In the summer of 2007, a "U.S. businessman and reputed lobbyist" approached American diplomats in Nigeria with a message from James Ibori, a Nigerian state governor. Ibori, the source said, wanted to "make a deal," according to a diplomatic cable released to the Nigerian newspaper Next on March 11: He'd create a foundation with a percentage of his probably ill-gotten wealth if foreign authorities promised not to prosecute him:

former Delta State Governor Ibori would like to establish a development trust fund for Nigeria, endowed with 20 to 50 percent of funds he "acquired" over the years, in return for promises by foreign governments not to prosecute him. This contact estimated Ibori's "acquired" earnings at some three billion U.S. dollars. As part of Ibori's proposal, an international board of directors would oversee trust fund spending, with five persons selected by the international community, including the United States and United Kingdom, and the remaining four chosen by Nigeria. The Ibori-proposed trust fund would support development projects for electricity generation, potable water supply, and police reform. Ibori would also undertake to convince other former governors currently under investigation to follow suit, and return billions of dollars in stolen money in exchange for agreements not to prosecute them.

There are few more storied politicians in Nigeria than the former Delta State governor, James Ibori, believed to be one of the country's most corrupt -- and hence, richest -- men. For years, he has operated in the upper power-echelons of the country's ruling People's Democratic Party, playing godfather to countless lower-level politicians and governors. But then in 2007, his luck started to run out. The British government started investigating him for corruption, and in a move that shocked everyone (including Ibori), the Nigerian government's anti-corruption body arrested him for graft in December 2007. (Within days, the top-corruption fighter who had issued the warrant, Nuhu Ribadu, had been sacked. Conspiracy theories -- suggesting that Ibori and his cronies had somehow exacted political revenge -- ensued.)

It's hard to say if the source quoted in the 2007 cable is for real. But the story he tells about Ibori certainly fits with the common urban mythology of the man. The lobbyist describes Ibori as the most powerful person in the ruling party -- the real power behind then-President Umaru Yar'Adua. It's widely believed, for example, that Ibori was allowed to appoint several of the ministers in the Nigerian president's cabinet in exchange for his support, financial and otherwise.

Reminiscent of Equatorial Guinea's president's recent attempt to create a "prize" in his name -- somehow legitimizing his wealth via philanthropy -- Ibori's deal would never have been laughed at in public, if it ever came to that. But it wouldn't be the first time that Ibori, believing in the invincibility of his power, would make such a silly mistake: Before his indictment for corruption in Nigeria, he tried to bribe the corruption commission with $15 million in cash. Little did he realize, it was being caught on tape.

In 2006, Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenya's current vice president and an opposition leader at the time, told U.S. Embassy officials in Nairobi about an unfolding political scandal in which he was involved, according to a State Department cable released yesterday by WikiLeaks. Although the story itself is a bit banal -- involving a rivalry between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's first and second wives -- Musyoka's allegations against the Kenyan president's family are serious, including an accusation of links to "Eastern European" mercenaries used in a 2006 media crackdown. 

The story goes something like this: In 2006, the Standard Media company, one of the country's largest, published a story alleging that Musyoka, as opposition leader, had cut a deal with Kibaki. The story, which Musyoka denied to embassy officials, was a bigger blow to his political prospects than to the sitting president's. But the government unleashed a wave of raids against the Standard Media group anyway. 

Musyoka blames those crackdowns on Kibaki's wives. (As an interesting aside, one of Kibai's wives is officially married to the president and the other is a more of a permanent mistress, according to the cable.) The first wife, Lucy Kibaki, had a vendetta against the media outlet and was also offended that official business could happen in the state house without her presence, according to the cable. The second wife, Mary Wambui, Musyoka claims, brought in the tools for the media crackdown:

[Wambui] had been instrumental in bringing the mercenaries into play in Kenya. Thanks to her good offices, they travel in Government cars with a security detail. Wambui also apparently took a portion of them with her on a trip to Dubai, where she is alleged to have spent US$600,000 on unspecified merchandise. Musyoka said he had heard of plans to secretly install a portion of the mercenaries in an office within the Police Criminal Investigations Division.

Whether this diplomatic gossip is true, we may never know. But perhaps what's even more interesting is that the current Kenyan vice president spoke openly to the U.S. diplomats behind the scenes. Of course, it's not clear if Musyoka kept talking once he entered the government. Still, as embassy sources go, that's some impressive proximity to power. 

The United States and Bahrain are close allies. In fact, according to an April 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable, one of several released by WikiLeaks this week, the two countries have "about as good a bilateral relationship as anywhere." The cables recount a number of interesting details, particularly in light of ongoing unrest there this week, about the government's leadership, U.S. interests in Bahrain and the region, and about the backstory of sectarian tensions between a ruling Sunni government and a large underclass Shiite majority.

U.S. interests in Bahrain, according to the cables, center around two issue: Iran and Iraq. And the two are related. The April 2008 cables notes that Bahrain's "number-one security concern is Iran. They support [the U.S.] tough stand toward Tehran." The cables claim that Bahrain worked with the U.S. government to monitor financial transactions from Iran. And perhaps even more importantly, Manama expressed interest in creating a broader alliance of countries in the Gulf and the region to resist Iran, the cables claim. And here's where Iraq comes in, according to a 2008 cable: "Our point that reintegrating Iraq into the Arab fold is critical to limiting Iranian influence has had real resonance with the Bahraini leadership."

