow and organised crime.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai was said to be "driven by paranoia" while German chancellor Angela Merkel "avoids risks and is rarely creative". Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is compared to Hitler.

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Wikileaks releases US State Department files

Thousands of confidential US State Department documents have been released by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

The documents show that Saudi donors remain chief financiers of militant groups like al-Qaeda and that Chinese government operatives have waged a co-ordinated campaign of computer sabotage targeting the United States and its allies, according to newspaper reports.

The Pentagon has condemned the website's release of classified documents to newspapers as "reckless" and said it was taking steps to bolster security of classified US military networks.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the US Defense Department "has undertaken a series of actions to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future", citing steps to prevent the downloading of classified computer data to removable devices.

The US administration's unflattering assessment of David Cameron is set to be made public by the Guardian.

Journalist Simon Hoggart said: "There is going to be some embarrassment certainly for Gordon Brown but even more so for David Cameron who was not very highly regarded by the Obama administration or by the US ambassador here."

The US administration has warned that the release of the files would put "countless" lives at risk, threaten global counter-terrorism operations and jeopardise America's relations with its allies.

The Foreign Office said in a statement: "We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK."

"They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the US have said, may put lives at risk.

"We have a very strong relationship with the US Government. That will continue."

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AFP

WikiLeaks unleashes a flood of damaging US cables

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks has unleashed a flood of US cables detailing shocking diplomatic episodes, from a nuclear standoff with Pakistan to Arab leaders urging a strike on Iran.

The leaked memos describe a Chinese government bid to hack into Google; plans to reunite the Korean peninsula after the North's eventual collapse; Saudi Arabia's king's call to the US to bomb Iran to halt its nuclear drive.

The documents also showed that Israel discussed its planned war on Gaza with the Palestinian leadership and Egypt ahead of time, offering to hand them control of the strip if it defeated Hamas.

The confidential cables, most of which date from 2007 to February this year, also reveal how the State Department has ordered diplomats to spy on foreign officials and even to obtain their credit card and frequent flier numbers.

The memos, released on Sunday, recount closed-door remarks such as Yemen's president telling a top US general: "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours" when discussing secretive US strikes on Al-Qaeda.

A description of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said he required the near-constant assistance of a "voluptuous blond" Ukrainian nurse.

The Guardian newspaper reported that a classified directive sent to US diplomats under US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009 sought technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials.

The directive also sought intelligence on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's "management and decision-making style," said to the report.

UN officials declined to comment.

In another document, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told his French counterpart that Israel could strike Iran without US military support but the operation might not be successful.

The New York Times, Britain's The Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, France's Le Monde and Spain's El Pais published the first batch of the documents on Sunday, saying more would follow in the coming days.

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange described the release as a "diplomatic history of the United States" that would cover "every major issue."

Despite coming under a cyber attack that took down its main website earlier in the day, WikiLeaks started publishing the 251,287 cables -- 15,652 of which are classified "secret" -- from 274 US embassies around the world on a sub-website http://cablegate.wikileaks.org.

In an introduction, it painted the United States as a hypocritical superpower and attacked "the contradictions between the US's public persona and what it says behind closed doors."

The White House hit back, saying the release was a "reckless and dangerous action" that put lives in danger.

"To be clear -- such disclosures put at risk 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 press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

The Pentagon, already infuriated by the website's publication of secret Afghanistan and Iraq war logs earlier this year, unveiled new steps to prevent future leaks.

US officials had raced to contain the diplomatic fallout by warning more than a dozen governments of the impending leaks, but Washington refused to negotiate with WikiLeaks, saying it had obtained the cables illegally.

Assange has denied the release of the documents placed individuals at risk.

"As far as we are aware, and as far as anyone has ever alleged in any credible manner whatsoever, no single individual has ever come to harm as a result of anything that we have ever published," he said Sunday.

The New York Times explained its decision to publish the cables by saying they "serve an important public interest."

