WikiLeaks Documents Hit The Internet

WASHINGTON -- The New York Times and The Guardian have published classified State Department documents provided to them by the online website WikiLeaks. The WikiLeaks website appeared to be inaccessible, and WikiLeaks said in its Twitter feed that it was experiencing a denial of service attack. WikiLeaks also provided the documents to Spain's El Pais, France's Le Monde, and Germany's Der Spiegel.

According to The New York Times, the cables reveal how foreign leaders, including Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, urged the U.S. to confront Iran over its nuclear program.

\"The cables also contain a fresh American intelligence assessment of Iran's missile program,\" The Times reports. \"They reveal for the first time that the United States believes that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Weste European capitals and Moscow and help it develop more formidable long-range ballistic missiles.\"

Perhaps more embarrassing to U.S. officials is the revelation, according to The Guardian that U.S. diplomats spied on UN officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US diplomats under Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.

It called for detailed biometric information \"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\" as well as intelligence on Ban's \"management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat\".

The White House released a statement in response to the cables' release on Sunday:

We anticipate the release of what are claimed to be several hundred thousand classified State department cables on Sunday night that detail private diplomatic discussions with foreign govements. By its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often incomplete information. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions.

Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign govements 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.

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 govement. These documents also may include named individuals who in many cases live and work under oppressive regimes and who are trying to create more open and free societies.

President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open govement at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal. 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. We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.

The State Department's top lawyer waed WikiLeak's founder, Julian Assange, late Saturday that lives and military operations would be put at risk if the cables were released. Legal adviser Harold Koh said WikiLeaks would be breaking the law if it went ahead and he also rejected a request from Assange to cooperate in removing sensitive details from the documents.

Assange, in a response released Sunday by his London lawyer, said he had no intention of halting the release. He claimed the administration was trying to cover up alleged evidence of serious \"human rights abuse and other criminal behavior\" by the U.S. govement.

The letter to the U.S. ambassador, Louis Sussman, also said WikiLeaks had no desire to harm either \"individual persons\" or \"the national security of the United States.\" But he said the administration's refusal to cooperate showed that the risks were \"fanciful.\"

\"I understand that the United States govement would prefer not to have the information that will be published in the public domain and is not in favor of openness,\" Assange wrote. \"That said, either there is a risk or there is not.\"

\"You have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead conceed to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behavior,\" he said.

\"We will now proceed to release the material subject to our checks and the checks of our media partners unless you get back to me,\" Assange wrote.

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Online:

WikiLeaks: http://wikileaks.org