US counts cost in week of leaks

US counts cost in week of leaks

By Daniel Dombey in Washington

Published: December 3 2010 20:08 | Last updated: December 3 2010 20:08

A week of WikiLeaks has left a host of memorable images in its wake.

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister-president tandem running Russia, are depicted as Batman and Robin. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia reportedly calls for an attack on Iran “to cut off the head off the snake”. A weary US embassy in Rome complains of a “barrage of Berlusconisms” when the Italian prime minister defends his good friend Mr Putin a little too ardently.
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But the longer-lasting impact of what is set to be the world’s biggest leak – of some 251,287 documents – is less clear.

WikiLeaks itself has published only a tiny proportion of that total: 667, as of Friday afternoon. As the group plaintively remarks in an appeal for cash to speed up its efforts: “At one cable per hour, it will take WikiLeaks 28.6 years to release them all.” At that rate, many of the cables will have been declassified long before WikiLeaks gets round to releasing them.

One consequence of this drip-by-drip release is exaggeration and distortion of some claims, such as the hearsay filtered through a South Korean vice-foreign minister that China might accept a reunified Korea.

Secretary of State Clinton delivers remarks on the Wikileaks scandal.
Hillary Clinton: US secretary of state said leaks were ‘not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests’, but an attack on ‘the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security’

The release of such a huge archive has, on the other hand, given the world an unparalleled view into US dealings with its allies and partners.

“It has done damage,” lamented William Burns, the top US professional diplomat, who as ambassador to Moscow oversaw the dispatch of many of the now leaked cables on Mr Putin. “Confidentiality of conversations is at the core of what we do as diplomats, just as it is for journalists or doctors or lawyers or others.”

In one cable, Mr Berlusconi allegedly characterises President Nicolas Sarkozy of France as a “waning” force. In another dispatch Mohammed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, reportedly calls for a ground invasion of Iran.

A page of the website WikiLeaks featuring its founder Julian Assange.
Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder said Hillary Clinton should resign ‘if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering US diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations’

Franco Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister, called the leak the “9-11 of diplom­acy”. Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan, Turkey’s prime minister, said: “Those who throw slanders at us for things we didn’t do will be crushed by their own slanders. They will be destroyed.”

Over the past week Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, has spent much time apologising to the foreign ministers or presidents of France, Liberia, Canada, Argentina, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UK.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, often argues that he is fighting a battle for openness and transparency. But in the US the leak has galvanised support for greater, not less, control over official information. The pooling of data between bureaucracies, introduced after the September 11 2001 attacks, has been reined in.

A picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il pasted on mock missiles burn during a rally to mark the 59th anniversary of the 1950-53 Korean War
China/North Korea: The leaked diplomatic cables reveal complaints from the US government to Beijing and requests for it to stop allowing weapons to be shipped from North Korea to Iran via Chinese territory

Federal employees have even been told not to download the WikiLeaks cables. The new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives has already asked Mrs Clinton to testify on how she how she will toughen up on controls.

Finally, there is the effect on the US’s image around the globe. One state department cable outlined new rules for human intelligence and seemed to ask US diplomats to gather information on their counterparts, down to their frequent flyer and credit card numbers. The cable in question has been neither fully explained nor defended.

Other than that, there is little evidence of US skulduggery – or of an agenda very different from that publicly advanced.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) speaks with President Dmitry Medvedev (R) in the State Duma in Moscow
Vladimir Putin: Accusations that Russia was a ‘virtual mafia state’ were dismissed by the Russian prime minister. The cables labelled him ‘Batman’ and president Dmitry Medvedev ‘Robin’

On Iran, diplomats look for alternatives to military action.

On Russia, they seek co-operation with a partner not fully trusted. The cables themselves sometimes read like relics of a past era: chatty summaries of the local press and gossip. Such communications should not be confused with the more valuable information gathered by the $53bn US national intelligence programme.

But all the same, the public response to the WikiLeaks archive may mirror some US officials’ response when they read intelligence reports after assuming office: “Oh my God, is this the best we’ve got?”