The newspaper said it had "taken care to exclude... information that would endanger confidential informants or compromise national security".

It had consulted White House officials on sensitive issues but reserved the final decision to itself, it said.

The Guardian said all five papers had decided "neither to 'dump' the entire dataset into the public domain, nor to publish names that would endanger innocent individuals."

But one Saudi government advisor told AFP: "The whole thing is very negative.

"It's not good for confidence-building," he said on condition of anonymity.

US officials have not confirmed the source of the leaks, but suspicion has fallen on Bradley Manning, a former army intelligence agent arrested after the release of a video showing air strikes that killed reporters in Iraq.

WikiLeaks argues that the first two document dumps -- nearly 500,000 US military incident reports from 2004 to 2009 -- shed light on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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WikiLeaks 'Should Be A Terror Organisation'

An American politician has called for WikiLeaks to be designated a terrorist organisation following the release of the latest batch of leaked documents.

New York Republican Peter King said the organisation was a "clear and present danger" to the US.

"WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States," he said. "I strongly urge you (Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton) to work within the Administration to use every offensive capability of the US government to prevent further damaging releases by WikiLeaks."

The Foreign Office said the actions of WikiLeaks risked British lives and security.

"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 US have said, may put lives at risk."

The White House was also critical of the leak of US cables.

"These cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only US foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world," a spokesman said.

"Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world."

Roger Cressey, a former US cyber and counter-terrorism official, said the leaks would have a "devastating" effect on diplomatic relations and on the fight against al Qaeda.

"The essence of our foreign policy is our ability to talk straight and honest with our foreign counterparts and to keep those conversations out of the public domain," he said.

"This massive leak puts that most basic of diplomatic requirements at risk in the future."

He added: "Think of relations with Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan, governments who we need to work with us in defeating al Qaeda.

"This kind of leak will seriously hinder our ability to persuade these governments to support our counterterrorism priorities in the future."

However, Professor Michael Cox, associate fellow of the think-tank Chatham House, said the political fallout had been exaggerated.

"As to whether it's going to cause the kind of seismic collapse of international relations that governments have been talking about, I somehow doubt," he said.

"The really secret information, I would suggest, is still pretty safe and probably won't end up on WikiLeaks."

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WikiLeaks releases list of global sites 'vital' to US

WikiLeaks has divulged a secret list compiled by Washington of key infrastructure sites around the world that could pose a critical danger to US security if they come under terrorist attack.

The newly released diplomatic cable is one of the most explosive yet out of many leaked by the whistle-blowing website that have heaped embarrassment on Washington and caused anger around the world.

Among other revelations, the latest WikiLeaks document dump showed Australia's then leader Kevin Rudd warning US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that force might be needed against China "if everything goes wrong".

A State Department cable from February 2009 asked US missions to update a list of infrastructure and key resources worldwide whose loss "could critically impact" the country's public health, economic life and national security.

It details undersea cables, key communications, ports, mineral resources and firms of strategic importance in countries ranging from Britain to New Zealand, via Africa, the Middle East and China.

A Canadian hydroelectric plant is described as a "critical irreplaceable source of power to portions of Northeast US," while a Siemens factory in Germany does "essentially irreplaceable production of key chemicals".

Also listed are European manufacturers of vaccines for smallpox and rabies, an Italian maker of treatment for snake-bite venom, and a German company making treatment for plutonium poisoning.

According to the diplomatic cable, the request was designed "to strengthen national preparedness, timely response, and rapid recovery in the event of an attack, natural disaster or other emergency".

Compilation of the list would help "prevent, deter, neutralize or mitigate the effects of deliberate efforts by terrorists to destroy, incapacitate or exploit" sites deemed of "vital" importance to the United States.

Malcolm Rifkind, a former British defense and foreign secretary, lashed out at WikiLeaks for releasing the list.

"This is further evidence that they have been generally irresponsible, bordering on criminal. This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing," he said, according to British media.

