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WikiLeaks: will the civil war return to Lebanon?

The WikiLeaks revelations have already caused immense embarrassment to William Hague but his pains count as the most trivial of setbacks compared to the epic calamity inflicted on pro-Western officials in Lebanon.

Elias Murr (L), the defence minister has been caught red-handed conspiring with the United States of America to facilitate an Israeli invasion in 2008 Photo: APBy Peter Oborne, Beirut 9:00PM GMT 10 Dec 2010
The Foreign Secretary had been accused of pandering to the US ahead of last May’s general election since his private conversations with state department officials became public.

The accounts of conversations with members of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri’s government have revealed collusion with the state’s main enemy.

Elias Murr, the defence minister has been caught red-handed conspiring with the United States of America to facilitate an Israeli invasion in 2008.

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The Wikileaks cables reveal how, over a two and a half hour lunch with American diplomats, Mr Murr spelt out areas that Israeli jets should hit.

He also revealed he had ordered the Lebanese army 'not to get involved in any fighting and to fulfil a civil defence role”.

The minister’s only concern was that the invading force refrain from attacking Christian areas. Attacks on Shia Muslims was 'Hizbollah’s problem’ and Mr Murr - a Christian in a Sunni-led government - hoped that the offensive would allow the army to displace the radical Iranian-backed group that is Lebanon’s strongest force.

His plan was for the Lebanese army to remain in its bases – then take over once Hizbollah’s militia forces had been defeated.

The Americans concluded that Murr 'seems intent on ensuring the Army stays out of the way so what Hizbollah bears the full weight of an Israeli offensive.’

Almost as damaging, Murr’s testimony directly implicates the Lebanese president Michel Sleiman. In March 2008, at the time of the conversation, the Lebanese president was army chief of staff. And Murr told his American friends that he had already instructed Sleiman that the Lebanese army should not get involved 'when Israel comes.’

It has been commonly claimed that the Julian Assange’s Wikileaks revelations have contained no dazzling revelations. But these revelations are bound to inflict long term damage on the already troubled government of Prime Minister Hariri.

It is true that local reaction in Beirut has been measured, even from Hizbollah, and that Elias Murr himself has reacted with amazing insouciance.In a statement he called for Lebanese who have labelled him a traitor to be put on trial. He asked: 'Who will try those who are accusing other Lebanese of treason only because they hold a different opinion?’

But this muted reaction is only because the Lebanon is already facing what threatens to become the country’s greatest crisis since the end of the civil war twenty years ago.

A United Nations investigation into the 2005 assasination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri (father of the current premier) is set to issue draft indictments that are widely expected that the tribunal to identify Hizbollah as the perpetrators of the crime.

Sources say the indictment will go to the judge within days.

When the charges are published many believe Lebanon will face a dangerous conflagration.

Hizbollah was yesterday mounting a last ditch attempt to discredit the tribunal, warning that it will cause 'chaos.’

Ammar Mousawi, Hizbollah’s director of international relations, issued a steely warning to me at its headquarters in southern Beirut. He said: “We view the tribunal as an aggression against us. We will deal with this aggression with means and methods that are required.”

A finding against Hizbollah would license Sunnis to mount revenge attacks on Shias and could trigger all out fighting. The tribunal has been viewed as flawed by Hizbollah from the start. He said: 'I want to underline a point. Our position against the indictment is not a position against justice or truth. At the dialogue table all parties including us were concerned with punishing the perpetrators. We still adopt the same position.

“But in any offence or criminal act the investigators start by looking at the list of those who have benefitted. But there was no motive for Hizbollah. We and the Syrians were the people who were most disadvantaged by the killing of Hariri.”

The Israelis, suggested Mousawi, were more likely the guilty party.

The danger of a return to violence has stimulated a desperate last minute campaign by Saudi Arabia and Syria to stop the tribunal in its tracks.

This would involve Prime Minister Saad Hariri withdrawing his support for the tribunal. As the son of the murdered man, Harriri’s acquiesence carry’s huge weight in the Arab world.

Deals like these may sound unsavoury- and contrary to natural justice- but in Beirut it may avert diaster.

