Cables Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels WIKI!

[nathan28]

WikiLeaks cables: UK police 'developed' evidence against McCanns
British ambassador's reported comments to US counterpart offer insight into role of UK police in 2007 investigation

Ben Quinn
guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 December 2010 21.30 GMT

British police helped to "develop evidence" against Madeleine McCann's parents as they were investigated by Portuguese police as formal suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, the US ambassador to Portugal was told by his British counterpart in September 2007.

The meeting between US ambassador Al Hoffman and the British ambassador, Alexander Wykeham Ellis, took place a fortnight after Kate and Gerry McCann were formally declared arguidos, or suspects, by Portuguese police. The McCanns have said that there was "absolutely no evidence to implicate them in Madeleine's disappearance whatsoever."

In a diplomatic cable marked confidential, the US ambassador reported: "Without delving into the details of the case, Ellis admitted that the British police had developed the current evidence against the McCann parents, and he stressed that authorities from both countries were working co-operatively."

The comments attributed to the ambassador appear to contradict the widespread perception at the time that Portuguese investigators were the driving force behind the treatment of the McCanns as suspects in the case.

Okay, again, the cables prove illuminating.

Sure, the McCann disappearance seems like "gossip" and to an extent it is. Cops "develop" evidence all the time, they charge suspects to close out cold cases, they juke the stats, etc.--but I don't expect that on an international incident. You'd think with CNN and Faux and the BBC all pointing cameras at you, you'd act a little more above-board.

I might be misreading the cable though, but it looks like a smear job to me.

[seemslikeadream]

Sudan's al-Bashir ‘stashing oil cash’: Wikileaks

AFUA HIRSCH
Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, has siphoned as much as $9bn out of his impoverished country and much of it may be stashed in London banks. The allegation emerged during conversations between US officials and the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court and recounted in secret US diplomatic cables.

Some of the funds may be held by the UK’s part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group, according to prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who told US officials it was time to go public with the scale of Bashir’s theft in order to turn Sudanese public opinion against him.

“Ocampo suggested if Bashir’s stash of money were disclosed (he put the figure at $9bn), it would change Sudanese public opinion from him being a ‘crusader’ to that of a thief,” one report by a senior US official states. “Ocampo reported Lloyds bank in London may be holding or knowledgeable of the whereabouts of his money,” the cable says. “Ocampo suggested exposing Bashir had illegal accounts would be enough to turn the Sudanese against him.” Lloyds responded by saying it had no evidence of holding funds in Bashir’s name. “We have absolutely no evidence to suggest there is any connection between Lloyds Banking Group and Mr Bashir. The group’s policy is to abide by the legal and regulatory obligations in all jurisdictions in which we operate.” Details of the allegations emerge in the latest batch of leaked embassy cables released by WikiLeaks which reveal that: — US officials regard European human rights standards as an “irritant”, criticising the Council of Europe for its stance on secret rendition of terror suspects.

— Diplomats believe judges in the war crimes trial of the Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor have been deliberately causing delays to ensure the only African judge is presiding when the verdict is delivered.

The cables were released as the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, accused the US of mounting an aggressive, illegal investigation against him.

“I would say that there is a very aggressive investigation, that a lot of face has been lost by some people, and some people have careers to make by pursuing famous cases, but that is actually something that needs monitoring,” he told reporters outside the mansion in eastern England where he is staying while on bail.

Assange has repeatedly asserted that he is the victim of a smear campaign.

If Ocampo’s claim about Bashir’s fortune is correct, Sudanese funds being held in London banks amount to one tenth of annual GDP in Sudan, which ranks fifteenth from bottom in the UN’s index of the world’s poorest countries. Ocampo discussed evidence of the money with the Americans just days after issuing an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president in March 2009, the first issued by the court against a serving head of state. Bashir was indicted for seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity last year with a further three counts of genocide added in July. Ocampo, who has never released details of the alleged funds, was severely criticised for the indictment by many in Sudan and internationally amid criticisms the move would inflame fighting in the southern Darfur region.

Despite the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, Bashir has remained popular among many others in the country, particularly those who have benefited from the oil boom. A spokesperson for the Sudanese government dismissed the claim, describing it as further evidence of the ICC’s political agenda in discrediting the Sudanese government.

“To claim that the president can control the treasury and take money to put into his own accounts is ludicrous — it is a laughable claim by the ICC prosecutor,” said Dr Khalid al-Mubarak, government spokesperson at the Sudanese embassy in London. “Ocampo is a maverick, and this is just part of his political agenda. He has failed miserably in all his cases and has refused to investigate Iraq or Gaza — he needs success and he has targeted Bashir to increase his own importance.” “Attempts to smear not only Bashir but Sudan as a whole are well known, and are clearly linked with anti-Arab sentiments and Islamophobia,” Mubarak added.

But experts said that if confirmed, the funds could have big implications for victims of human rights abuses in the county. Richard Dicker, head of international justice at Human Rights Watch, said: “If Bashir were to be tried and convicted, these funds could not just be frozen, but used as a source of reparations for victims ... [of] horrific crimes in Darfur.” Robert Palmer, a campaigner at anti-corruption organisation Global Witness, said: “$9bn may sound like an inconceivably large amount of money for the president of Sudan to control. But we have uncovered evidence of substantial funds being held in a European bank by an oil-rich country in the past, where the head of state had a worrying level of personal control over the funds. In Sudan’s case, the figure is almost the same amount as has been transferred from north to south Sudan under the oil revenue sharing part of the comprehensive peace agreement since 2005.” In a remarkable series of exchanges, the cables also reveal how Sudan’s mineral wealth had a direct bearing on the ICC proceedings against Bashir, as China balked at action against him that could harm its interests in the oil industry. “Ocampo said China, as long as it continues to have oil concessions in Sudan, does not care what happens to Bashir,” one cable states.

In another cable dated March 2008, a senior French official noted “growing Chinese concern about possible north-south fissures in Sudan and the possibility that its oil interests could be threatened”.

In return, the Chinese expressed “puzzlement” that the French — a member of the ICC and able to influence the deferral of proceedings against Bashir — supported Ocampo’s decision to pursue the Sudanese president, given France’s oil interests in the region. “[The Chinese] observed French companies have oil interests in Sudan as well as Chad,” the Americans stated.

France ultimately supported Bashir’s indictment, but the cables suggest this was deliberately calculated to protect their oil interests. The French told the Americans they believed that firm action on Darfur was the only way to protect oil interests.

Speculation that Bashir may have deposited billions in oil money in foreign accounts is likely to add to demands for his arrest.”The arm of the law, when it comes to this type of crime, committed by or alleged to have been committed by heads of state or heads of government, has gotten longer,” said Dicker.

Sudan leader sent $9bn abroad, say cables

By Harvey Morris in New York
Published: December 18 2010 01:24 | Last updated: December 18 2010 01:24
Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, may have diverted as much as $9bn abroad, possibly to an account in London, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has told US diplomats at the UN.

According to a confidential cable published by WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website, the ICC’s Luis Moreno-Ocampo reported that “Lloyd’s Bank [sic] in London might be holding or knowledgeable of the whereabouts of his money”

He revealed the information to Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, and Alejandro Wolff, her deputy, in a meeting in March last year. That was nine months after Mr Bashir became the first head of state to be indicted by the ICC for alleged crimes carried out in the war-torn Sudanese province of Darfur.

Lloyds Banking Group said it had no evidence of holding funds in Mr Bashir’s name. “The group’s policy is to abide by the legal and regulatory obligations in all jurisdictions in which we operate,” it said.

The allegations concerning the money, which Mr Moreno-Ocampo said would change the image of the leader in the eyes of his people “from being a ‘crusader’ to that of a thief”, comes weeks before the people of south Sudan are due to vote on whether to secede from Khartoum.

Mr Bashir has been under intense international pressure to ensure the vote goes ahead on schedule if his country is to avoid a return to civil war.

The ICC prosecutor told the US diplomats that Mr Bashir was like “a bleeding shark being surrounded by other sharks”, with no loyalty, only greed, motivating those competing for power. He suggested the possibility of his arrest would isolate him within the Sudanese elite. In fact, Mr Bashir was re-elected earlier this year despite the international indictment hanging over him.

U.S. concerns over delay of war crimes trial of Charles Taylor: WikiLeaks

[Plutonia]

I haven't seen this posted yet:

WikiLeaks cables are now available LIVE at http://www.dazzlepod.com/cable/
The minimal table listing allows you to easily browse through the cables or search for specific cable by keyword.
All cables posted are sync live direct from WikiLeaks primary server and are made available as soon as they are posted by WikiLeaks team.

Nice.

Banks banks banks banks banks banks banks banks ....

[JackRiddler]

seemslikeadream posted:

WikiLeaks' lesson on Haiti
What the US embassy cables reveal about Washington's malign influence should make Latin American nations quit the UN force

Mark Weisbrot
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 14.30 GMT

A boy holds a picture of the ousted former president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, as he sits on a chair outside the presidential palace during a visit by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy to Port-au-Prince, in February 2010, in the wake of the earthquake. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters



The polarisation of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed certainly hundreds of thousands, and, most likely, more than a million lives. It was completely unnecessary and unjustifiable, and based on lies. Now, Washington is moving toward a military confrontation with Iran.

As Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, pointed out in an interview recently, in the preparation for a war with Iran, we are at about the level of 1998 in the buildup to the Iraq war.

On this basis, even ignoring the tremendous harm that Washington causes to developing countries in such areas as economic development (through such institutions as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation), or climate change, it is clear that any information which sheds light on US "diplomacy" is more than useful. It has the potential to help save millions of human lives.

You either get this or you don't. Brazil's president Lula da Silva, who earned Washington's displeasure last May when he tried to help defuse the confrontation with Iran, gets it. That's why he defended and declared his "solidarity" with embattled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, even though the leaked cables were not pleasant reading for his own government.

One area of US foreign policy that the WikiLeaks cables help illuminate, which the major media has predictably ignored, is the occupation of Haiti. In 2004, the country's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time, through an effort led by the United States government. Officials of the constitutional government were jailed and thousands of its supporters were killed.

The Haitian coup, besides being a repeat of Aristide's overthrow in 1991, was also very similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002 – which also had Washington's fingerprints all over it. Some of the same people in Washington were even involved in both efforts. But the Venezuelan coup failed – partly because Latin American governments immediately and forcefully declared that they would not recognise the coup government.

In the case of Haiti, Washington had learned from its mistakes in the Venezuelan coup and had gathered support for an illegitimate government in advance. A UN resolution was passed just days after the coup, and UN forces, headed by Brazil, were sent to the country. The mission is still headed by Brazil, and has troops from a number of other Latin American governments that are left of centre, including Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. They are also joined by Chile, Peru and Guatemala from Latin America.

Would these governments have sent troops to occupy Venezuela if that coup had succeeded? Clearly, they would not have considered such a move, yet the occupation of Haiti is no more justifiable. South America's progressive governments have strongly challenged US foreign policy in the region and the world, with some of them regularly using words like imperialism and empire as synonyms for Washington. They have built new institutions such as UNASUR to prevent these kinds of abuses from the north. Bolivia expelled the US ambassador in September of 2008 for interfering in the country's internal affairs.