The release will add to the political storm engulfing WikiLeaks and its 39-year-old founder Julian Assange, who broke cover on Friday to say in an online chat that he had boosted his security after receiving death threats.

The website is already battling to secure its avenues for financial donations online, and has been hop-scotching across servers and legal jurisdictions to evade a total shutdown.

Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, said Sunday that a legal pursuit of Assange in Sweden had "political motivations".

But Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny, who is investigating allegations of rape and sexual assault against Assange, defended her prosecution in comments to AFP.

"This investigation has proceeded perfectly normally without any political pressure of any kind," said Ny, who, via Interpol, has asked police forces around the world to track Assange down.

Leading US lawmakers are calling for Assange's arrest or even execution. Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell slammed him Sunday as a "high-tech terrorist".

Among the latest revelations:

-- One cable said Saudi Arabia was the key source of funding for radical Islamist groups including Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hamas.

-- Gulf states Qatar and Kuwait are lax in pursuing locals who donated to the groups, according to the cable dated December 2009.

-- Qatar is using the Arabic TV news channel Al-Jazeera as a bargaining chip in negotiations with other countries, despite the broadcaster's insistence that it is editorially independent.

-- Clinton views Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a "behind-the-scenes puppeteer" who chafes at his role working alongside President Dmitry Medvedev.

Another leak with the potential to infuriate China revealed details of a conversation between Rudd, when he was Australia's prime minister, and Clinton over a Washington lunch in March 2009.

Rudd called for "integrating China effectively into the international community and allowing it to demonstrate greater responsibility, all while also preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong," the cable stated.

Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat who is now foreign minister, said Monday that Australia had a robust relationship with China and that he had no intention of contacting Beijing over the cable.

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Wikileaks reveals 'Most Critical' US Global Assets

WikiLeaks has released a secret list of key infrastructure sites around the world whose loss or attack by terrorists could "critically impact" US security.

Part of the latest release of US embassy cables by the whistleblowing website, the document details hundreds of pipelines, cables and industrial sites around the world that America deems crucial to securing its interests.

The State Department has condemned the leak of the locations - many of which are in Britain - as "irresponsible", claiming it threatens US national security.

A former British foreign and defence secretary has reportedly described the publication as "bordering on criminal".

Sir Malcolm Rifkind told The Times: "This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing.

"This is further evidence that they [WikiLeaks] have been generally irresponsible, bordering on criminal."

According to the secret cable, US embassies were instructed to update a list of key sites in their countries which would "critically impact the public health, economic security and/or national and homeland security of the United States" if they were lost.

Meanwhile, other documents have claimed the US believes donors from Saudi Arabia are "the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide".

A confidential memo sent by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last December referred to the kingdom as a "cash machine" for al Qaeda.

In a series of cables cited by the New York Times, other countries in the region also come under fire.

The United Arab Emirates is described as having a "strategic gap" that terrorists could exploit, Qatar is seen as "the worst in the region" on counter-terrorism and Kuwait is labelled "a key transit point".

The newspaper has detailed a long list of possible methods suspected terrorists are using to fund their activities.

One memo claims militants often used the annual Hajj pilgrimage for laundering money - and cash from pilgrims was used to finance the Mumbai bombings.

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AFP: Iran: WikiLeaks reports are 'worthless'

TEHRAN — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday dismissed documents released by whistleblower WikiLeaks as "worthless" and 'mischief" which would not affect Tehran's relations with its Arab neighbours.

"The documents that they released are a mischief. We do not see any value in them. This act is worthless," he said at a press conference broadcast live on state TV.

"These documents are prepared and released by the US government in a planned manner and in pursuance of an aim. It is part of an intelligence warfare and will not have their desired political impact.

"We are friends with the regional countries and mischievous acts will not affect relations," he said.

