The WikiLeaks.org website.Joe Raedle
A massive document dump - more than 250,000 U.S diplomatic cables made public Sunday by WikiLeaks - sent shock waves around the globe as the Obama administration coped with the fallout of revelations ranging from stunning to salacious as its policies and methods of dealing with friends and foes were embarrassingly laid bare.
The trove reveals candid assessments of foreign leaders, secret details of the global anti-terrorist campaign and embarrassing details of American diplomats gathering sordid details of the sex lives of foreign leaders.
Canada barely rates a mention, so far. The documents were apparently stolen earlier by someone inside the U.S. government with the security clearance and the computer access to classified files.
Among the revelations in the secret diplomatic messages: America's close Arab allies have urged it to strike Iran - by bombing nuclear sites and decapitating the ruling Islamic theocracy; cyberwarriors from China's communist politburo have attacked U.S. government computer networks.
"Cut off the head of the snake," King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia said, referring to Tehran, a call to arms he has repeatedly made to both the Bush and Obama administrations. It was a bellicose call, one echoed by Egyptian and other Arab leaders who regard the rising Iranian power across the gulf as an ``existential threat."
Also revealed: North Korea has provided Iran with ex-Soviet missiles capable of lofting nuclear-warheads thousands of kilometres; Yemen has promised to cover for U.S. missile strikes on its territory by claiming they are its own bombing missions.
"We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh is reported to have said.
Meanwhile, Israel has warned that Iran was only months away from a nuclear weapon - an assessment disputed by the U.S. intelligence community. Defence Secretary Robert Gates apparently believes that even a massive attack on Tehran's nuclear sites would only delay the regime's acquisition of a nuclear arsenal. Air strikes ``would only delay Iranian plans by one to three years, while unifying the Iranian people to be forever embittered against the attacker," a diplomatic cable quotes Mr. Gates as telling his French counterpart.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently ordered a covert spying campaign - blurring the role of diplomats - against UN leaders including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Outraged over the disclosures, the Obama administration condemned WikiLeaks and accused it of endangering ``countless'' lives.
``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," President Barack Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs said as The New York Times, The Guardian in London and other news organizations began publishing excerpts of the documents.
America's allies, including Canada, were braced for unflattering and embarrassing revelations as the trove of messages offered an unprecedented glimpse behind the dry communiqués, staged chumminess and grinning photo opportunities that characterize the public face of diplomatic relations.
Instead, juicy details of U.S. diplomats being ordered to gather dirt on foreign potentates as well as their candid and unflattering observations are being laid bare.
After a week of pre-emptive damage control, during which U.S. ambassadors warned host governments that the flood of stolen messages could be embarrassing, the first portions that were publicly online on Sunday were almost anti-climatic.
Arab fears of Iran's growing power have long been known. However, that prominent moderate Arab leaders were pressing Washington to launch major military strikes was not.
Similarly, U.S. effort to get countries to take Guantanamo's detainees was publicly evident. What the documents reveal is an almost sordid set of payoffs. For instance, Slovenia's president was promised a face-to-face meeting with the internationally popular Mr. Obama if the country would take detainees.
Among the juicy - if hardly surprising - details are diplomatic messages that report on unspecified "inappropriate behaviour" by a member of the British Royal Family; a reference to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as ``an alpha dog" and suggestions that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai is "driven by paranoia."
Other messages compared Iran's controversial and unpredictable President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler and suggest that Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi likes the company of his buxom Ukrainian nurse.
There are also blunt - and harshly critical - assessments of some of America's fighting allies in Afghanistan, notably the British forces who were heavily engaged in Helmand province until Mr. Obama sent tens of thousands of U.S. troops to southern Afghanistan.
Another previously undisclosed U.S. effort - now apparently stalled - was an attempt to extract weapons-grade uranium from Pakistan. Less surprising are diplomatic cables that report Saudis remain among the primary supporters of Islamic jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda.
WikiLeaks, founded by Australian Julian Assange, 39, has previously published tens of thousands of documents detailing the U.S. handlings of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is regarded as a digital folk hero by many and a dangerous menace by the American government. The Pentagon has claimed WikiLeaks has put U.S. and allied soldiers in danger.
Mr. Assange, whose current whereabouts are unknown, may also be a fugitive. There is an international warrant for his arrest on rape charges - dropped last summer but since reinstated by a Swedish court.
Mr. Assanage denies the charges. He also has championed the release of material on WikiLeaks, contending that the digital distribution of documents holds governments accountable.
As for how WikiLeaks received the U.S. diplomatic documents - most of which are recent, although some date back decades - no one has been charged.
However, a junior U.S. army intelligence analyst, Private Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq last June and was linked to the previous portions of military documents that were published by WikiLeaks.