Is it because Haitians are poor and black that their most fundamental human and democratic rights can be trampled upon?

The participation of these governments in the occupation of Haiti is a serious political contradiction for them, and it is getting worse. The WikiLeaks cables illustrate how important the control of Haiti is to the United States. A long memo from the US embassy in Port-au-Prince to the US secretary of state answers detailed questions about Haitian president Rene Preval's political, personal and family life, including such vital national security questions as "How many drinks can Preval consume before he shows signs of inebriation?" It also expresses one of Washington's main concerns:

"His reflexive nationalism, and his disinterest in managing bilateral relations in a broad diplomatic sense, will lead to periodic frictions as we move forward our bilateral agenda. Case in point, we believe that in terms of foreign policy, Preval is most interested in gaining increased assistance from any available resource. He is likely to be tempted to frame his relationship with Venezuela and Chávez-allies in the hemisphere in a way that he hopes will create a competitive atmosphere as far as who can provide the most to Haiti."

This logic is why they got rid of Aristide – who was much to the left of Preval – and won't let him back in the country. This is why Washington funded the recent "elections" that excluded Haiti's largest political party, the equivalent of shutting out the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. And this is why Minustah is still occupying the country, more than six years after the coup, without any apparent mission other than replacing the hated Haitian army – which Aristide had abolished – as a repressive force.

People who do not understand US foreign policy think that control over Haiti does not matter to Washington, because it is so poor and has no strategic minerals or resources. But that is not how Washington operates, as the WikiLeaks cables repeatedly illustrate. For the state department and its allies, it is all a ruthless chess game, and every pawn matters. Left governments will be removed or prevented from taking power where it is possible to do so; and the poorest countries – like Honduras last year – present the most opportune targets. A democratically elected government in Haiti, due to its history and the consciousness of the population, will inevitably be a left government – and one that will not line up with Washington's foreign policy priorities for the region. Thus, democracy is not allowed.

Thousands of Haitians have been protesting the sham elections, as well as Minustah's role in causing the cholera epidemic, which has already taken more than 2,300 lives and can be expected to kill thousands more in the coming months and years. Judging from the rapid spread of the disease, there may have been gross criminal negligence on the part of Minustah – that is, large-scale dumping of fecal waste into the Artibonite river. This is another huge reason for the force to leave Haiti.

This is a mission that costs over $500m a year, when the UN can't even raise a third of that to fight the epidemic that the mission caused, or to provide clean water for Haitians. And now the UN is asking for an increase to over $850m.

It is high time that the progressive governments of Latin America quit this occupation, which goes against their own principles and deeply-held beliefs, and is against the will of the Haitian people.

[seemslikeadream]

WikiLeaks cables detail Fidel Castro's doomed love for Obama
Dispatches chart Cuban leader's obsession with US president, from admiration to eventual sense of betraya

Rory Carroll
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 21.30 GMT


WikiLeaks cables lay bare Fidel Castro's admiration for Barack Obama, who swept into the White House as the candidate of hope and change. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
Barack and Fidel: like so many great love affairs it was doomed. But memory of the passion, or at least infatuation, lingers.

Having seen off 10 US presidents – all committed to his assassination, overthrow or isolation – Fidel Castro had more reason than most to beware the occupant of the Oval Office.

But Barack Obama was different. The octogenarian communist revolutionary fell for the young new president and became "obsessed", according to confidential US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

Having confidently predicted the US would not elect a black man, Castro sat bolt upright when the candidate of hope and change swept to the White House. His Reflections columns in the communist party newspaper, Granma, were filled with observations about, then praise for, Obama.

The US diplomatic mission in Havana, long accustomed to reporting the commandante's diatribes against American tyranny, was not prepared for fan mail.

"Fidel's subsequent Reflection on 9 June will only add to speculation from our civil society and diplomatic contacts that Fidel is obsessed with President Obama," said one memo.

Obama's speech in Cairo on US relations with Muslims inspired a 3,500-word response from the retired Cuban leader in which he lauded Obama as a "very good communicator" with "impressive working capacity". Coming from a workaholic famous for marathon speeches, this was praise indeed.

He noted that the president of the US, called "Potus" in the cables, took office at an "exceptionally complex time" and could not be blamed for the Middle East quagmire he inherited.

"Fidel mostly sympathised with Potus – in his own way," said a memo from Jonathan Farrar, the US chief of mission. "Fidel then continued his attempts to walk a thin line between a positive impression of a popular US president and the idea that the evil empire will never change."

In other Reflections columns, the US nemesis who called George Bush a genocidal drunk praised Obama as intelligent, sincere, serene, honest and well-meaning. He welcomed the president's Nobel peace prize and called his position on global warming courageous.

Latterly, the commandante's ardour for Obama began to cool, with a tone of disappointment and sense of betrayal over the president's stance at the Copenhagen climate change summit.

"Following the conference, Fidel wrote three straight Reflections devoted to attacking President Obama's participation in Copenhagen. Fidel called President Obama's conference remarks 'deceitful, demagogic and ambiguous,'" a cable said.

Cuba's leader, it noted, had taken to calling Obama the "yanki president".

Communication failure

US diplomats were left isolated and afraid that Cubans were intercepting every call after secure phone lines were cut at the mission in Havana, a leaked cable shows.

They complained to Washington that the mission could not function properly until the technological glitch was fixed.

"Post is experiencing extreme difficulty establishing secure voice calls," a classified dispatch said in January 2010.

Several solutions had been tried but secure voice calls were unable to be established, it said.

"This has left post with no secure voice link to Washington or other missions. As post operates in a critical technical threat environment, this situation is unacceptable and post needs assistance in resolving the situation expeditiously."

[JackRiddler]

WikiLeaks cables detail Fidel Castro's doomed love for Obama
Dispatches chart Cuban leader's obsession with US president, from admiration to eventual sense of betraya

Rory Carroll
guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 December 2010 21.30 GMT


WikiLeaks cables lay bare Fidel Castro's admiration for Barack Obama, who swept into the White House as the candidate of hope and change. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Barack and Fidel: like so many great love affairs it was doomed. But memory of the passion, or at least infatuation, lingers.

Him and about 500,000,000 others among the jilted.

.

[seemslikeadream]

WikiLeaks cables: UN offered Robert Mugabe a lucrative retirement overseas
Source in the MDC told American officials that Zimbabwe president rejected the offer from Kofi Annan

Jamie Doward

Robert Mugabe raises his fist at a rally in Mvurwi, 60 miles from Harare, in 2008. Photograph by Desmond Kwande/AFP
The head of the United Nations offered Robert Mugabe a lucrative retirement package in an overseas haven if he stood down as Zimbabwe's president, according to claims quoted in leaked diplomatic cables.

The extraordinary offer was allegedly made by Kofi Annan, who was then the UN secretary general, at the millennium summit of world leaders in New York, according to a memo drawn up by American officials which was obtained by the WikiLeaks website.

The memo, written in September 2000, records a meeting between a US embassy official in Harare and a senior source in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the party opposed to Mugabe's Zanu-PF.

According to the MDC source, whose name the Observer has redacted, "Kofi Annan, in the recent meeting in New York during the millennium summit offered Mugabe a deal to step down. Although [the MDC source] said the MDC was not privy to the details, he surmised that Annan's supposed deal probably included provision of safe haven and a financial package from Libyan president [Gaddafi]. The opposition party heard that Mugabe turned down the offer the following day after discussing it with the first lady."

The offer, which many Zimbabwean experts may simply dismiss as wishful thinking on the part of a frustrated MDC, was not the only one rumoured to have been made to Mugabe at that time. The cable reveals that Zanu-PF itself had put out "feelers" to see whether the MDC would be willing to allow Mugabe a "graceful exit" that was "in Zimbabwe's national interest".

The MDC source said the business interests of senior Zanu-PF members were being badly damaged by the "current economic and political situation. They blame President Mugabe and are determined to find a way to ease him out in a dignified way."

The cable notes that the MDC "is gaining strength in the rural areas" and that the MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai, "has agreed that it is in Zimbabwe's best interests for the MDC to do all it can to secure a graceful exit strategy that preserves somewhat of a positive legacy for Mugabe. Otherwise the president would have little incentive to go."

The memo also contains the claim that an international arms dealer once reputed to be a key Mugabe ally worked for British intelligence.

A Zanu-PF source is quoted in the cable suggesting that "John Bredencamp [sic], a shady white Zimbabwean businessman, had told Zanu-PF he would provide a financial 'retirement' package for Mugabe".

The cable explains that the source "did not know whether Bredencamp had sufficient resources to make such a package attractive enough, but he claimed that Bredencamp worked for MI6 and could be a channel for the British to provide funds to sweeten the deal". The cable goes on to note that the British high commission in Harare "scoffed at the very idea".

The references to Bredenkamp, a former Zimbabwean rugby captain, are intriguing. The multimillionaire, who has a home in Berkshire, has rejected claims that he is a Mugabe crony. Bredenkamp, who made his money in tobacco farming, was named in a 2002 UN report as a key arms trader who made millions of pounds from illegally exploiting natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bredenkamp, who did not respond to Observer emails, has rejected the UN's claims and has pursued legal action to clear his name.

Rumours that Bredenkamp and his companies have worked with British intelligence have been rife in Zimbabwe for two decades.

Some have suggested that it would have been inconceivable for Bredenkamp to operate his business empire without a close relationship with MI6, but Bredenkamp has not commented on these claims and is likely to dismiss them.

The cable also reveals that the US was pressed to play the part of an "honest broker", organising a conference to address land allocation and amnesties in a post-Mugabe nation because of concerns that Britain was not suitable for the role.

According to a prominent banker in Zimbabwe, who acted as a go-between for the Zanu-PF, the broker would have to "underwrite the costs of whatever agreement emerged. The British government, he claimed, has 36 million pounds available for land reform in Zimbabwe, but they are probably too antagonistic to play an honest broker role. The Americans, though, probably would be acceptable."

The issue of providing settlements for senior officials in the Mugabe regime was addressed last year when the US and the UK were asked to pay into a trust fund that would ensure Zimbabwean military officials enjoy a comfortable retirement.

A separate memo, written in October last year, reveals that Elton Mangoma, the minister of economic development and member of Morgan Tsvangirai's inner circle, had asked the US to contribute to a "trust fund" to buy off the "securocrats".

The memo notes: "Mangoma said that a primary obstacle to political progress and reform was the service chiefs. Unlike many ZANU-PF insiders who had stolen and invested wisely, these individuals had not become wealthy. They feared economic pressures, as well as prosecution for their misdeeds, should political change result in their being forced from office. Therefore, they were resisting…progress that could ultimately result in fair elections. Mangoma asked for consideration of US contribution to a 'trust fund' that could be used to negotiate the service chiefs' retirement." He said he planned to approach the UK and Germany with the same request."

[vanlose kid]

WikiLeaks goes backstage in Lebanon's Hariri case
Leaked cables: Special Tribunal for Lebanon sought help from US amid frustrations with Syria, anger at France.


Middle East Online
By Natacha Yazbeck – BEIRUT


US diplomatic cables unveiled by WikiLeaks have exposed backstage manoeuvres surrounding a UN investigation into the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, stoking new controversy around the probe.