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NEW YORK TIMES

November 29, 2010

Iran’s President Calls Leaked Documents U.S. Plot

In Iran’s first official reaction to leaked State Department cables quoting Arab leaders as urging the United States to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the documents as American psychological warfare that would not affect his country’s relations with other nations, news reports said.

The documents seemed to show several Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival for influence in the Persian Gulf, displaying such hostility that King Abdullah repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.

Nonetheless, Mr. Ahmadinejad said at a news conference on Monday that Iran’s relations with its neighbors would not be damaged by the reports.

“Regional countries are all friends with each other. Such mischief will have no impact on the relations of countries,” he said, according to Reuters.

“Some part of the American government produced these documents,” he said. “We don’t think this information was leaked. We think it was organized to be released on a regular basis and they are pursuing political goals.”

News reports quoted Mr. Ahmadinejad as calling the documents “worthless” and without “legal value.”

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THE GUARDIAN

Monday 29 November

WikiLeaks claims are 'psychological warfare' says Ahmadinejad

Iranian president claims that the leaks are part of a campaign of psychological warfare against his country

Iran today hit back at the latest batch of Wikileaks revelations, with its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claiming that the leaks were part of a psychological warfare campaign against his country.

Iranian media also commented that the United States does not trust its "agents" inside the Islamic republic and alleged US links to the mass protests that followed last year's disputed election.

Press TV, the English-language Iranian TV channel, highlighted evidence from state department cables that US diplomats are apparently engaged in espionage — a charge that will have special resonance in a country where the empty US embassy is still routinely referred to as "the nest of spies".

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Iran says Wiki-releases were planned in advance

Iran's President has questioned the recent leaked documents obtained and published by the Wikileaks website, saying the US administration "released" material intentionally.

In response to a question by Press TV on Monday over the whistleblower website's "leaks," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "let me first correct you. The material was not leaked, but rather released in an organized way."

"The US administration released them and based on them they pass judgment …. [The documents] have no legal value and will not have the political effect they seek," the Iranian chief executive added at the press briefing in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad stressed that the Wikileaks "game" is "not worth commenting upon and that no one would waste their time reviewing them."

"The countries in the region are like friends and brothers and these acts of mischief will not affect their relations," he added.

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THE GUARDIAN

Monday 29 November 2010

Wikileaks embassy cables: the key points at a glance

There are no fewer than 251,287 cables from more than 250 US embassies around the world, obtained by Wikileaks. We present a day-by-day guide to the revelations from the US embassy cables both from the Guardian and its international media partners in the story.

• The US faces a worldwide diplomatic crisis. More than 250,000 classified cables from American embassies are leaked, many sent as recently as February.

• Saudi Arabia put pressure on the US to attack Iran. Other Arab allies also secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.

• Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and the permanent security council representatives from China, Russia, France and the UK.

• Details of the round-the-clock offensive by US government officials, politicians, diplomats and military officers to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and roll back its advance across the Middle East.

• How Israel regarded 2010 as a "critical year" for tackling Iran's alleged quest for nuclear weapons and warned the United States that time is running out to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.

• The secret EU plot to boycott the inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president after the disputed Iranian election in 2009.

• Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were denied blueprints for a secret nuclear reactor near Qom and told by Iran that evidence of bomb-grade uranium enrichment was forged.

• Saudi Arabia complained directly to the Iranian foreign minister of Iranian "meddling" in the Middle East.

• The US accused Iran of abusing the strict neutrality of the Iranian Red Crescent (IRC) society to smuggle intelligence agents and weapons into other countries, including Lebanon.

• Britain's ambassador to Iran gave the US a private masterclass on how to negotiate with Iran.

• How a 75-year-old American of Iranian descent rode a horse over a freezing mountain range into Turkey after officials confiscated his passport.

Plus:

• The story of how the 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked.

• Background on Siprnet: where America stores its secret cables.

• Editor's note: publishing the cables.