The government is already in paralysis because of the tribunal - the cabinet has not met for the last three weeks because of the dispute.

Beirut has seen a return to peace and even prosperity after the desperate decades of internal strife. Cafes and restaurants are full amidst an unprecedented construction boom which has seen many of the loveliest parts of the old historic city replaced by towering blocks of flats.

But this week, the question I was most often asked by tremulous waiters, cab-drivers and hotel staff was: 'Are we about to return to civil war?’

Vatican refused to help Irish sex abuse probe: cable
Published on 11 December 2010 - 2:00pm

The Vatican refused to cooperate with an Irish probe into child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Dublin because the requests were not made through official channels, a leaked US cable showed Saturday.

Requests for information by the 2009 Murphy commission "offended many in the Vatican... because they saw them as an affront to Vatican sovereignty", according to a cable from the US embassy in Rome, leaked by WikiLeaks.

The Murphy commission's findings, published in November 2009, caused shock across Ireland and the worldwide Catholic community by detailing how Church authorities covered up for paedophile priests in Dublin for three decades.

Dated February 26 this year, the US cable -- published by The Guardian newspaper -- records the observations of US diplomat in Rome Julieta Noyes.

It says the commission, which was led by judge Yvonne Murphy, wrote directly to Vatican officials to ask for information on its investigations, sidestepping official diplomatic channels.

"While Vatican contacts immediately expressed deep sympathy for the victims and insisted that the first priority was preventing a recurrence, they also were angered by how the situation played out politically," the cable said.

"The Murphy Commission's requests offended many in the Vatican, the Holy See's Assessor Peter Wells... told DCM (Noyes), because they saw them as an affront to Vatican sovereignty.

"Vatican officials were also angered that the government of Ireland did not step in to direct the Murphy Commission to follow standard procedures in communications with Vatican City.

"Adding insult to injury, Vatican officials also believed some Irish opposition politicians were making political hay with the situation by calling publicly on the government to demand that the Vatican reply."

Ultimately, the Vatican secretary of state -- the equivalent of a prime minister -- Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, wrote to the Irish embassy and ordered that any further requests go through diplomatic channels.

Ireland's ambassador to the Vatican, Noel Fahey, told Noyes the situation "was the most difficult crisis he had ever managed", according to the cable.

In the end Dublin did not press the Vatican to reply to the Murphy panel's requests, Fahey's deputy Helena Keleher told Noyes.

Keleher also said foreign ambassadors were not required or expected to appear before such bodies.

"Nevertheless, Keleher thought the (Vatican) Nuncio in Ireland made things worse by simply ignoring the requests," the cable said, noting that the Vatican's response only fuelled anger in Ireland over the sex abuse scandal.

Pope Benedict XVI met with Ireland's two most senior Catholic churchmen after the publication of the Murphy report, and said he shared "the outrage, betrayal and shame" felt by Irish Catholics over its findings.

* Nicholas Watt and Owen Bowcott
* The Guardian, Monday 13 December 2010



WikiLeaks cables reveal US diplomats feared that 'elements of the security-legal establishments' in Britain beyond MI5 were resisting an inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane.

MI5 has said that it is prepared to hand over sensitive files on one of the most high-profile murders during the Northern Ireland Troubles carried out by loyalist gunmen working with members of the British security forces.

The offer in the case of Pat Finucane, the well-known civil rights and defence lawyer murdered in front of his wife and three young children in 1989, is contained in confidential US embassy cables passed to WikiLeaks.

Supporters of Finucane welcomed the revelation of the offer as "highly significant" and believe it could pave the way for a fresh inquiry into the killing that would be acceptable to the family...

Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland secretary, has told Finucane's widow that he will decide early next year whether to hold a hearing that could shine a new light on collusion between gunmen from the Ulster Freedom Fighters and members of the security forces.

A refusal to hold such a hearing, which Paterson has questioned in the past, would prevent an examination of the MI5 files.

Finucane's supporters spoke out after leaked US embassy cables, published by WikiLeaks, showed that:

• Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister between 1997 and 2008, told US diplomats that "everyone knows the UK was involved" in the murder.

• US diplomats feared that "elements of the security-legal establishments" in Britain beyond MI5 were fighting hard to resist an inquiry.