The cables, which are among some 4,000 more secret documents on Lebanon expected to be released by the whistleblower website or its affiliates, reveal UN frustrations with both Syria and France over their level of cooperation with the probe.

They also detail repeated appeals from investigators for US assistance and show their deep concern over the detention without charge for four years of four high-ranking Lebanese security officials in connection with Hariri's 2005 assassination.

The new WikiLeaks revelations come as the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), tasked with investigating the massive Beirut bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others, is reportedly poised to indict members of Hezbollah in connection with the murder.

The powerful Shiite militant group, which fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel, has warned any such accusation would have grave repercussions in Lebanon.

According to a series of cables obtained by WikiLeaks and published by Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar on its website, STL prosecutor Daniel Bellemare last year complained to then US ambassador Michele Sison that Syria, initially accused of Hariri's murder, was treating his investigators as "school kids in short pants."

"They provide us with 40,000 pages in Arabic. After we translate them and find nothing of interest, they feign surprise and hand us another 40,000 pages," read a cable dated January 27, 2009.

According to another cable published by the English-language Daily Star newspaper, Bellemare's predecessor, Serge Brammertz, complained in 2006 to then US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, now a deputy secretary of state, that France was withholding its cooperation from the investigation.

Brammertz is quoted as saying that even Syria had been more cooperative than some EU countries.

Both Brammertz and Bellemare voiced concern that the detention of the four Lebanese generals, who were released last year, violated international law.

Bellemare acknowledged that the timing of their release was sensitive and could bolster Hezbollah and its allies in the run-up to a parliamentary election in Lebanon in 2009.

Another leaked cable detailing a request from Bellemare for additional assistance from the United States -- already a major donor to the STL -- made headlines in the Lebanese press.

The prosecutor is quoted as asking Sison for information on Syria and, in a separate cable, requesting that the United States loan his inquiry two analysts whose salaries, along with others, would be paid for by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Bellemare showed a good understanding of the problems associated with complying ... but his frustration was nonetheless evident: 'You are the key player. If the US doesn't help me, who will?'," read the cable, dated October 2008.

Hezbollah has said the leaks are further proof the United States is manipulating the probe.

"The information leaked on meetings between the prosecutor and the (then) US ambassador confirms what we have always said -- that the US administration is using the court and the investigation committee as a tool to target the resistance," Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah said.

Another cable published by the Daily Star quotes a top security official as saying he believed Hezbollah operative Abdul Majid Ghamloush was linked to Hariri's murder and two subsequent political assassinations.

One figure that features prominently in the US embassy cables is Walid Jumblatt, head of Lebanon's minority Druze community.

"Jumblatt warned that, despite recent progress with the Special Tribunal, Syria would not change its behaviour until the Assad regime truly feels threatened," read a cable dated February 21, 2008, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Jumblatt, once a vociferous critic of Damascus, last year pulled a political volte-face by quitting the pro-Western coalition he helped create in order to move closer to the Hezbollah-led camp supported by Syria and Iran.

His only reaction to the leaks was to say his current position was "real, natural and historic" and to suggest a return to "pigeon carriers or mail on horseback," saying it was "safer".

http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42955

*

[vanlose kid]

Leaked Cable: Hike Food Prices To Boost GM Crop Approval In Europe
by Rady Ananda / December 16th, 2010

In a January 2008 meeting, US and Spain trade officials strategized how to increase acceptance of genetically modified foods in Europe, including inflating food prices on the commodities market, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

During the meeting, Secretary of State for International Trade, Pedro Mejia, and Secretary General, Alfredo Bonet “noted that commodity price hikes might spur greater liberalization on biotech imports.”

It seems Wall Street traders got the word. By June 2008, food prices had spiked so severely that “The Economist announced that the real price of food had reached its highest level since 1845, the year the magazine first calculated the number,” reports Fred Kaufman in The Food Bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it.

The unprecedented high in food prices in 2008 caused an additional 250 million people to go hungry, pushing the global number to over a billion. 2008 is also the first year “since such statistics have been kept, that the proportion of the world’s population without enough to eat ratcheted upward,” said Kaufman.

All to boost acceptance of GM foods, and done via a trading scheme on which Wall Street speculators profited enormously.

Mass food riots in several nations ensued, as did an investigation by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, resulting in a finding that, yes, unrestricted speculation in food commodities caused soaring prices.

In a comment at the end of the cable, the diplomat also revealed a level of pessimism about Spain’s willingness to help force GM foods on Europe:

This was a very good substantive discussion. However, it is clear that while Spain will continue sometimes to vote in favor of biotechnology liberalization proposals, the Spaniards will tread warily on this issue given their own domestic sensitivities and other equities Spain has in the EU.

That pessimism was largely unfounded, as “Spain planted 80 percent of all the Bt maize in the EU in 2009 and maintained its record adoption rate of 22 percent from the previous year,” noted a report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

The leaked cables, amounting to over 1,300 right now, reveal US obsession with expanding the biotech market:

One leaked cable confirms US concern with promoting GM foods in Africa, which Richard Brenneman described as “a significant item on the State Department’s agenda.”
In another leaked cable describing the potential to expand US interests in “isolationist” Austria, that nation’s ban on GM foods is highlighted.
According to a leaked cable from 2007, of concern was French President Sarkozy’s desire to implement a ban on GM foods in line with populist sentiment. According to GM Free Regions, France maintains its opposition to GM foods today.
In this leaked cable, the Pope openly blamed global hunger on commodity speculation and corrupt public officials, so far refusing to support the use of GM foods. (Also see my December 12 article, “Leaked cables confirm Pope’s distance from GMO debate and limited stance on bioethics.”)
More may be revealed in the remaining cables.

Profiteering Leaves World open to Future Price Manipulation

Food commodity speculation was enabled in 2000 by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Deregulation handyman Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) introduced the bill, coauthored by financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the chairman of the Agriculture Committee.

Mother Jones describes the legislative climate when the bill passed:

As part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown….

Gramm’s most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry—friends who gave him millions over his 24-year congressional career—came on December 15, 2000. It was an especially tense time in Washington. Only two days earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision on Bush v. Gore. President Bill Clinton and the Republican-controlled Congress were locked in a budget showdown. It was the perfect moment for a wily senator to game the system. As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

Not only did that Act enable the subprime meltdown that crashed the economy and put tens of millions into foreclosure, it also enabled Wall Street investors to artificially spike the price of food.

“Bankers had taken control of the world’s food, money chased money, and a billion people went hungry,” Kaufman clarified.

After a year long investigation, he confirmed that price hikes in food from 2005 through the peak in June 2008 had nothing to do with the supply chain, but instead occurred as a result of a Wall Street investment scheme known as Commodity Investment Funds. The first to develop the idea was Goldman Sachs, which took 18 different food sources, including cattle, coffee, cocoa, corn, hogs and wheat, and created an investment package. Kaufman explains:

They weighted the investment value of each element, blended and commingled the parts into sums, then reduced what had been a complicated collection of real things into a mathematical formula that could be expressed as a single manifestation, to be known thenceforward as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. Then they began to offer shares.

(Kaufman summarizes his report in this June 2010 interview by Thom Hartmann, and in this July Democracy Now interview.)

Kaufman points out that also in 2008, ConAgra Foods was able to sell its trading arm to a hedge fund for $2.8 billion. The world’s largest grain trader and GMO giant, Cargill, recorded an 86% jump in annual profits in the first quarter of 2008, attributed to commodity trading and an expanding biofuels market. The Star Tribune calculated that Cargill earned $471,611 an hour that quarter.

The investment bubble burst in June 2008 and “aggregate commodity prices fell about 60% by mid-November 2008,” notes Steve Suppan of the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy. Though the US House of Representatives introduced a regulatory bill, “legislative loopholes will exempt at least 40-45%” of such trades. Supporting the loopholes is Cargill, among other multinational corporations. Suppan concludes:

The outlook for a sustainable and transparent financial system to underwrite trade dependent food security is not good… [T]he budget for the just launched congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, scheduled to report December 15, [2010] is just $8 million. The Wall Street lobbying budget for defeating financial reform legislation is thus far $344 million…

The final bill was signed into law in July 2010 (summarized by the New York Times), and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission continues to issue new rules purportedly aimed at regulating financial markets. “But big banks influence the rules governing derivatives through a variety of industry groups,” notes another New York Times piece.

Did the artificial price hike open EU doors to GM foods?

No, in fact, ISAAA noted that: “Six European countries planted 94,750 hectares of biotech crops in 2009, down from seven countries and 107,719 hectares in 2008, as Germany discontinued its planting.”

A closer look at EU member state actions on GM foods after June 2008 details some of the GM-free battle in Europe:

– In December 2008, after a ten-year hiatus, Italy agreed to open field tests of GM crops.

– The Czech Republic became the second largest grower of Bt corn in the EU in 2008, nearly doubling the acreage planted in 2007. The USDA characterized it as being an investment target not only in agriculture but also in vaccine development.

– At the EU level, “In an apparent U-turn in his attitude as one of EU executive’s most GM-wary commissioners, environment chief Stavros Dimas” wrote draft approvals for two more varieties of GM corn, reported Reuters in December 2008.

– However, by September 2008, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland had all become GM-free, and urged the UK to do likewise.

– Though pressured by the European Commission, in January 2009 Hungary refused to lift its ban on GM foods. Its sovereign right to reject GMOs, along with

– Austria’s, was later upheld by an EU vote with 20 member states supporting such bans.

– In March 2009, Luxembourg became the fifth EU nation to ban GM foods, following France, Hungary, Greece and Austria.

– In October 2009, Turkey banned the import of biotech products.

For updates and a more thorough history of EU actions on GM foods, see GMO-Free Europe. European states handle the issue differently than in the US, allowing regions within a nation to maintain GM-free zones. Each step a nation takes toward GM approval invariably draws regional resistance.

Biotech Crops Expand Globally in 2009

Though the strategy to hike food prices to spur European acceptance of GM foods failed, it worked elsewhere. Globally, biotech crops expanded by 7% in 2009 over 2008 figures, according to this chart by ISAAA:



In fact, ISAAA asserted GM expansion was due to the 2008 price hikes, as noted by chairman and founder Clive James: “With last year’s food crisis, price spikes, and hunger and malnutrition afflicting more than 1 billion people for the first time ever, there has been a global shift from efforts for just food security to food self-sufficiency.”

Poorer nations hardest hit by hunger — in Africa and South America — are more vulnerable to price hikes. But even after the geologically unusual earthquake in January, Haitian farmers rejected Monsanto’s “gift” of GM seeds. However, the big push remains in Africa and China.

A Wary Future

Although it is now widely accepted that Wall Street speculation caused the food bubble, starving hundreds of millions, regulators have so far failed to curb the practices that allow international banksters to manipulate food prices.

Meanwhile, the biotech industry continues to repeat its mantra that GM food can cure world hunger. This claim is not backed by the science and it seems to hold less sway in the GM food debate, especially with the Pope recognizing what many others assert: there is no shortage of food; hunger expanded because of price hikes.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/12/leake ... in-europe/

*

[vanlose kid]

December 15, 2010 06:00 PM
Wikileaks Cable: Hubris in the Form of a Celtic Tiger
By karoli

Today's Wikileaks release includes a cable from 2004 extolling the virtues of Ireland's economic boom. In hindsight, we see what a failure Ireland's decision to give large corporations special tax breaks was.

