Secret US
Embassy Cables
Cable Viewer:
http://wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html
Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.
The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.
The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.
Every American schoolchild is taught that George Washington – the country’s first President – could not tell a lie. If the administrations of his successors lived up to the same principle, today’s document flood would be a mere embarrassment. Instead, the US Government has been warning governments -- even the most corrupt -- around the world about the coming leaks and is bracing itself for the exposures.
The full set consists of 251,287 documents, comprising 261,276,536 words (seven times the size of "The Iraq War Logs", the world's previously largest classified information release).
The cables cover from 28th December 1966 to 28th February 2010 and originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.
More at http://wikileaks.ch/ >>
ALSO:
- Index on Censorship - Wikileaks and State Department correspondence
Guardian.co.nz: The US embassy cables
The articles published today and over coming weeks are drawn from US state department cables which were sent earlier this year to WikiLeaks, an organisation devoted to exposing secrets of all kinds. The Guardian is one of five publications around the world which has had prior access to the material – around 250,000 cables in all – on condition that we observed common deadlines over the timings of release. The others are the New York Times, LeMonde, El País and Der Spiegel. More>>
NYTimes.com: WikiLeaks Archive — Cables Uncloak U.S. Diplomacy - Interactive Feature
A mammoth cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the last three years, provides an unprecedented look at bargaining by embassies, candid views of foreign leaders and assessments of threats. The material was obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations in advance. More>>
Spiegel Online: The US Diplomatic Leaks: A Superpower's View Of The World
251,000 State Department documents, many of them secret embassy reports from around the world, show how the US seeks to safeguard its influence around the world. It is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy. More>>
LeMonde.fr
- Wikileaks : Dans les coulisses de la diplomatie
américaine
ELPAÍS.com-
La mayor filtración de la historia deja al descubierto los
secretos de la política exterior de EE
UU
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The latest document dump by wikileaks, more than a quarter of a million documents detailing “cables” (diplomatic messages) between the US State Department and 274 embassies and consulates from late 1966 until earlier this year, is a treasure trove for diplomatic historians and others interested in the minutia of diplomatic correspondence.
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