• Brian Cowen, the current Irish prime minister, warned that a failure to hold an inquiry could be a "deal breaker".

Finucane's family said MI5's offer was a highly significant development in their 20-year battle to uncover the circumstances surrounding the murder.

The Security Service's offer is revealed in a cable from June 2005, written by the US ambassador to Dublin, James C Kenny, which reported on a meeting between the head of MI5 and Mitchell Reiss, the US special envoy to Northern Ireland. In an account of the meeting between Reiss and Ahern, the ambassador wrote: "Reiss briefed him on his talks in London, including with the head of MI5 [Eliza Manningham-Buller], who committed to turning over all evidence her agency has to the inquiry, but she was adamant that the inquiry will proceed using the new legislation."

Peter Madden, Finucane's partner in the Belfast solicitors' firm Madden and Finucane, said: "This might significantly change things. This is something new and unexpected. It will have to be considered by the Finucane family." Madden said the family would proceed with care because MI5 said any inquiry would be carried out under new legislation, which allows for material to be withheld from the final report. The family have demanded the same terms as the Bloody Sunday inquiry, but the legislation for that dated back to the 1920s and was repealed in 2005....

Ahern told the US he was adamant that members of the British security forces were involved in Finucane's murder. The cable said: "The taoiseach said that the GOI wants the UK to provide evidence acknowledging its involvement in Finucane's murder and it wants to know how high in the UK government collusion went. He said if the UK were to provide the information, it would only grab the headlines for a few hours because 'everyone knows the UK was involved'."

A year earlier, US diplomats raised fears that some forces in British were determined to block an inquiry. A cable by the same ambassador on 26 July 2004 quoted Ahern as saying: "Tony [Blair] knows what he has to do." An explanatory comment inserted by the US ambassador noted: "Presumably, that the PM will have to overrule elements of the security-legal establishments to see that some form of public inquiry is held." The elements resisting an inquiry could be the old Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch and British military intelligence.

Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, a former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, concluded in a report in 2003 that members of the security forces had colluded in the murder of Finucane...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/1 ... k-finucane

12/06/2010 05:47 PM
Blinkered View of Iraq
Diplomats Were Misled by Saddam's 'Cordial' Manner

By Bernhard Zand

Did one clumsy statement by the US ambassador in Iraq trigger the first Gulf War? The leaked US cables show diplomats failed to pick up signs that Saddam Hussein was preparing to invade Kuwait, and that they painted his regime in a consistently favorable light in the years leading up to the conflict.

On the morning of July 25, 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein called in the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. It was her first meeting with Saddam and it lasted two hours. And will likely go down in history as one of the most controversial incidents in American diplomacy.

That very evening, Glaspie cabled her report about the conversation back to Washington. She summarized it under the headline: " Saddam's message of friendship to president bush ."

Just eight days later, war broke out when Saddam's troops marched into Kuwait. The invasion triggered a conflict that would last for more than 15 years and wouldn't even end with Saddam Hussein's death.

It's every diplomat's nightmare. What, though, transpired exactly at Glaspie's meeting with the Iraqi president?

Saddam was under pressure in the summer of 1990. He complained to the US ambassador that eight years of war with Iran had left his country exhausted and heavily indebted. Worse still, neighboring Kuwait was deliberately keeping oil prices low -- so low, in fact, that his country had been forced to cut the pensions it paid widows and orphans.

"At this point," Glaspie's report stated, "the interpreter and one of the notetakers broke down and wept."

Saddam then moved on to the issue of Iraq's disputed border with Kuwait. The conversation became technical, and he began reciting a list of distances in kilometers. "The ambassador," Glaspie wrote of herself, "said that she had served in Kuwait 20 years before; then, as now, we took no position on these Arab affairs."

A few weeks later, the Iraqis broke all diplomatic protocol by releasing a shortened transcript of the conversation. Never before had America weighed the words of one of its diplomats so carefully. Never before had a single sentence been discussed as heatedly as that of ambassador Glaspie.