In 2004, US Treasury Secretary John Snow visited Ireland for the purpose of studying Ireland's "secrets of success." At the time, Ireland's economy was soaring largely because their corporate tax rate of 12.5% is the lowest of any industrialized nation.

The resulting boom brought jobs and prosperity, which in turn spurred building, which spawned mortgages, which rocked the banks when the entire world went into a global recession. The Celtic Tiger was reduced to a meow instead of a roar, bent to the mercy of the EU with a shotgun wedding to austerity.

But in 2004, things were rosy and bright. It's worth looking at this analysis in retrospect, since the right-wing would like to use the same strategy now.

Step One: Strike when labor is at its greatest disadvantage

Fianna Fail,'s “great advantage” at the time, said O'hUiginn, was Ireland,s economic crisis; with 18 percent unemployment and government debt at 130 percent of GDP, the political opposition, industry, and labor could not afford politically to impede solutions. The PNR,s linchpin was labor's decision to accept a moderate wage increases in exchange for income tax relief, which became the basic approach to successive national wage-setting (Social Partnership) agreements.

Step Two: Get organized labor's buy-in by calling it a Social Partnership

According to Cassells, a shared understanding between unions and the Government on the importance of decent wages and housing for workers was the basis of labor,s commitment to the Social Partnership approach. He added that the transparency and inclusiveness of wage-setting negotiations, in which even the most disgruntled union representatives were given voice, were also instrumental to success.

This section goes on to note that the wealth of young, educated Irish workers was instrumental as well. Evidently the Irish haven't gone as far as the right-wing in this country when it comes to education. This part is good, but as you'll see, it's not all that important to the real meat of the deal.

Step Three: "Dictatorial Leadership"

This involved incenitivizing industries to achieve efficiencies by exposing them to the full discipline of the market, even at the risk of bankruptcies. The challenge in this approach, explained McCreevy, was to press ahead with reforms in the face of elections, which provided temptations for politicians to adopt softer, more populist economic platforms. Secretary Snow observed that whereas the gains from economic reforms in any country tended to be diffuse, the losses were often concentrated in particular sectors or geographic areas, making it easier for those affected to organize political opposition. McCreevy commented that the test of any government was how well it explained to dislocated workers that the reforms responsible for their plight were good for the country.

So we have the unrelenting "market" discipline at work, and when it worked its magic and bankruptcies resulted (it's unclear whether the bankruptcies were personal or corporate, by the way), workers got a government line that their plight was 'patriotic'.

Steps Four and Five: EU Support and US Offshore Tax Breaks

Step Four is self-explanatory. Step five should tell us all why it is we can't have nice things.

The U.S. policy of tax deferral for foreign subsidiaries of American firms, combined with Ireland,s 12.5 percent corporate tax rate, underpinned the large influx of U.S. investment to Ireland during the Celtic Tiger period, observed Padraic White, former CEO of Ireland,s Industrial Development Authority (IDA). White recounted his numerous trips to the U.S. House of Representatives, Ways and Means Committee to defend tax deferral, and he argued that Senator Kerry,s plan to reverse tax deferral would have “killed Ireland,” had he been elected. White believed that complaints by the U.S. public about the job outsourcing that accompanied U.S. investment flows were wrong-headed.

While our economy stalled, we built Ireland's. But as Ireland discovered, markets are a cruel mistress. They are indeed dictatorial, and what markets give, they can also take away. It's interesting to me that the Irish government chose to guarantee every penny of the big banks' exposure, rather than letting the markets shake it out.

The tone of this particular cable is almost celebratory and certainly full of puffed-up pride over the 'success' of the Celtic Tiger.

Meow.

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/wikile ... ltic-tiger

*

[seemslikeadream]

I was right DemocraticUnderground and YOU were wrong for censoring, deleting, moving my posts, shame on you. You may have had me banned Lithos from DU but you will not silence me.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/12/09TELAVIV2734.html

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/18/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV KWBG IS
SUBJECT: STAFFDEL KUIKEN-CAMMACK'S MEETING WITH PM ADVISOR
RON DERMER

Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Marc Sievers, reasons 1.4
(b),(d)

¶1. (S) Summary: During a December 14 meeting with Senate
staff members (Michael Kuiken, Senate Armed Services
Committee, and Perry Cammack, Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations), the Prime Minister's Director for Policy Planning
Ron Dermer confirmed a solid U.S.-Israeli relationship that
weathered a "rocky start" following the transition to new
administrations in both countries. He argued that the
international environment has changed in favor of pursuing a
pressure track with Iran; tougher sanctions combined with
continued domestic pressure within Iran might bring about
change in Tehran. He expressed frustration with the peace
process, noting that the GOI has taken steps in the effort to
convince Abu Mazen to return to the negotiating table to no
avail. Dermer said PM Netanyahu's patience has "run out,"
and that the GOI will make no more concessions in that regard
-- it is time for Abu Mazen to "be a leader." End summary.

U.S.-Israeli Relations
----------------------

¶2. (S) Dermer described U.S.-Israeli relations as good and
improving, but acknowledged that the relationship between the
new Obama and Netanyahu administrations got off to a "rough,
rocky start." He noted that changes in administrations in
both countries at nearly the same time were "relatively rare"
-- both entered office and started formulating policy based
on electoral mandates representing change from the previous
administrations. Dermer said that the United States and
Israel agree on so many things; when an issue of disagreement
arises, the media tends to disproportionally accentuate the
disagreement -- as was the case earlier in the year on
settlements.

¶3. (S) Since this disagreement, Dermer said relations between
the two administrations have improved daily, and were "only
getting stronger." He noted greater U.S.-Israeli cooperation
and coordination, especially with regard to confronting Iran
and its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. Dermer said
that President Obama does not get enough credit in Israel for
weighing in helpfully on several issues affecting Israel's
security, such as the Goldstone Report, problems in the
Turkey-Israel relations, and the recent EU Council statement
on East Jerusalem. He also cited the successful Juniper
Cobra joint missile defense exercise hosted by Israel in
November 2009.

Iran
----

¶4. (S) Dermer said there was "great understanding" between
President Obama and PM Netanyahu on Iran during their first
meeting in May 2009. Since then, several events related to
Iran have helped changed the international community's view
on Iran: the Iranian elections and the regime's subsequent
crackdown, the discovery of the Qom enrichment facility, and
Iran's refusal of the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) proposal.
Dermer noted that PM Netanyahu has been quite vocal on Iran
over the last 15 years; as the PM's communications advisor,
Dermer said he is often asked why Netanyahu has not spoken
out against Tehran recently. Dermer described the PM's
uncharacteristic public reticence as a strategic decision to
give the United States a chance to succeed and not undermine
the engagement process.

¶5. (S) Dermer suggested that the "stars are aligning" in
favor of putting more pressure on Iran. He described the
upcoming French UNSC presidency as positive, while the GOI
was pleased to see the Swedish EU presidency come to an end.
Dermer said the trick was to convince Tehran that the
continued pursuit of its weapons program would cause the
regime's downfall, and that Russia remains the key on
sanctions.

¶6. (S) Dermer acknowledged disparate voices within the GOI on
strategy regarding Iran, but added that PM Netanyahu favored
tough economic sanctions combined with support for internal
democratic dissent. Dermer compared Iran to the former
Soviet Union, in which experts were shocked by its internal
fragility and subsequent sudden collapse. The assumption is
that Iran is powerful, he said, but internal dissent coupled
with constant external pressure could lead to the fall of the
regime. He noted the importance of finding Iran's "Achilles
heel" to apply pressure on the regime -- perhaps through
Iran's lack of oil refinery infrastructure. Dermer also said
that PM Netanyahu was impressed with the recent efforts by
Senators Brownback and Specter to secure funding to provide
all-source, uncensored internet access to peoples living

TEL AVIV 00002734 002 OF 002


under repressive regimes.

Peace Process
-------------

¶7. (S) Dermer noted that the GOI has taken a number of steps
in the effort to jump-start the peace process with the
Palestinians, but to no avail -- as a result, Netanyahu's
patience has "run out," he said. Dermer noted progress on
West Bank checkpoints and outpost evacuations, Netanyahu's
acceptance of the two-state solution during his June 2009 Bar
Ilan speech, allowing "violent" individuals into the West
Bank to attend the Fatah party congress, and the recent
settlement moratorium. He claimed that 70 percent of the
Israeli public opposes the moratorium (note: we think this is
an exaggeration) -- this was a difficult decision for
Netanyahu, but one he decided to make to restart
negotiations.

¶8. (S) Dermer lamented the lack of a partner on the
Palestinian side to pursue negotiations. He pointed to an
interview Abu Mazen gave to The Washington Post's Jackson
Diehl six months ago in which Abu Mazen implied he would "sit
back and wait" for the United States to deliver Israel to the
negotiating table. Dermer accused Abu Mazen of trying to
internationalize the conflict, which he described as a "big
mistake." The GOI understands Abu Mazen's political
constraints and lack of support from Arab regional partners
-- but at the end of the day, Abu Mazen must "be a leader,"
Dermer said.

¶9. (S) Dermer noted that there will come a point readily
apparent to the GOI in which the settlement freeze offers
diminishing returns. He said the steps or "concessions" the
GOI has taken thus far have been devalued because they were
made outside the context of negotiations -- "give us
context," he said. In that regard, Dermer stated
categorically that the GOI will not make any more concessions
to Abu Mazen in order to return to negotiations -- "that is
over." He asked what steps the PA has taken to return to the
negotiating table, and dismissed Palestinian progress in the
security sector as simply efforts to preserve Fatah's power.

¶10. (S) Dermer said that while Netanyahu is ready to engage
at any time, the Israeli public is skeptical regarding the
benefits of returning to negotiations with the Palestinians.
He noted that it would be "extremely difficult" for Netanyahu
to approach the Cabinet at this point regarding negotiations
when all the GOI has received in return for its efforts was a
"slap-down from the international community" following the
Goldstone Report.

¶11. (S) Dermer said Netanyahu does not believe Abu Mazen is
as weak as he claims, and that Abu Mazen has the potential to
"rise to the occasion" in negotiating peace. However, he
said Abu Mazen must make some sort of gesture to return to
the table and "prepare his people" for the difficult
decisions necessary for peace. Seemingly simple steps such
as employing new language or condemning violence and
terrorism -- something the GOI believes Abu Mazen has not
done since 2003 -- would be very appreciated, Dermer said.

¶12. (U) The staffdel cleared this cable.
CUNNINGHAM

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/11/09TELAVIV2500.html

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/17/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV MOPS PTER EG CH IR RU SA LE TU IS
SUBJECT: 40TH JOINT POLITICAL-MILITARY GROUP: EXECUTIVE
SESSION (PART 1 OF 4)

Classified By: A/DCM Marc Sievers, reasons 1.4 (b,d)

¶1. (S) Summary: During the Executive Session of the 40th
Joint Political Military Group (JPMG), U.S. and Israeli
counterparts continued discussion on the creation of four new
Qualitative Military Edge (QME) working groups. GOI
interlocutors continued to raise concerns regarding the F-15
sale to Saudi Arabia. Both sides agreed that continued
pressure be applied to Iran, especially following the
disclosure of the nuclear facility in Qom. GOI participants
expressed concern regarding Chinese and Russian cooperation
with respect to enhanced Iranian sanctions. The GOI also
raised dual citizenship concerns with respect to access to
sensitive technology, and noted from its perspective Turkey's
disturbing change of course toward Syria and Iran -- and away
from Israel. This is the first in four cables (septels)
reporting on the JPMG. End summary.