• Explore the Guardian's searchable database of the leaked embassy cables

Der Spiegel

A long piece in English primarily about the US view of Germany, including some bracing views of Berlin's leadership and the description of Chancellor Angela Merkel as "risk averse and rarely creative".

New York Times

The New York Times highlights US intelligence assessments that Iran has acquired missiles from North Korea which could for the first time enable Tehran to strike at western European capitals.

El País

A trawl through the 3,620 documents in the haul originating from the US embassy in Madrid, dating from 2004 to this year (in Spanish).

Le Monde

The French paper also leads on the allegations of US spying on UN leaders but also covers Washington's view of France, as gleaned from the cables (in French). President Nicolas Sarkozy is described as "susceptible and authoritarian", and a French diplomatic adviser has described Iran as a fascist state and Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez as a madman transforming his country into another Zimbabwe.

Day 2, Tuesday 30 NovemberGuardian

• China is ready to accept Korean unification and is distancing itself from North Korea which it describes as behaving like a "spoiled child". Cables say Kim Jong-il is a "flabby old chap" losing his grip and drinking.

• Prince Andrew attacked a Serious Fraud Office anti-corruption investigation during a meeting with British businessmen in Kyrgyzstan and criticised a Guardian investigation – and the French – in what the US ambassador there described as "an astonishingly candid" performance verging on the rude. He is also reported to like big game hunting and falconry.

• An official from the Commonwealth secretariat claimed Prince Charles is not respected in the same way as the Queen and questioned whether the heir apparent should necessarily succeed his mother as the head of the Commonwealth.

• Hillary Clinton wanted a briefing on the mental health of Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner and asked whether she was taking medication to calm her down.

Der Spiegel

• The German magazine focuses on the US administration's search for countries willing to take its Guantánamo prisoners, if it closed the base down, and the German government's reluctance to help, with foreign minister Wolfgang Schäuble reportedly very sceptical. The German government would not accept 17 Uighur prisoners, despite the support of the Uighur exiled community in Munich, for fear of upsetting the Chinese government.

There is an extensive network of informants in Berlin, informing the US about Angela Merkel's coalition negotiations. Merkel is described as an enigma, and sceptical about the US.

• The US administration doubts the Turkish government's dependability as an ally, describing it as having little understanding of the outside world and its foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu's "neo-Ottoman visions" as exceptionally dangerous. It describes a Muslim fraternity within the governing party and an "iron ring of sycophantic but contemptuous advisers".

Le Monde

• The French newspaper Le Monde reports US diplomats describing the former president of Haiti, René Préval, as "indispensable but difficult ... a chameleon character" unwilling to accept advice.

• In 2005, US diplomats reported France as being a difficult ally in the fight against international terrorism, because its specialist investigating magistrates were insular, centred on Paris and operating in "another world".

El País

• Spain's El País focuses on repeated attempts by the US to curb court cases in Spain against American soldiers and politicians accused of involvement in Iraq war crimes or torture at Guantánamo. It highlights a series of cables relating to the possibility of Spain accepting former Guantánamo prisoners. Spain's political situation and public opinion made this "almost impossible", an official said.

Day 3, Wednesday 1 DecemberThe Guardian

• The head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, privately criticised David Cameron and George Osborne (now the prime minister and chancellor) before the election for their lack of experience, the lack of depth in their inner circle and their tendency to think about issues only in terms of their electoral impact. Osborne lacked gravitas and was seen as a political lightweight because of his "high-pitched vocal delivery" according to private Conservative polling before the election.

• US and British diplomats fear that Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to terrorists obtaining fissile material, or a devastating nuclear exchange with India. Also, small teams of US special forces have been operating secretly inside Pakistan's tribal areas, with Pakistani government approval. And the US concluded that Pakistani troops were responsible for a spate of extra-judicial killings in the Swat Valley and tribal belt, but decided not to comment publicly.