Critics say her answer "confused" Saddam Hussein, that she had been ambiguous and far too vague. Saddam may have thought the US would not intervene if he attacked Kuwait. As such, they assert, Glaspie had played a decisive role in triggering the outbreak of the war. Her defenders say this criticism is unwarranted. They point out that Glaspie had told Saddam what any diplomat in her position would have said.

The controversy persists to this day. However new, previously unreleased diplomatic dispatches, made public by WikiLeaks, now reveal what the US ambassadors in Baghdad cabled back to Washington between 1985 and 1990. They show the political environment in which Glaspie was operating, America's position on Saddam Hussein at that time, and what led up to her fateful sentence.

The United States broke off diplomatic ties with Iraq after the 1967 Arab-Israeli Conflict. The US Embassy was reopened in 1984, and right from the start, one topic dominated the reports from US diplomats stationed in Baghdad: Iran.

At the time, Saddam's troops were facing off against those of revolutionary Iran from the mountains of Kurdistan to the Shatt al-Arab River, and it was blatantly obvious where America's sympathies lay: Washington wanted Saddam to win.

Glaspie arrived in Iraq in the winter of 1987. At the time she was 46 years old, and had extensive experience in Arab countries. Washington certainly hadn't sent a beginner to Baghdad.

Blinkered View

One of her first trips saw her travel to meet Christians in the north, whose situation she found satisfactory. Whatever "resettlement" may have occurred had ceased weeks earlier. She described Saddam's governor in Mosul province as "unfailingly pleasant," and his security chief as "helpful and compassionate." In fact wherever she looked she was amazed how much money the Iraqi government was spending on its Christian minority. A monastery had been renovated, and "a number of spanking new villages" -- marked "'Saddam model village'" -- had been built.

That may all have been true, but it presented a deliberately blinkered view of Iraq in early 1988. For while Ambassador Glaspie was visiting Mosul, Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid (who ultimately came to be known as "Chemical Ali"), had Kurds in northern Iraq, just 250 kilometers (150 miles) away, bombed with poison gas. On March 16 and 17, 1988, 10 weeks after her visit, a similar fate befell the city of Halabja. Some 5,000 people there were killed on these two days alone, and hundreds more died painful deaths later from the aftereffects of the chemical weapons used against them.

It's not as if the US embassy in Baghdad knew nothing of these attacks. In mid-February, Abd al-Rahman Qassemlu, an Iranian Kurdish leader who had sided with Saddam against Tehran, came to Baghdad. After meeting with the dictator he also dropped in on the US Embassy. He let it be known that he wanted neither money nor weapons. "Of course one always likes more, but we have plenty," he said, according to an Embassy dispatch.

He then recounted what was taking place in the north. The report said the head of its political department "asked Qassemlu for his reaction to the Iraqi campaign of destroying Kurdish villages. Qassemlu acknowledged that "most" villages have been destroyed but he seemed unemotional on the point," the report noted.

Qassemlu told the Americans precisely whom he blamed for the murderous attacks in the north: "Saddam. He is in charge of everything."

Very early on, the American reports began mentioning Iraqi fears that the US would abandon Iraq for closer ties with Tehran. In a cable to Washington, Glaspie wrote: We have reassurad the Iraqis at a high level and through different channels that we do not contemplate "tilting" in either direction."


Excellent Collaboration
Toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war in the spring of 1988, the cables from the US embassy spoke of growing optimism within Iraq. The diplomats reported excellent behind-the-scenes collaboration.


When the Iran-Iraq War finally ended after eight years and almost half a million deaths, Glaspie put the word "victory" in quotation marks; but once the celebrations subsided, the reports once again focused on the Iranian threat that formed the primary link between Saddam's regime and the United States -- and overrode all complaints about murder, chemical weapons and human rights violations."We doubt that the Iraqis are naive enough to believe that any clerical regime in Iran, even after Khomeini dies, will renounce the revolution or its integral elements, expansionism and interference in the internal affairs of other countries, principally Iraq's."

But then, in early 1990, "dark clouds" gathered over Iraq's relationship with the United States, in the words of Saddam himself, speaking at a press conference following a visit by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Saddam blamed the supposed interference by a "Zionist lobby" in US policy for the deterioration. Did this worry the US ambassador? Was she concerned by the choice of words by the Iraqi dictator?