¶2. (SBU) Israeli Participants:

-- Brigadier General (res) Pinchas Buchris, MOD Director
General
-- Major General (ret) Amos Gilad, MOD Political-Military
Chief
-- Brigadier General Ronen Dan, acting Israeli Defense
Attache to the United States
-- Gad Dovev, Director, MOD Mission, New York
-- Alon Bar, MFA Deputy Director General for Strategic Affairs
-- COL Shimon Arad, IDF J5
-- Rami Yungman, MOD Political-Military Bureau
-- Schmuel Royter, Assistant to the MOD Director General

U.S. Participants:

-- Andrew Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of
Political-Military Affairs
-- Luis Moreno, Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv
-- Dr. Colin Kahl, International Security Affairs, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense
-- Brigadier General Jefforey Smith, Joint Staff
-- Prem Kumar, Director for Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian
and Jordanian Affairs, NSC
-- Tom Goldberger, Director for Israel and Palestinian
Affairs, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
-- COL Richard Burgess, Defense Attache, U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv

Qualitative Military Edge
-------------------------

¶3. (S) The Executive Session continued discussion from the
September 30 Qualitative Military Edge (QME) meeting in
Washington. Both sides presented their primary points of
contact for the four newly proposed working groups focusing
on previous agreements, mitigation measures for the F-15 sale
to Saudi Arabia, technical mitigation issues, and
intelligence/policy. Agreement was reached to begin working
on the details of each working group's meeting schedule and
timeline.

¶4. (S) The GOI continued to express concern over the F-15
sale to Saudi Arabia. U.S. participants noted that the USG
is unable to provide more detailed information about the sale
until Saudi Arabia officially sends a Letter of Request
(LOR). The GOI expressed additional concerns about
stationing these new aircraft at Tabuk airfield in the
northwest corner of Saudi Arabia -- close to the Israeli
border. U.S. participants stated the USG understanding that
this should not be an issue, as the Saudis are considering
stationing new Typhoon aircraft at Tabuk. The GOI also
raised AMRAAM sales to Jordan; U.S. participants explained
that the new C-7 AMRAAM is an export version with
capabilities similar to the C-5 version -- and therefore
provides little to no increase in capabilities.

Iran, China and Russia
----------------------

¶5. (S) Both sides expressed concern over the recent
revelation regarding Iran's nuclear facility at Qom, and
agreed that increased pressure should be applied directly and
internationally against Iran in order to better determine
Tehran's motives and next steps. Both sides agreed that the
facility at Qom should be inspected immediately. One member
of the Israeli delegation expressed the opinion that some
consideration be given to "shutting Qom operations down
completely" to prevent further progress on obtaining a
nuclear weapon. That said, the GOI argued that the
international community not become bogged down on the Tehran
Research Reactor (TRR) and Qom, thereby diverting focus from

TEL AVIV 00002500 002 OF 002


the bigger issue of Iran's nuclear program.

¶6. (S) Several questions were raised about China's position
on Iran's efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon. Both sides
agreed that continued engagement with China and Russia is
needed -- as well as building a consensus in Europe. The USG
speculated, and the GOI concurred, that China will follow
Moscow's lead. USG participants argued that China would seek
to avoid an international confrontation over Iran. The GOI
described 2010 as a critical year -- if the Iranians continue
to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more
difficult to target and damage them. Both sides then
discussed the upcoming delivery of GBU-28 bunker busting
bombs to Israel, noting that the transfer should be handled
quietly to avoid any allegations that the USG is helping
Israel prepare for a strike against Iran.

¶7. (S) The GOI made the case for "crippling sanctions";
cooperation between the United States, Europe, Russia and
China will be necessary in order for these sanctions to be
effective. U.S. participants stressed the USG position that
any discussions with Iran on this subject be finite; the USG
will continue to monitor whether negotiations are making
progress. The GOI stated that it is not convinced the
Iranians will negotiate in good faith unless there are
visible and clear threats. U.S. delegation members described
eight lanes of sanctions, and outlined a plan to "pivot to
apply appropriate pressure" on those points and tracks that
have the most impact. U.S. participants concurred that 2010
is a critical year -- but the continued application of
pressure is vital.

¶8. (S) Regarding Russia, the GOI was not confident that
Moscow will be helpful in any Iranian sanctions effort -- GOI
participants opined that Russia is considered a "mystery"
with respect to their views on Iran. The GOI raised the
Russian S-300 sale to Iran, noting that the transfer is still
pending. GOI participants argued that Moscow seeks a return
to superpower status, but there are contradictory trends
regarding Russia's internal condition.

Dual Citizenship Issues
-----------------------

¶9. (S) The GOI raised the issue of dual citizenship within
the context of access to sensitive technology. U.S.
participants acknowledged Israeli concerns, noting that the
issue is being worked at the highest levels of the USG to
reach consensus on how to proceed. The GOI recommended
obtaining a waiver similar to the relationship from which
Canada or Australia benefit.

Turkey
------

¶10. (S) The GOI raised the current direction the Government
of Turkey has taken toward Syria and Iran -- and away from
Israel. Israeli participants argued that Turkey has been
supportive of Hamas in Gaza while pursuing a more "Islamic"
direction with the goal of becoming a regional superpower.
The GOI argued that the Turkish military is losing its
ability to influence government decisions and strategic
direction. After this past year, GOI participants said they
have a "bad feeling" about Turkey. The GOI noted that the
Israel Air Force (IAF) Commander in the past wanted to speak
to the Turkish Air Force Commander, but his Turkish
counterpart declined.

¶11. (U) A/S Shapiro has cleared on this cable.
CUNNINGHAM

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/06/07TELAVIV1732.html
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/13/2017
TAGS: PREL PTER PHUM MARR MASS KPAL KWBG EG IS
SUBJECT: ISA CHIEF DISKIN ON SITUATION IN THE GAZA STRIP
AND WEST BANK

REF: TEL AVIV 1705

Classified By: Ambassador Richard H. Jones. Reasons: 1.4 (b)(d).

¶1. (S) SUMMARY: In a June 11 meeting that entailed
discussion of the benchmarks (reftel), Israeli Security
Agency (ISA) Head Yuval Diskin shared his assessment of the
current situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, painting a
picture of a desperate, disorganized, and demoralized Fatah
in the Gaza Strip, versus a well-organized and ascendant
Hamas. Speaking before the dramatic events of June 12-13 in
Gaza, Diskin qualified that Hamas is currently not in a
position to completely destroy Fatah. Diskin said that he
opposes USSC LTG Dayton's proposal to equip security forces
loyal to Palestinian Authority President Abbas and Fatah, as
he is concerned that the provisions will end up in the hands
of Hamas. He claimed that the security forces loyal to Abbas
and Fatah have been penetrated by Hamas, and pointed to a
recent incident in which Hamas reportedly seized heavy
machine guns from Abbas' Presidential Guard. Diskin noted
that the failed hostage-taking attempt two days earlier at
the Kissufim crossing had been carried out by Palestinian
Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades militants,
and led by PIJ. He said that ISA had no prior information
about the attack, and described it as "operationally
creative." Diskin said that overall counter-tunnel
cooperation with Egyptian security forces has improved over
the last two months, but claimed that that the Egyptians
still only react to intelligence supplied by ISA, and are
otherwise not proactive.

¶2. (S) SUMMARY, CONT.: Diskin described the overall security
situation in the West Bank as comparatively better, and
praised the level of cooperation ISA receives from the
Palestinian security services operating in the West Bank.
That said, he lamented what he characterized as a crisis of
leadership in Fatah, with PA President Abbas already focusing
on his retirement, and his possible successors incapable of
leading the Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip. Diskin especially criticized PA National Security
Advisor Muhammad Dahlan as attempting to lead his loyalists
in the Gaza Strip by "remote control" from abroad. Diskin
said that Fatah is on its "last legs," and that the situation
bodes ill for Israel. He noted his intention to discuss some
ideas on how to deal with the situation with PM Olmert in the
near future, and said he would share his thoughts afterwards
with the Ambassador. END SUMMARY.

--------------------------------------------- ------------
DISKIN DESCRIBES SITUATION FOR FATAH IN GAZA AS DESPERATE
--------------------------------------------- ------------

¶3. (S) Speaking before the dramatic events of June 12-13,
Diskin said that Hamas is dominant in the Gaza Strip, but is
not yet strong enough there to completely destroy Fatah. The
difference, he explained, is between the "quality" of Hamas,
and the "quantity" of Fatah's security apparatus that is
loyal to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Abbas. Hamas
is dominant in most areas. In the Gaza Strip, it can win
every fight with Fatah, but Fatah can do it harm in its
"chaotic" way of fighting. Diskin said that some Fatah
members are being paid by National Security Advisor Muhammad
Dahlan, while others are being paid by Abbas -- especially
the Presidential Guard. He noted that the Presidential Guard
had been involved in the June 10 clashes at the Rafah
crossing.

--------------------------------------------- -------------
BUT NOTES HE OPPOSES PLAN TO SUPPORT FATAH SECURITY FORCES
--------------------------------------------- -------------

¶4. (S) Diskin noted that he had heard earlier on June 11 from
Palestinian sources that Hamas had succeeded in stealing some
"Doshka" heavy machine guns from the Presidential Guard. He
said that this is an example of why he does not support "at
this time" USSC LTG Dayton's proposal to supply ammunition
and weapons to Fatah: "I support the idea of militarily
strengthening Fatah, but I am afraid that they are not
organized to ensure that the equipment that is transferred to
them will reach the intended recipients." Diskin claimed
that most of the Fatah-aligned security forces have been
penetrated by Hamas. He reiterated that he does not want to
see any equipment transferred to them before he is convinced
that the equipment will arrive at its intended destination.

¶5. (S) Diskin raised as another matter the question of
whether Fatah will be able to hold on to any equipment
provided to it. He expressed concern about Fatah's
organizational capabilities, and what he characterized as a

TEL AVIV 00001732 002 OF 003


glaring lack of leadership: "Dahlan is trying to manage
Fatah's security forces by remote control. We are not even
sure where he is." (NOTE: Diskin's aide said he believed
Dahlan is in Cairo. But on June 13, Diskin told the
Ambassador that Dahlan had surfaced in Amman the day before.
END NOTE.) Diskin continued: "Fatah is in very bad shape in
the Gaza Strip. We have received requests to train their
forces in Egypt and Yemen. We would like them to get the
training they need, and to be more powerful, but they do not
have anyone to lead them." Diskin also made clear his
reservations on training Palestinians in a country like Yemen
with a strong Al-Qaida presence.