• Gordon Brown unsuccessfully lobbied the US for the British computer hacker Gary McKinnon to be allowed to serve any jail sentence in the UK. David Cameron said British people generally believe McKinnon is guilty "but they are sympathetic".

• The US ambassador to Pakistan said the Pakistani army is covertly sponsoring four major militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban and the Mumbai attackers, Laskar-e-Taiba (LeT), and "no amount of money" will change the policy. Also, US diplomats discovered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Pakistan earmarked for fighting Islamist militants was not used for that purpose.

• Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, considered pushing President Asif Ali Zardari from office and forcing him into exile to resolve a political dispute, the US embassy cables reveal. Separately, Zardari once told the US vice-president, Joe Biden, he feared the military "might take me out". He told the Americans his sister would lead if he was assassinated. Another cable revealed that the Pakistani president was described as a "numbskull" by Sir Jock Stirrup, Britain's then chief of defence staff.

• The US praised former British Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg for his campaign to persuade European countries to take in remaining detainees from the prison camp.

• Senior Lib Dem officials, who now work in No 10 and the Cabinet Office, planned a campaign to depict David Cameron as "fake" and "out of touch" during the election campaign, but abandoned the strategy because it was deemed too aggressive after the death of his son, Ivan.

• The Tories told the US before the general election that a Conservative government could be tougher on Pakistan as it was less reliant on votes from people with a Pakistani connections than Labour. Referring to Muslim extremists coming to Britain from Pakistan, Cameron said that under Labour "we let in a lot of crazies and did not wake up early enough".

• Zardari claimed that the brother of Pakistan's opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, "tipped off" LeT about impending UN sanctions after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, allowing the group to empty its bank accounts. British diplomats feared India would respond with force to the attacks but the US thought the UK was "over-reacting".

• The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is portrayed as a self-absorbed, thin-skinned, erratic character who tyrannises his ministers and staff but is also a brilliant political tactician, in US memos. The Saudis were irritated by Sarkozy planning to take Carla Bruni on a state visit to their country before she was married. Sarkozy invited Gordon Brown and the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, to last year's D-day commemorations because "the survival of their governments was at stake".

• The British government promised to protect US interests during the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war.

• The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been sheltering the leader of the nationalist insurgency in Pakistan's Balochistan province for years.

Le Monde

• Le Monde focuses on what the cables say about Sarkozy, notably his pro-Americanism, his idea that an international force could replace the US in Iraq, and the US view on his election that he was "a novice" in international affairs with a poor grasp of English.

Der Spiegel

• The paper has significant coverage of Pakistan, with a story that the Pakistani military and secret service are heavily involved in the country's politics and often work against US interests.

• A subsidiary of the US private security firm Xe (then known as Blackwater) flouted German arms export law. It transported German helicopters to Afghanistan via Britain and Turkey without a permit because it was taking too long to get the German export papers.

Day 4, Thursday 2 DecemberThe Guardian

• Russia is a "virtual mafia state" with rampant corruption and scant separation between the activities of the government and organised crime. Vladimir Putin is accused of amassing "illicit proceeds" from his time in office, which various sources allege are hidden overseas. And he was likely to have known about the operation in London to murder the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, Washington's top diplomat in Europe alleged.

• British and US officials colluded to manoeuvre around a proposed ban on cluster bombs, allowing the US to keep the munitions on British territory, regardless of whether a treaty forbidding their use was implemented. Parliament was kept in the dark about the secret agreement, approved by then-foreign secretary David Miliband.

• US diplomats believed that the Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, bore responsibility for a massacre last year that is the subject of a UN war crimes inquiry.

• Russia armed Georgian separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and carried out a wave of "covert actions" to undermine Georgia in the runup to the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, according to US diplomats.

• President Dmitry Medvedev was described by US diplomats as a junior figure, who "plays Robin to Putin's Batman".

• Gas supplies to Ukranian and EU states are linked to the Russian mafia, according to the US ambassador in Kiev.