No. She merely sent home a report entitled "Saddam explains and defends." In the dispatch, Glaspie spoke about Saddam's "perhaps stemming from his lifelong effort to promote a sense of identity for 'Iraqis'--a sense he often recalls he lacked as a child." Her assessment of the Iraqi president in April 1990 was as follows: "Saddam is not/not posturing. He is genuinely concerned about Israel and Iran."

In May of that year, Arab League heads of state met in Baghdad against the backdrop of ominous threats by Saddam directed at Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Again, Glaspie praised Saddam's efforts. She said he "took a step forward" and brought Arabs together, albeit at the "lowest common denominator."

"Intellectual Leadership"

Did she really not see the storm clouds gathering on the horizon? In early June Glaspie sent Washington cable headed - apparently without irony -- "intellectual leadership." She said Saddam had recently spent many hours with a group of six men finalizing a new constitution. The ambassador urged the State Department to note the men's names because this project was "important," as if Saddam was seriously thinking about the Iraqi constitution just two months before his troops marched in Kuwait, if indeed this notorious conspirator and spymaster had ever taken any constitution seriously in all his life.

Judging by her memos, the ambassador knew little of the nagging doubts some of Saddam's clique had about his increasingly concrete invasion plans. Rumors that he was under pressure internally were dismissed by Glaspie as mere fabrications on the part of Iran and Iraqi exiles. And she explicitly contradicted a report by the US Embassy in Kuwait that said Saddam's erratic behavior suggested "internal pressures and instability of his regime" - which, with hindsight, seems highly likely. The ambassador in Baghdad insisted Saddam was motivated by many things, but putsch rumors were not one of them.

This was followed by two paragraphs that raise serious doubts about Glaspie's objectivity toward Saddam's regime:"We are not suggesting," she writes, "that there are not occasional 'disciplinary actions' here. For example, the president's long-time Kurdish adc (editor's note: aide-de-camp), Sabah Mirza, undoubtedly blotted his copy book this year. He was arrested and may be dead."

And in any case, she added, Saddam was merely trying to "improve citizens' welfare. The party has no difficulty in turning out thousands of cheering Arab (not kurdish) Iraqis to greet their president."

In June 1990, the US television station ABC broadcast an interview that journalist Diane Sawyer had conducted with Saddam Hussein following mediation by the American Embassy. The Iraqis were furious because the three-hour conversation was edited down to 20 minutes. Again Glaspie called for understanding from both Saddam's personal secretary and from Washington. She said Saddam wasn't "throwing in the towel." He was standing by his "new policy of availability to the western press (le figaro is next) and in his willingness to let the Iraqi public see and hear him uncut, warts and all."

Sawyer's interview also came up in Glaspie's contentious conversation with Saddam on July 25. Glaspie wrote, referring to herself. "The ambassador said she had seen the Diane Sawyer show and thought that it was cheap and unfair. But the American press treats all politicians without kid gloves--that is our way."

Saddam "Cordial, Reasonable and Even Warm"

Whether her comment about American neutrality in Arab border disputes caused Saddam to decide to march into Kuwait is a question that perhaps only Saddam himself could answer with certainty. But the leaked embassy dispatches show that Glaspie and her predecessor painted the regime in an extremely favorable light from the very outset, overlooked Saddam's widely-known crimes, and were so influenced by mutual enmity for Iran as to be negligently uncritical. This attitude certainly influenced Glaspie's fateful meeting with Saddam.

The president's manner was "cordial, reasonable and even warm," her account of the meeting begins. It ends by concluding that he was undoubtedly sincere in seeking "a peaceful settlement" to the conflict with neighboring Kuwait. In between is paragraph after paragraph listing the alleged selfishness of Kuwait and the sacrifices and peaceful intentions of the Iraqis.

Saddam Hussein undoubtedly deceived the US ambassador, albeit also to his own detriment. But she didn't make it particularly difficult for him.