¶6. (S) Diskin's aide said that the security forces at the
Rafah crossing are strong, but are demoralized with the
overall situation in the Gaza Strip. Diskin added that their
communications with the ISA had become "desperate," and
indicated no hope for the future. He observed that there is
a young generation of leaders among Fatah who are being
"pushed" by Dahlan and who have a sense of the urgency of the
situation and what needs to be done. At the same time,
however, they are not behaving in a way that is to be
expected by people in their urgent situation. Diskin
observed, "They are approaching a zero-sum situation, and yet
they ask us to attack Hamas. This is a new development. We
have never seen this before. They are desperate."

--------------------------------------------- -----
DISKIN: SITUATION IN WEST BANK BETTER THAN IN GAZA
--------------------------------------------- -----

¶7. (S) In the West Bank, Diskin said that ISA has established
a very good working relationship with the Preventive Security
Organization (PSO) and the General Intelligence Organization
(GIO). Diskin said that the PSO shares with ISA almost all
the intelligence that it collects. They understand that
Israel's security is central to their survival in the
struggle with Hamas in the West Bank.

¶8. (S) While he described this overall relationship with the
Palestinian security services in the West Bank as healthy,
Diskin noted that Fatah did not react to the last set of
Hamas attacks in the West Bank due to the current "mood" of
GIO leader Tawfik Tirawi. Diskin explained that Tirawi (whom
he described as psychopathic, cruel, dangerous and prone to
extreme mood swings) is disaffected and feels that his status
has declined, and that he is no longer respected by Abbas.
Diskin claimed that Tirawi also feels that his relationship
with Dahlan has deteriorated. Diskin said that he hopes to
meet with Tirawi the week of June 17 to dissuade him from
"doing stupid things, as he is trying to develop ties with
the Dughmush family in the Gaza Strip."

--------------------------------------------- -------------
DISKIN ON ABBAS: HE HAS FAILED. NOBODY CAN LEAD FATAH NOW
--------------------------------------------- -------------

¶9. (S) Diskin said that Abbas views Fatah as weak and "on its
last legs," and incapable of being rehabilitated within six
months. Stressing that it was his own opinion (and not
necessarily shared by the GOI), Diskin said that Abbas is
starting to become a problem for Israel: "He's a paradox.
He cannot function and do anything. Why is Fatah failing?
Because Abbas has become the 'good guy' whom everyone is
trying to do everything for in order to keep him alive.
Everyone is afraid of the alternative, and yet Abbas is
already talking about how he plans to retire from the
political scene after his term ends in 2008. He knows he is
weak and that he has failed. He has failed to rehabilitate
Fatah. He did not start to take any action when he had the
chance in 2004. Instead of choosing to be the leader for
Fatah, he chose to be a national leader for all
Palestinians." Diskin lamented that the current situation
suggests that nobody can now assume leadership of Fatah.
Dahlan, he said, can only lead in the Gaza Strip -- if that
-- and Marwan Barghouti can lead in the West Bank, but not
the Gaza Strip. "It is something in their blood," he said,
"the leaders of the West Bank cannot rule the Palestinians in
the Gaza Strip and vice versa." Diskin warned that
Palestinian society is disintegrating, and that this bodes
ill for Israel. He said that he has some ideas about how to
address this that he wishes to discuss with PM Olmert, and
would share with the Ambassador afterwards: "We have to give
Fatah the conditions to succeed, but we cannot do this
through your benchmarks (reftel)."

--------------------------------------------- ----------
DISKIN ON ISA COUNTER-TUNNEL COOPERATION WITH EGYPTIANS
--------------------------------------------- ----------

TEL AVIV 00001732 003 OF 003



¶10. (S) Responding to a question from the Ambassador, Diskin
said that cooperation between Egyptian and Palestinian
security forces recently led to the discovery of some tunnels
in the Gaza Strip. He said the ISA occasionally hears that
tunnels are found in the Gaza Strip, and while he is inclined
to believe the information, he admitted that ISA cannot
always verify it. Diskin said that ISA's cooperation with
Egyptian security services has improved over the last two
months after their respective delegations had met. That
said, he claimed that fundamental challenges remain
unresolved: "They react on the intelligence that we provide
to them, but they are not proactive." He lamented that there
has been no dramatic change in the tunnel situation, adding
that there are still many tunnels running under the
Philadelphi corridor.

--------------------------------------------- -------------
DISKIN ON THE FAILED ATTACK AT KISSUFIM; THREATS ON FAYYAD
--------------------------------------------- -------------

¶11. (S) Referring to the failed June 9 attempt by Palestinian
militants to kidnap Israeli soldiers stationed at the
Kissufim crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Diskin
said that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Al-Aksa Martyrs
Brigades carried out the attempt under PIJ leadership. He
said that the militant who guided the attack was one of PIJ's
main operatives in the northern Gaza Strip. Diskin said that
the attack was staged against an empty post, but designed to
appear dramatic. He admitted the attackers were
operationally very creative, and that ISA had no indication
that the attack was going to take place: "This was another
ISA failure. We had no intelligence on the attack in
advance."

¶12. (S) Responding to the Ambassador's question, Diskin said
that he had not seen any specific evidence about threats to
PA Finance Minister Salam Fayyad. He observed, however, that
as a former Fatah activist, Fayyad ought to be concerned
about his own security. Diskin noted that the man thrown by
Hamas militants from the roof of a 15-story building in the
Gaza Strip the day before was a member of Force 17.

********************************************* ********************
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http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/telaviv

You can also access this site through the State Department's
Classified SIPRNET website.
********************************************* ********************
JONES

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/06/07TELAVIV1733.html


VZCZCXRO4198
OO RUEHROV
DE RUEHTV #1733/01 1641638
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O 131638Z JUN 07
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1629
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 001733

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/13/2017
TAGS: PREL PTER MOPS KWBG LE SY IS
SUBJECT: MILITARY INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR YADLIN COMMENTS ON
GAZA, SYRIA AND LEBANON

Classified By: Ambassador Richard H. Jones, Reason 1.4 (b) (d)

¶1. (S) Summary. During a June 12 meeting with the
Ambassador, IDI Director MG Amos Yadlin said that Gaza was
"number four" on his list of threats, preceded by Iran,
Syria, and Hizballah in that order. Yadlin said the IDI has
been predicting armed confrontation in Gaza between Hamas and
Fatah since Hamas won the January 2006 legislative council
elections. Yadlin felt that the Hamas military wing had
initiated the current escalation with the tacit consent of
external Hamas leader Khalid Mishal, adding that he did not
believe there had been a premeditated political-level
decision by Hamas to wipe out Fatah in Gaza. Yadlin
dismissed Fatah's capabilities in Gaza, saying Hamas could
have taken over there any time it wanted for the past year,
but he agreed that Fatah remained strong in the West Bank.
Although not necessarily reflecting a GOI consensus view,
Yadlin said Israel would be "happy" if Hamas took over Gaza
because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state.
He dismissed the significance of an Iranian role in a
Hamas-controlled Gaza "as long as they don't have a port."
Regarding predictions of war with Syria this summer, Yadlin
recalled the lead-up to the 1967 war, which he said was
provoked by the Soviet Ambassador in Israel. Both Israel and
Syria are in a state of high alert, so war could happen
easily even though neither side is seeking it. Yadlin
suggested that the Asad regime would probably not survive a
war, but added that Israel was no longer concerned with
maintaining that "evil" regime. On Lebanon, Yadlin felt that
the fighting in the Nahr Al-Barid camp was a positive
development for Israel since it had "embarrassed" Hizballah,
adding that IDI had information that the Fatah Al-Islam
terrorist group was planning to attack UNIFIL before it
blundered into its confrontation with the LAF. End Summary.

Gaza Fighting Not Israel's Main Problem
---------------------------------------

¶2. (S) The Ambassador, accompanied by Pol Couns and DATT,
called on IDI Director Major General Amos Yadlin June 12.
Noting reports of fierce fighting between Hamas and Fatah in
Gaza that day, the Ambassador asked for Yadlin's assessment.
Yadlin described Gaza as "not Israel's main problem," noting
that it ranked fourth in his hierarchy of threats, behind
Iran, Syria, and Hizballah. Yadlin described Gaza as
"hopeless for now," commenting that the Palestinians had to
realize that Hamas offered no solution. IDI analysts, he
said, had predicted a confrontation in Gaza since Hamas won
the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January
¶2006. Yadlin commented that Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had become
personally close despite their ideological differences, but
neither leader had control over those forces under them.

¶3. (S) Yadlin explained that both Fatah and Hamas contained
many factions. The Hamas military wing had been frustrated
since the signing of the Mecca Agreement in January, but
there were also many armed groups in Gaza that were not under
the control of either party. Yadlin cited the example of the
Dughmush clan, which had shifted from Fatah to the Popular
Resistance Committees to Hamas before becoming an armed
entity opposed to all of them. After May 15, the Hamas
military wing had sought to export the fighting to Sderot by
launching waves of Qassam rockets. One week later, as a
result of IDF retaliation, they realized the price was too
high and reduced the Qassam attacks.

¶4. (S) In response to the Ambassador's question, Yadlin said
he did not think that day's Hamas attacks on Fatah security
forces were part of a premeditated effort to wipe out Fatah
in Gaza. Instead, they probably represented an initiative of
the military wing with the tacit consent of Khalid Mishal in
Damascus. Mishal was still considering the costs and
benefits of the fighting, but the situation had become so
tense that any incident could lead to street fighting without
any political decision.

Gaza and West Bank Separating
-----------------------------

¶5. (S) The Ambassador asked Yadlin for his assessment of
reports that Fatah forces had been ordered not to fight back.
Yadlin said Mohammed Dahlan had 500 men and the Presidential
Guard had 1,500 more. They understand that the balance of
power favors Hamas, which "can take over Gaza any time it
wants to." Yadlin said he would be surprised if Fatah
fights, and even more surprised if they win. As far as he
was concerned, this had been the case for the past year. The
situation was different in the West Bank, however, where
Fatah remained relatively strong and had even started to

TEL AVIV 00001733 002 OF 002


kidnap Hamas activists. Yadlin agreed that Tawfiq Tirawi had
a power base in the West Bank, but he added that Fatah was
not cohesive.

¶6. (S) The Ambassador commented that if Fatah decided it has
lost Gaza, there would be calls for Abbas to set up a
separate regime in the West Bank. While not necessarily
reflecting a consensus GOI view, Yadlin commented that such a
development would please Israel since it would enable the IDF
to treat Gaza as a hostile country rather than having to deal
with Hamas as a non-state actor. He added that Israel could
work with a Fatah regime in the West Bank. The Ambassador
asked Yadlin if he worried about a Hamas-controlled Gaza
giving Iran a new opening. Yadlin replied that Iran was
already present in Gaza, but Israel could handle the
situation "as long as Gaza does not have a port (sea or air)."