• Moscow's veteran mayor Yuri Luzhkov was accused by the US ambassador of sitting on top of a "pyramid of corruption" involving the Kremlin, Russia's police force, its security service, political parties and crime groups by the US ambassador.

• Miliband's campaign to champion aid and human rights during the Sri Lankan humanitarian crisis last year was largely motivated by a desire to win favour with Tamil voters in the UK, according to a Foreign Office official.

Der Spiegel

• The US is sceptical that Russian President Medvedev has much of a future, believing Putin to be "in the driver's seat".

• Having helped to build up Georgia's military capabilities, the US made last-ditch diplomatic attempts to try to prevent it going to war with Russia in 2008. Washington's envoy to the Caucasus warned Georgia that war would "cost it valuable support in Washington and European capitals", while publicly George W Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, continued to give their unqualified support to Georgia.

• The US has long been trying to loosen Russia's grip on Ukraine, according to diplomatic cables. On the inauguration of the new Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, they sought to make him a US partner thereby striking a diplomatic blow against the Kremlin.

Le Monde

• The US embassy in Moscow criticised the IMF, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for offering huge loans to Russia it felt were not justified.

El País

• One of the biggest objectives at the US embassy in Madrid over the past seven years has been trying to get the criminal case dropped against three US soldiers accused of the killing of a Spanish television cameraman in Baghdad. Telecinco cameraman José Couso was killed on 8 April 2003 during a tank shelling of the Hotel Palestine where he and other journalists were staying while they were covering the Iraq war. US diplomats held a host of meetings about the case with high-ranking members of the Spanish government.

New York Times

• The Russian prime minister, Putin, often did not show up at his office, according to rumours cited in a document titled Questioning Putin's Work Ethic.

• US diplomats warned of increasing distrust of the United States in Canada. They described "negative popular stereotyping" of Americans on Canadian TV. They also said Canadians "always carry a chip on their shoulder" in part because of a feeling that their country "is condemned to always play 'Robin' to the US 'Batman'".

Day 5, Friday 3 DecemberGuardian

•The British military was criticised for failing to establish security in Sangin by the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and the US commander of Nato troops, according to diplomatic cables.

•Rampant government corruption in Afghanistan is revealed by the cables, including an incident last year when the then vice-president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, was stopped and questioned in Dubai when he flew into the emirate with $52m in cash.

•Gordon Brown was written off as prime minister by the US embassy in London a year into his premiership. It concluded that an "abysmal track record" had left him lurching from "political disaster to disaster", according to cables released by WikiLeaks. He briefly earned some praise when he led the recapitalising of banks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers but within months his government was deemed a "sinking ship". Brown's international initiatives, from food summits to global disarmament and a UK national security council, were treated with indifference bordering on disdain by the Americans, according to US embassy cables.

•The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is erratic, emotional and prone to believing paranoid conspiracy theories, according to frustrated diplomats and foreign statesmen. He has also been accused by his own ministers of complicity in criminal activity, including ordering the physical intimidation of the top official in charge of leading negotiations with the Taliban.

•US diplomats have reported suspicions that Silvio Berlusconi could be "profiting personally and handsomely" from secret deals with the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, according to cables released by WikiLeaks. They centre on allegations that the Italian leader has been promised a cut of huge energy contracts. Another memo quoted a friend of Berlusconi saying the Italian prime minister's fondness for partying had taken a physical and political toll on him.

•American officials dismissed British protests about secret US spy flights taking place from the UK's Cyprus airbase, amid concerns from Labour ministers, upset about rendition flights going on behind their backs, that the UK would be an unwitting accomplice to torture.

•The British Foreign Office misled parliament over the plight of thousands of islanders who were expelled from their Indian Ocean homeland – the British colony of Diego Garcia – to make way for a large US military base, according to secret US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. It has privately admitted its latest plan to declare the islands the world's largest marine protection zone will end any chance of them being repatriated. Publicly ministers have claimed the proposed park would have no effect on the islanders' right of return.