The Embassy cabled four more dispatches to Washington before the outbreak of war. One begins with the mistaken belief that Saddam really was responding to the most recent mediation attempts by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but ends with the ethnological analysis that says more about the motives for going to war than many a later assessment:

"It is difficult to overstate the depth of anti-Kuwaiti sentiment in Iraq. This is the extremely important backdrop to current tensions. The dislike is old and deep -- not something trumped up by the media for the occasion.

"The Kuwaitis who come to Iraq with pockets full of iraqi dinars (purchased at the black market rate which is less than one-tenth of the official rate) and which they ostentatiously spend, are not the educated middle classes -- they go to Europe. Iraq gets the equivalent of "po white trash", the lower middle classes, who can be seen in Basra in their scores on a Friday, and in the northern summer resorts, often drunk, sometimes disorderly, and often gambling in the otherwise empty casinos. They also come to Baghdad in droves, providing the clientele for cheap nightclubs and call girls.

Iraqis deeply feel that the kuwaitis are immensely stingy shylocks living high while Iraq, which made such terrible sacrifices during the war, it still suffering. "

Four days later after that, Ambassador Glaspie flew to Washington. Seven days later, on August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops marched into Kuwait.

On that day, Glaspie's deputy, Joseph Wilson, who became famous 13 years later as the husband of unmasked CIA spy Valerie Plame, sent the State Department the shortest message the embassy in Baghdad had ever cabled:We have tried repeatedly since 0630 local to reach senior mfa (editor's note: Foreign Ministry) officials, including foreign minister Aziz. Undersecretary Hamdun is apparently not at home since nobody answers his home telephone number … Embassy has set up a crisis management team."

Saddam had struck. And overnight, he went from being an American ally of almost 10 years to being a deadly enemy. Everything that had seemed right before, was suddenly wrong.

URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 53,00.html
RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS:
US Involvement in Iraq: A Lot of Blood for Little Oil (12/06/2010)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 84,00.html
SPIEGEL 360: Our Complete Coverage of the WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cables
http://www.spiegel.de/international/top ... ic_cables/


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WikiLeaks Cables: BP Suffered Blowout on Azerbaijan Gas Platform
Embassy cables reveal energy firm 'fortunate' to have evacuated workers safely after blast similar to Deepwater Horizon disaster
by Tim Webb
Striking resemblances between BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster and a little-reported giant gas leak in Azerbaijan experienced by the UK firm 18 months beforehand have emerged from leaked US embassy cables.

Eleven people died when BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and it caused the worst oil spill in US history. Photograph: AFP/Getty ImagesThe cables reveal that some of BP's partners in the gas field were upset that the company was so secretive about the incident that it even allegedly withheld information from them. They also say that BP was lucky that it was able to evacuate its 212 workers safely after the incident, which resulted in two fields being shut and output being cut by at least 500,000 barrels a day with production disrupted for months.

Other cables leaked tonight claim that the president of Azerbaijan accused BP of stealing $10bn of oil from his country and using "mild blackmail" to secure the rights to develop vast gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region.

WikiLeaks also released cables claiming that:

Senior figures in Thailand are concerned about the suitability of the crown prince to become king, citing rumors that he has lovers in several European capitals in addition to his wife and son in Thailand.
American energy firm Chevron was in discussions with Tehran about developing an Iraq-Iran cross-border oilfield, despite US sanctions against Iran.
The leaks came as the whistleblower site's founder Julian Assange prepared for another night in jail ahead of tomorrow's high court challenge to the decision to grant him £200,000 bail. Swedish authorities, who want to question Assange on allegations of sexual assault, believe he should remain in custody as he is a flight risk.

On the Azerbaijan gas leak, a cable reports for the first time that BP suffered a blowout in September 2008, as it did in the Gulf with devastating consequences in April, as well as the gas leak that the firm acknowledged at the time.

"Due to the blowout of a gas-injection well there was 'a lot of mud' on the platform, which BP would analyze to help find the cause of the blowout and gas leak," the cable said.

Written a few weeks after the incident, the cable said Bill Schrader, BP's then head of Azerbaijan, admitted it was possible the company "would never know" the cause although it "is continuing to methodically investigate possible theories".