War with Syria "Could Happen Easily"
------------------------------------

¶7. (S) Noting Israeli press speculation, the Ambassador
asked Yadlin if he expected war with Syria this summer.
Recalling the 1967 war, Yadlin commented that it had started
as a result of the Soviet Ambassador in Israel reporting on
non-existing Israeli preparations to attack Syria. Something
similar was happening again, he said, with the Russians
telling the Syrians that Israel planned to attack them,
possibly in concert with a U.S. attack on Iran. Yadlin
stated that since last summer's war in Lebanon, Syria had
engaged in a "frenzy of preparations" for a confrontation
with Israel. The Syrian regime was also showing greater
self-confidence. Some Syrian leaders appeared to believe
that Syria could take on Israel military, but others were
more cautious. The fact that both sides were on high alert
meant that a war could happen easily, even though neither
side is seeking one. In response to a question, Yadlin said
he did not think the Asad regime would survive a war, but he
added that preserving that "evil" regime should not be a
matter of concern.

Fighting in Nahr al-Barid Positive for Israel
---------------------------------------------

¶8. (S) The Ambassador asked Yadlin for his views on the
fighting in the Nahr al-Barid refugee camp in northern
Lebanon. Although Yadlin was called to another meeting and
did not have time to elaborate, he answered that the fighting
was positive for Israel because it had embarrassed Hizballah,
which had been unable to adopt a clear-cut position on the
Lebanese Army's action, and because the Fatah al-Islam
terrorist organization had been planning to attack UNIFIL and
then Israel before it blundered into its current
confrontation with the LAF. He also agreed that the
confrontation was strengthening the LAF, in fact and in the
eyes of the Lebanese people, which was also good.

¶9. (S) Comment: Yadlin's relatively relaxed attitude toward
the deteriorating security situation in Gaza represents a
shift in IDF thinking from last fall, when the Southern
Command supported a major ground operation into Gaza to
remove the growing threat from Hamas. While many media
commentators continue to make that argument, Yadlin's view
appears to be more in synch with that of Chief of General
Staff Ashkenazi, who also believes that the more serious
threat to Israel currently comes from the north.

********************************************* ********************
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WikiLeaks: Israel urged US to consider military strike against Iran
Dec 20, 2010, 12:51 GMT


Madrid - Israel urged the United States to take tougher action against Iran's nuclear programme, pressing it to put a deadline on negotiations and to consider a military strike if necessary, according to WikiLeaks documents published Monday.
The confidential US diplomatic cables obtained by the whistleblower website were quoted by the Spanish daily El Pais.
Israel sees Iran as the biggest threat to its security, Israeli defence officials told US officials in 2009 the first year of the new US administration under President Barack Obama, citing Tehran's nuclear programme and 'regional hegemonic ambitions.'
Not only would Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons allow it to use them against Israel, but it would unleash a nuclear arms race across the Middle East, according to the Israeli assessment.
Iran's transformation into a nuclear power would be a 'world- changing event' which would make all other issues pale in comparison, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted as telling a US senator.
Netanyahu pressed Washington say what it would do if Iran reaches the nuclear threshold, pressing the US to 'move quickly.'
In 2007, Israeli secret service chief Meir Dagan had underscored the need to prevent technology from reaching Iran, and encouraged Washington to foment a regime change there by supporting student democracy movements and ethnic groups opposed to the regime.
The 2009 cable also mentions discussions on 'covert measures,' without giving more details. The meeting took place just a few weeks after the Israeli secret service Mossad reportedly celebrated the killing of an Iranian scientist, El Pais said.
Dagan also proposed getting Europe to act tougher on Iran, increasing Voice of America broadcasts in the country, and coordinating with the Gulf states and countries north of Iran to pile up pressure.
The US policy to engage with Tehran should only be pursued for a finite period of time, Israeli security experts stressed to a senior US official in July, 2009.
'All options' including a military strike 'must remain on the table,' they said.
The window for stopping Iran's nuclear programme was 'rapidly closing,' the security experts also maintained at the time, arguing that it would take Tehran only one year to obtain a nuclear weapon and 2.5 years to build an arsenal of three weapons.
A 2007 cable mentions 'the upcoming delivery of GBU-28 bunker busting bombs to Israel,' saying 'the transfer should be handled quietly to avoid any allegations that the US government is helping Israel to prepare for a strike against Iran.'
In their talks with US officials, Israeli representatives also expressed concern over Russia's possible reluctance to fully pressure Tehran over its nuclear programme.
US diplomats stressed Washington's commitment to the diplomatic track and sanctions, but also said the US offer to negotiate with Tehran was not indefinite.

[seemslikeadream]

WikiLeaks: US Ambassador Planned "Retaliation" Against France Over Ban on Monsanto Corn
Tuesday 21 December 2010
by: Mike Ludwig, t r u t h o u t | Report


Craig Stapleton, former US ambassador to France at a Memorial Day service in Fere-en-Tardenois, France. Stapleton was concerned that a French decision to suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON-810 corn could spread anti-biotech policy across the EU. (Photo: LeAnne MacAllister, 5th Signal Command)
The former United States ambassador to France suggested "moving to retaliation" against France and the European Union (EU) in late 2007 to fight a French ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) corn and changes in European policy toward biotech crops, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks on Sunday.

Former Ambassador Craig Stapleton was concerned about France's decision to suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON-810 corn and warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across the EU.

"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits," Stapleton wrote to diplomatic colleagues.

President George W. Bush appointed Stapleton as ambassador to France in 2005, and in 2009, Stapleton left the office and became an owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Bush and Stapleton co-owned the Texas Rangers during the 1990s.

Monsanto is based in St. Louis.

The EU's 1998 approval of MON-810 corn has since expired. In recent years, several European countries joined France in banning MON-810 and similar biotech crops while the products are reassessed in light of research showing they could harm the environment and human health.

It is not clear if Stapleton's retaliation scheme was ever implemented.

"In our view, Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the Commission ... Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," Stapleton wrote.

MON-810 is engineered to excrete the Bt toxin, which is poisonous to some insect pests. A stacked version of MON-810 is also engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide first popularized by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup.

The debate in France over Monsanto's GM products has grown ugly in recent years.

A recent Truthout report detailed the story of Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini, a scientist at the University of Caen in France. Seralini's supporters claim the scientist has faced intimidation from within the French scientific community after he published several studies showing Monsanto GM corn and glyphosate posed risks to human health.

[JackRiddler]

President George W. Bush appointed Stapleton as ambassador to France in 2005, and in 2009, Stapleton left the office and became an owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Bush and Stapleton co-owned the Texas Rangers during the 1990s.

Monsanto is based in St. Louis.

The baseball part makes Stapleton one of the original Bush pioneers, before there were even Bush Pioneers. This was one of the key deals in making the son's personal fortune: he bought in to the Rangers very low, got to sell back to the other owners/sweethearts veeerrrry high.

.

[vanlose kid]

WikiLeaks cables: Bangladeshi 'death squad' trained by UK government
Rapid Action Battalion, accused of hundreds of extra-judicial killings, received training from UK officers, cables reveal


Fariha Karim and Ian Cobain
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 December 2010 21.30 GMT
Article history

Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have received training in 'investigative interviewing techniques'. Photograph: Abir Abdullah/EPA
The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a "government death squad", leaked US embassy cables have revealed.

Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement".

Details of the training were revealed in a number of cables, released by WikiLeaks, which address the counter-terrorism objectives of the US and UK governments in Bangladesh. One cable makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB – and that it would be illegal under US law to do so – because its members commit gross human rights violations with impunity.

Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as "crossfire" deaths. In September last year the director general of the RAB said his men had killed 577 people in "crossfire". In March this year he updated the figure, saying they had killed 622 people.

The RAB's use of torture has also been exhaustively documented by human rights organisations. In addition, officers from the paramilitary force are alleged to have been involved in kidnap and extortion, and are frequently accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings.

However, the cables reveal that both the British and the Americans, in their determination to strengthen counter-terrorism operations in Bangladesh, are in favour of bolstering the force, arguing that the "RAB enjoys a great deal of respect and admiration from a population scarred by decreasing law and order over the last decade". In one cable, the US ambassador to Dhaka, James Moriarty, expresses the view that the RAB is the "enforcement organisation best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation".

In another cable, Moriarty quotes British officials as saying they have been "training RAB for 18 months in areas such as investigative interviewing techniques and rules of engagement". Asked about the training assistance for the RAB, the Foreign Office said the UK government "provides a range of human rights assistance" in the country. However, the RAB's head of training, Mejbah Uddin, told the Guardian that he was unaware of any human rights training since he was appointed last summer.

The cables make clear that British training for RAB officers began three years ago under the last Labour government.

However, RAB officials confirmed independently of the cables that they had taken part in a series of courses and workshops as recently as October, five months after the formation of the coalition government. Asked whether ministers had approved the training programme, the Foreign Office said only that William Hague, the foreign secretary, and other ministers, had been briefed on counter-terrorism spending.

The US ambassador explains in the cables that the US government is "constrained by RAB's alleged human rights violations, which have rendered the organisation ineligible to receive training or assistance" under laws which prohibit American funding or training for overseas military units which abuse human rights with impunity.

Human rights organisations say the RAB cannot be reformed, noting that its human rights record has deterioriated still further in the last 12 months. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly described the RAB as a government death squad.

Brad Adams, the organisation's Asia director, said: "RAB is a Latin American-style death squad dressed up as an anti-crime force. The British government has let its desire for a functional counter-terrorism partner in Bangladesh blind it to the risks of working with RAB, and the legitimacy that it gives to RAB inside Bangladesh. Furthermore, it is not clear that the British government has ever made it a priority at the highest levels to tell RAB that if it doesn't change, it will not co-operate with it."

Amnesty International has also repeatedly condemned the RAB, while the Bangladeshi human rights organisation Odhikar has painstakingly documented the RAB's involvement in extra-judicial killings and torture since the creation of the force in March 2004.

Asked to comment on the rights groups' concern about the RAB, the Foreign Office said: "We do not discuss the detail of operational counter-terrorism cooperation. Counter-terrorism assistance is fully in line with our laws and values." At least some of the British training has been conducted by serving British police officers, working under the auspices of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), which was established in 2007 to build policing capacity and standards. Recent courses for RAB have been provided by officers from West Mercia and Humberside Police.

Asked whether it believed it was appropriate for British officers to be training members of an organisation condemned as "a government death squad", and whether courses in investigative interviewing techniques might not render torture more effective, an NPIA spokesman said the courses had been approved by the government and by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

"The NPIA has given limited support to the Bangladeshi Police and the RAB in technical areas of policing such as forensic awareness, management of crime scenes and recovery of evidence. Throughout the training we have emphasised the importance of respecting the human rights of witnesses, suspects and victims."The purpose of our sanctioned engagement is to support the development and improvement of professional policing that supports democratic, human rights-based practices linked to the rule of law in countries that may have different laws, faiths and policing practices from our own."

It is understood that there have been disagreements within the Foreign Office about the British government's involvement with the RAB. Some officials have argued that the partnership with the RAB is an essential component of the UK's counter-terrorism strategy in the region, while others have expressed concern that the relationship could prove damaging to Britain's reputation.

Successive Bangladeshi governments have promised to end the RAB's use of murder. The current government promised in its manifesto that it would end all extra-judicial killings, but they have continued following its election two years ago.In October last year, the shipping minister, Shahjahan Khan, speaking in a discussion organised by the BBC, said: "There are incidents of trials that are not possible under the laws of the land. The government will need to continue with extra-judicial killings, commonly called crossfire, until terrorist activities and extortion are uprooted."