•The cables reveal Washington's opinion on Gordon Brown's potential successors. David Miliband was deemed "too brainy", Alan Johnson had a "lack of killer instinct" and Harriet Harman was a "policy lightweight but an adept interparty operator".

•A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan policemen who took drugs and paid for young "dancing boys" to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try to "quash" the story, according a US embassy cable. The Afghan government feared the story, if published, would "endanger lives" and was particularly concerned that a video of the incident might be made public.

•The US military has been charging its allies a 15% handling fee on hundreds of millions of dollars being raised internationally to build up the Afghan army. Germany has threatened to cancel contributions, raising concerns that money is going to the US treasury.

•Iran is financing a range of Afghan religious and political leaders, grooming Afghan religious scholars, training Taliban militants and even seeking to influence MPs, according to cables from the US embassy in Kabul.

•The US has lost faith in the Mexican army's ability to win the country's drugs war, branding it slow, clumsy and no match for "sophisticated" narco-traffickers.

•The US is convinced that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president's younger half-brother and a senior figure in Kandahar, is corrupt, according to embassy cables. He is described as dominating access to "economic resources, patronage and protection". Two of Hamid Karzai's brothers planned to ask for asylum in the US, while other family members stayed away and kept their money out of Afghanistan – so anxious were they that the Afghan president would lose last year's election.

•The Obama administration and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, are determined to reject talks with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and have consistently worked to split his movement, according to US diplomatic cables. Karzai has sometimes publicly floated the idea of dialogue with Omar and other top Taliban, but the cables show his private position is the opposite.

•Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Colombia's Álvaro Uribe "almost came to blows" at a Latin America unity summit, according to a US memo, which described it as "the worst expression of banana republic discourse".

•A Kremlin campaign to airbrush Stalin's role in Russian history by dictating how academics write about the past is only half-hearted, US diplomats believe. They also feel there are enough Russians striving to remember the purge victims to combat any rewrite. The cable concerns the so-called "history wars", a nationalist campaign to defend Russia's honour.

•Turkmenistan's president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, is "vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative", a "micro-manager" and "a practised liar", US diplomats say.

•Four months before his death the Nobel-prize winning writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn offered qualified praise for Vladimir Putin, arguing that he was doing a better job as Russia's leader than Boris Yeltsin or Mikhail Gorbachev. Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 and returned to Russia 20 years later.

•Moldova's president offered a $10m (£6.4m) bribe to a political rival in a desperate bid to keep his defeated communist government in power, according to a secret US diplomatic cable.

New York Times

•Afghanistan emerges as a land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm. Describing the likely lineup of Afghanistan's new cabinet last January, the US embassy noted that the agriculture minister, Asif Rahimi, "appears to be the only minister that was confirmed about whom no allegations of bribery exist".

Der Spiegel

•Berlin was irritated by a 15% administration fee the US sought to charge Germany on a €50m donation made to a trust fund set up to improve the Afghan army. A top German diplomat complained the fee would be a tough sell to taxpayers.

•Mistrust between the US and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is very deep. Karzai is convinced the US has thrown its backing behind his rival Abdullah Abdullah.

•The close relationship between Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and Russia's Vladimir Putin is a source of unease for the US state department. The leaked cables contain allegations of personal business interests that both politicians deny.

•US diplomats are concerned about the growing power of Russian organised crime and believe it has contacts with the highest levels of government in Moscow.

Le Monde

•France is committed to staying the course in Afghanistan even though public opposition to the war and electoral considerations have weighed heavily on Nicolas Sarkozy. Amid concerns that the French president was trying to distance himself from the US to improve his popularity, Barack Obama was advised that a phone call to him could have a decisive impact. The US president was told: "Flattery would lead very far."

•Iran is extending its influence in Afghanistan in the same way it did in Iraq. It has been supporting insurgent groups as well as financially backing politicians.

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