According to another cable, in January 2009 BP thought that a "bad cement job" was to blame for the gas leak in Azerbaijan. More recently, BP's former chief executive Tony Hayward also partly blamed a "bad cement job" by contractor Halliburton for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The blowout in the Gulf led to the deaths of 11 workers and the biggest accidental offshore oil spill in history.

BP was also criticized for not initially sharing all its information with the US authorities about the scale of the Gulf spill. The gas field in the Caspian Sea was in production when the leak and blow out occurred, unlike the well in the Gulf which was being drilled to explore for oil.

BP declined to answer questions put by the Guardian about the cause of the Azerbaijan gas leak and who carried out the cement job, pointing to a general statement it had made about the cables.

The cable reveals that the company had a narrow escape. "Given the explosive potential, BP was quite fortunate to have been able to evacuate everyone safely and to prevent any gas ignition. Schrader said although the story hadn't caught the press's attention, it had the full focus of the [government of Azerbaijan], which was losing '$40-50m each day'."

The leak happened at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi (ACG) field, Azerbaijan's largest producing oil field in the Caspian where vast undeveloped gas reserves also lie. BP is the operator and largest shareholder in the consortium, which includes US companies Chevron, ExxonMobil and Hess (formerly Amerada Hess), as well as Norwegian firm Statoil and Azerbaijani state owned oil company Socar.

BP comes in for criticism for allegedly limiting the information it made available about the incident. Another cable records shortly after the incident: "ACG operator BP has been exceptionally circumspect in disseminating information about the ACG gas leak, both to the public and to its ACG partners. However, after talking with BP and other sources, the embassy has pieced together the following picture." It goes on to say the incident took place when bubbles appeared in the waters around the Central Azeri platform, signaling a nearby gas leak. "Shortly thereafter, a related gas-reinjection well for Central Azeri had a blowout, expelling water, mud and gas." BP's annual report last year referred to a "comprehensive review of the subsurface gas release" having taken place and remedial work being carried out.

The cable continues: "At least some of BP's ACG partners are similarly upset with BP's performance in this episode, as they claim BP has sought to limit information flow about this event even to its ACG partners. Although it is too early to ascertain the cause, if in fact this production shutdown was due to BP technical error, and if it continues for months (as seems possible), BP's reputation in Azerbaijan will take a serious hit."

BP is in charge of Azerbaijan's key energy projects, and has a significant influence across the region. In late 2006 discussions were taking place about when Turkey would be able to link up its own network to a new pipeline operated by BP transporting gas across the Caucasus from BP's giant new Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan. The new pipeline was seen as crucial as reducing the region's dependence on unreliable gas supplies from Russia, particularly amidst rising gas prices.

According to one cable, BP's outgoing Azerbaijan president, David Woodward, said in November 2006 that BP thought it unlikely that Turkey would be able to complete its work before spring 2007. "However, he added that 'it was not inconceivable' that Botas [Turkey's state pipeline company] could 'rush finish' the job so that it would be ready to receive gas shortly, although the pipeline would not meet international standards," the cable said. In the end, BP said Turkey began receiving gas from Shah Deniz in July 2007.

The cables also reveal BP concerns on the lack of security at the time around its oil and gas installations, particularly in the Caspian Sea, which it believed made them vulnerable to terrorist attack. One cable from July 2007 records: "BP Azerbaijan president Bill Schrader has told US officials in private conversations, 'all it would take is one guy with a mortar or six guys in a boat' to wreak havoc in Azerbaijan's critical energy infrastructure."

BP officials also complained about a shortage of Navy and Coast Guard boats - mostly Soviet era and built in the 1960s and 1970s - to patrol the waters around the platforms. It was also not clear which government agency or branch of the military was in charge, meaning a "response to a crisis offshore could be problematic" , one cable in August 2008 recorded.

The oil firm said BP "enjoys the continued support and goodwill of the government and the people of Azerbaijan".