In December last year the high court in Dhaka ruled that such killings must be brought to a halt following litigation by victims' familes and human rights groups, but they continue on an almost weekly basis. Most of the victims are young men, some are alleged to be petty criminals or are said to be left-wing activists, and the killings invariably take place in the middle of the night.

In the most recent "crossfire" killings, the RAB reported that it had shot dead Mohammad Mamun, 25, in the town of Tangail, shortly after midnight on Monday, and that 90 minutes later its officers in Dhaka, 50 miles to the south, had shot dead a second man, Taku Alam, 30. Today the RAB announced it had shot dead a 45-year-old man, Anisur Rahman, said to be a member of the Communist party in the west of the country.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/de ... eath-squad

*

[Plutonia]

This one needs revision- the Leakspinner's are working on it but it deserves a heads-up:

Obama Administration Plans to Co-Opt Taliban

According to cable http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/04/09SANTIAGO324.html

DATE: 2009-04-03 22:10
¶11. (C)”The Obama administration will not make an open-ended commitment to building freedom and democracy in Afghanistan because it is not realistic. “–Joe Biden

“Second, there is no real possibility of defeating Al Qaida without also dealing with Pakistan.”
¶14. (C) “The idea of a strong rule of law under a centralized Karzai government was not realistic. New policy towards the Taliban should reflect the reality of the Afghan government’s lack of capacity. Our policy should first aim to stabilize the urban areas and surrounding rural communities and then seek to exploit divisions within the Taliban, co-opting moderate elements rather than simply defeating militarily all elements of the Taliban.”

So, the US plan is to co-opt the Taliban instead of the previous “winning hearts and minds” democracy campaign of American supported elections.

Also according to the document, financially the USA cannot afford more than a two-year commitment in Afghanistan due to the expense of maintaining troops.
¶15. (C) We need to develop our relationshipwith Pakistan beyond its current transactional nature to a long-term strategic partnership.

So, the very country that is the most threatening in terms of “Terrorist activity” is the country the Obama administration wants to build a partnership, with?

And here's the cable entire:

Viewing cable 09SANTIAGO324, VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN'S MARCH 27 MEETING WITH

....

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/03/2019
TAGS: OVIP BIDEN JOSEPH PREL ECON PGOV SOCI UK PK
AF
SUBJECT: VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN'S MARCH 27 MEETING WITH
BRITISH PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN

SANTIAGO 00000324 001.2 OF 003

Classified By: Ambassador Paul Simons for reasons 1.4 (b/d).

¶1. (U) March 28, 2009; 8:30 am; Vina del Mar, Chile.

¶2. (U) Participants:

U.S.
Joseph Biden, Vice President
Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the
Vice President
Brian McKeon, Deputy National Security Advisor to
the Vice President
Brian Harris (notetaker), Political/Economic
Officer, U.S. Embassy Guatemala City

United Kingdom
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
Thomas Fletcher, Private Secretary to the Prime
Minister
Stuart Wood, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister
Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for
International Development

¶3. (C) Summary: During a bilateral meeting on the margins
of the Progressive Governance Leaders Summit in Chile, Vice
President Joseph Biden and British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown discussed the economic crisis in terms of the upcoming
G-20 Summit and Afghanistan and Pakistan. On economic
issues, Brown pressed Vice President Biden to push the
Germans to move forward with $250 billion in special drawing
rights (SDRs) for the IMF, to use IMF gold sales to support
poorest countries and to take the initiative to restart
sectoral negotiations related to Doha. On Pakistan and
Afghanistan, Vice President Biden noted our increased troop
commitment to Afghanistan and the need to lower expectations
as to what is achievable in Afghanistan given enormous
governance issues. End Summary.

-------------------------
TRADE AND ECONOMIC ISSUES
-------------------------

¶4. (C) PM Brown opened the meeting by thanking Vice
President Biden for recent statement on revising the
supervisory structure for the G-20.

¶5. (C) Vice President Biden asked whether capital flight
from developing countries would be high on the G-20 agenda
and noted that Argentinean President Fernandez has requested
additional assistance without the usual IMF conditionality.
Brown responded that he was worried about capital flight,
particularly in Eastern Europe. The current financial crisis
will test whether Eastern European nations have developed
sufficiently strong institutions since the fall of communism
to withstand the downturn politically and socially as well as
economically. It is a test of whether freedom can be
successfully combined with economic stability. IMF
conditionality has long been an area of contention for Latin
America and it is not surprising that Argentina would ask for
preventative funds without conditions.

------------------------------
BROWN PRESSES ON IMF AND TRADE
------------------------------

¶6. (C) Prime Minister Brown delivered several requests on
economic issues to Vice President Biden. The first was the
need to secure financing for an additional $250 billion in
Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for the IMF to help vulnerable
economies withstand the economic downturn. Brown commented
that his understanding was this was an amount that the
administration could support without the need to consult
Congress. U.S. support on the issue would be particularly
helpful with the Germans who, as yet, do not support
additional SDRs. Parallel discussions were going on with
China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and several other Gulf nations to
secure $400 billion in additional financing. Rapid approval
of the IMF portion would help catalyze these parallel
negotiations.

¶7. (C) PM Brown also noted that the IMF was being forced to
sell gold to raise funds to pay its administrative staff.*
There had been far fewer loan programs this decade than in
the 1990s. The result was reduced revenue from countries
repaying loans and a consequent budget shortfall. There is a

[***WTF! IMF selling gold reserves to pay staff!!!???***]

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pending sale of $11 billion in IMF gold that should be used
to help the poorest countries rather than pay IMF staff. The
U.S. position had been that interest from gold reserves could
be devoted to IMF programs, but that capital sales should
not. PM Brown asked Vice President Biden to reconsider this
position.

¶8. (C) PM Brown said successfully concluding the Doha round
would be difficult but the Obama administration should agree
to deal with environmental and labor commitments outside the
formal trading framework in relevant institutions such as the
ILO. Brown suggested that if the United States allowed
resumption of the next round of sectoral discussions, it
would create momentum for the rest of the world, including
India, to re-engage in the discussions. Opening new sectoral
discussions on Doha would garner the Administration
international support without needing to make difficult
political compromises or commitments for the time being.

¶9. (C) UK Secretary of State for International Development
Douglas Alexander said it was important to find a way to move
forward on the Doha Agreement. Trade discussions are like
riding a bike, i.e., you have to keep moving forward or you
fall down. If we do not proactively move forward and
eventually come to a successful conclusion to the Doha round,
the United States could be blamed in some quarters. The Doha
round was meant to be the &development8 round of
negotiations with significant aid from donor nations
contingent upon the agreement's successful conclusion. If it
did not pass, some governments that stand to lose aid, such
as Brazil, would likely blame the United States.

¶10. (C) Vice President Biden did not commit on any of these
issues but noted that labor interests in the United States
were not satisfied and were looking to the Administration to
establish its labor &bona fides.8 In a year, he said,
movement on economic and trade issues would either be easier
or impossible depending on the direction of the world
economy.

--------------------
AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN
--------------------

¶11. (C) Turning to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Vice President
Biden described the importance of combating terrorism and
noted the different elements of the Obama administration's
policy. First, the focus in Afghanistan is on Al Qaida. The
Obama administration will not make an open-ended commitment
to building freedom and democracy in Afghanistan because it
is not realistic. Second, there is no real possibility of
defeating Al Qaida without also dealing with Pakistan.
Third, he recognized that the United States cannot solve the
problem on its own. The whole world needed to engage.

¶12. (C) Vice President Biden said he worried that NATO
countries in Europe underestimated the threat from the region
and viewed the problem as an economic development issue
rather than a security issue, despite the fact that Afghan
opium is primarily exported to Europe and Europe has been the
victim of several terrorist attacks originating from the
region. Vice President Biden described the complex nature of
the security problem in Afghanistan, commenting that
&besides the demography, geography and history of the
region, we have a lot going for us.8

[Is that a joke? Jesus!!]

¶13. (C) Vice President Biden noted that the current U.S.
commitment of 63,000 troops to Afghanistan is the result of a
vigorous internal policy debate and would not be sustainable
politically for more than two years without visible signs of
progress. After two years, the extraordinary cost of
maintaining a robust military presence in Afghanistan would
make additional commitment increasingly difficult. After
Afghan elections the Administration intends to review the
situation again. Currently there is little capacity for the
Afghan government to execute many of the functions of
government. In many areas of the country, local officials
have close to no knowledge of how to govern or even basic
knowledge of payroll or budget. Part of the reason the
Taliban is strengthening is since the Taliban has the local
capacity to settle basic disputes quickly while central
government courts can take six to eight months to process a
case.

¶14. (C) The idea of a strong rule of law under a centralized

SANTIAGO 00000324 003.2 OF 003

Karzai government was not realistic. New policy towards the
Taliban should reflect the reality of the Afghan government's
lack of capacity. Our policy should first aim to stabilize
the urban areas and surrounding rural communities and then
seek to exploit divisions within the Taliban, co-opting
moderate elements rather than simply defeating militarily all
elements of the Taliban.

¶15. (C) On Pakistan, Vice President Biden commented that it
was difficult to convince Pakistan to commit to developing
its counter-insurgency potential. The threat from India
leads Pakistan to devote the bulk of its defense spending to
conventional warfare capabilities. However, something must
be done in the meantime. We need to develop our relationship
with Pakistan beyond its current transactional nature to a
long-term strategic partnership. We should begin with $1.5
billion per year in economic assistance that is unconditional
and supplement that with military assistance that is
conditioned on the modernization of its command structure and
active action in the field to combat insurgents. It would be
difficult to convince Congress to support such a plan,
particularly the unconditional civilian component.

¶16. (C) Vice President Biden noted that the United States
wants to empower the UN and wants active European
participation in resolving the threats in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. With the exception of the UK and a few others,
very few Europeans are taking action. Germany completely
dropped the ball on police training but NATO countries should
continue to provide assistance that is within their capacity
to deliver.

¶17. (C) Brown agreed that there was a significant terrorist
threat emanating from the region. More than 30,000
Pakistanis travel back and forth to the UK each year and
two-thirds of the terrorist threats that UK security forces
investigate originate in Pakistan -- including one on-going
investigation. The roots of terrorism in Pakistan are
complicated and go beyond the madrasas to, in some areas, a
complete societal incitement to militancy. Zedari's
commitment to combating terrorism is unclear, although he
always says the right things.

¶18. (C) Brown agreed on the need for a shared commitment and
noted that the only way to reduce the threat and eventually
draw down NATO's commitment to the region was by increasing
the capacity of Afghanistani and Pakistani security services.
Dividing the Taliban would greatly reduce its effectiveness,
though doing this made the Iraq problem look easy by
comparison.

¶19. (S) Vice President Biden commented that Zedari had told
him two months ago that ISI director &Kiyani will take me
out.8 Brown thought this unlikely and said that Kiyani did
not want to be another Musharraf, rather he would give
civilian leadership scope to function. However, he was wary
of the Sharif brothers and Zedari.

¶20. (U) The Office of the Vice President cleared this
message.
SIMONS

We'll reach their 2 year deadline in a few months. I wonder how their Taliban Pet-ocracy is coming along?