The oil firm said in a statement that: "BP continues to have a successful and mutually beneficial partnership with the government of Azerbaijan. This cooperation has produced and continues to produce benefits to all parties involved and most importantly to the nation of Azerbaijan. The Government of Azerbaijan has entrusted us with the development of its major oil and gas development projects on the basis of Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that are enacted as laws in Azerbaijan. The operatorship of PSAs of this scale and size require cooperation and alignment between contractors and the Government. BP in Azerbaijan enjoys the continued support and goodwill of the Government and the people of Azerbaijan to meet its obligations. As part of maintaining this successful partnership we meet and discuss business related matters with relevant parties including our partners, SOCAR, and the Government. These discussions are confidential and as such we will maintain that confidentiality and not comment on specifics."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/16/wikileaks-dalai-lama-climate-change

WikiLeaks cables: Dalai Lama called for focus on climate, not politics, in Tibet

The Dalai Lama told US diplomats last year that the international community should focus on climate change rather than politics in Tibet because environmental problems were more urgent, secret American cables reveal.

The exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader told Timothy Roemer, the US ambassador to India, that the "political agenda should be sidelined for five to 10 years and the international community should shift its focus to climate change on the Tibetan plateau" during a meeting in Delhi last August.

"Melting glaciers, deforestation and increasingly polluted water from mining projects were problems that 'cannot wait', but the Tibetans could wait five to 10 years for a political solution," he was reported as saying.

Though the Dalai Lama has frequently raised environmental issues, he has never publicly suggested that political questions take second place, nor spoken of any timescale with such precision.

Roemer speculated, in his cable to Washington reporting the meeting, that "the Dalai Lama's message may signal a broader shift in strategy to reframe the Tibet issue as an environmental concern".

In their meeting, the ambassador reported, the Dalai Lama criticised China's energy policy, saying dam construction in Tibet had displaced thousands of people and left temples and monasteries underwater.

He recommended that the Chinese authorities compensate Tibetans for disrupting their nomadic lifestyle with vocational training, such as weaving, and said there were "three poles" in danger of melting – the north pole, the south pole, and "the glaciers at the pole of Tibet".

The cables also reveal the desperate appeals made by the Dalai Lama for intervention by the US during unrest in Tibet during spring 2008.

As a heavy crackdown followed demonstrations and rioting, he pleaded with US officials to take action that would "make an impact" in Beijing.

At the end of one 30-minute meeting, a cable reports that the Dalai Lama embraced the embassy's officials and "made a final plea".

"Tibet is a dying nation. We need America's help," he was reported as saying.

Other cables reveal US fears that the influence of the 75-year-old Dalai Lama over the Tibetan community in exile might be waning or that a succession to his leadership could pose problems.

In June 2008, officials reported that their visit to six Tibetan refugee settlements across north and north-eastern India "underscores concerns that frustrated and dissatisfied Tibetan youth ... could pose serious problems".

"A widening generational divide finds Tibetan leaders unable to resolve growing dissatisfaction among younger Tibetans," the officials said.

In February, following the ninth round of talks in Beijing between the Tibetan government in exile, known as the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), and Chinese officials, US diplomats predicted that "the Chinese government's international credibility on human rights will continue to decline as Tibetans gain further access to media tools".

In a section of the cable entitled "A militant Shangri-La?", a reference to the fictional mythical Himalayan kingdom, the officials explained: "Their frustration's effect on the Tibetan movement could be exacerbated by the passage of time, as the Dalai Lama's increasing age inevitably slows down his gruelling travel schedule and his potential ability to continue to capture the world's attention on his people's plight."

A final point, made repeatedly by officials, is that the Indian government's policy towards the Tibetans in exile is likely to be decided by public sentiment.

In one confidential cable of March 2008, an official told Washington that Shiv Shankar Menon, the current Indian national security adviser and then India's top diplomat, had explained to the US ambassador that though "the Tibetan movement has the sympathy of the Indian public, and India has been a generally supportive home to tens of thousands of Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, for nearly 50 years ... the tacit agreement that Tibetans are welcome in India as long as they don't cause problems is being challenged at a time when India's complex relationship with Beijing is churning with border issues, rivalry for regional influence, a growing economic interdependence, the nascent stages of joint military exercises, and numerous other priorities".

The US officials concluded that "while the [government of India] will never admit it", New Delhi's "balancing act with India's Tibetans [would] continue for the foreseeable future, with the caveat that a rise in violence – either by Tibetans here or by the Chinese security forces in Tibet – could quickly tip the balance in favour of the side with greater public support".