Personally, too, U.S. diplomats convey a strong connection to Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. A December 2009 cable describes him as "personable and engaging. He rules as something of a 'corporate king,' giving direction and letting his top people manage the government." Part of the personal affinity derives from the fact that King Hamad spent time in the United States, according to another August 2008 cable, in which the king describes his time at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College as "the most personally and professionally rewarding of his life."

Despite this strong bilateral relationship, however, U.S. cables indicate a acute awareness of the volatility of Bahrain's internal politics. In April 2008, Americans described the political atmosphere as simmering, offering an ominous warning: 

Small but violent bands of Shi’a underclass youth, frustrated with persistent discrimination and what they perceive as too gradual a pace of reform, clash with police nearly every week. The Sunni minority, which rules the country and controls all security forces, has generally acted with restraint, but it takes only one mistake to provoke a potentially disastrous escalation.

Interestingly, the U.S. diplomats also noted a change in tactics by the government  in dealing with unrest during the summer of 2008, according to a July 2008 cable.

Over the past two months the King has departed from his traditional detached style and intervened personally in several controversies arising from Bahrain’s Shi’a-Sunni tensions. He has publicly, both personally and through his ministers, summoned communal leaders, newspaper editors and bloggers to warn them against crossing red lines against discussion of issues like royal family disputes and criticism of judges who have sentenced Shi’a rioters to prison terms.

The U.S. diplomats writing in the released cables didn't ever think that this would come to a head, largely because of a confidence in the government's ability to handle the situation. Most recently, in the 2009 cable, diplomats write that " King Hamad understands that Bahrain cannot prosper if he rules by repression." Those words might ring particularly true today -- if not as intended.

THE CABLES

MIDDLE EAST

WikLeaks dumped a well-timed collection of cables on Egypt, which indicated that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned then-Vice President Dick Cheney not to go to war in Iraq and that Omar Suleiman served as a trusted interlocateur with the Israeli government.

Cables raised questions about how much oil Saudi Arabia has in reserves. 

A priceless cable offers an inside look at Baghdad's weird and wonderful zoo.

ASIA

A British diplomat lamented that Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari had "no plans and no strategy."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai warned British diplomats that holding credible elections would be impossible. 

AFRICA

France, the United States, and Britain considered delaying an Internatoinal Criminal Court investigation into Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

Britain was skeptical of U.S. efforts to support a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

Reports to U.S. diplomats indicated a possible link between Somali pirates, the Somali transitional government, and terrorist organizations. 

American diplomats allegedly thought that Equatorial Guinea's dictator, Teodoro Obiang, was a "good guy."

AMERICAS

Details emerged about the death of former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva.

The United States has a long history of skepticism of Brazilian diplomacy in the Middle East.

THE NEWS

Julian Assange was in court to face extradition hearings. Prosecutors want him to return to Sweden, where he has been indicted for sexual assault. 

Assange's lawyers raised concerns that the WikiLeaks founder would be tried behind closed doors in Sweden. 

Appealing to a judge in Alexandria, Virginia, WikiLeaks supporters attempted to block a U.S. request that Twitter hand over their personal account information. 

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks defector Daniel Domscheit-Berg's book  Inside WikiLeaks was released on February 11. Among the claims Domscheit-Berg makes are: allegations of Assange's poor management, accounts of how the defector took down the submissions system when he left the organization, and discussions of Assange's history with women. 

A WikiLeaks spokseman responded to Domscheit-Berg's statements and threatened legal action against the defector.

New U.S. Intelligence chief Jake Clapper said it was unclear how much damage was caused by the WikiLeaks cable.

Bank of America denied allegations that it had worked to block the release by WikiLeaks of files recounting its operations. 

Wired magazine has the inside details of former WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg's book, Inside WikiLeaks, which is set for release tomorrow. Domscheit-Berg, who says he hates Assange so much that "I’m afraid I’d resort to physical violence if our paths ever cross again,” makes big claims about the organization's dysfunction since he left.

By far the biggest scoop that's leaked so far is that, when Domscheit-Berg left WikiLeaks, he took the organization's encrypted submissions system with him, and Assange's site has been unable to accept new material since. A current WikiLeaks spokesman characterized this as a confession to  "acts of sabotage" by the former defector. Domscheit-Berg, however, writes that "Children shouldn’t play with guns ... [and] That was our argument for removing the submission platform from Julian’s control," according to an excerpt obtained by Wired. (Read more juice at Wired's post here.)

The good news for Assange in all this is that, at least so far, he seems to have won more fans -- not less -- when he is criticized. Assange has defined transparency in a way that is so radically all-encompasing that it doesn't allow for a lot of shades of grey. There's no room for debate once those are the terms; there's only room for traitors and martyrs. Domscheit-Berg and Assange will both be vying for the latter role as the defector opens his own, new site: OpenLeaks.

A January 2009 cable published today by the Telegraph offers a stark picture of U.S. diplomatic interactions with Hosni Mubarak -- and specifically, the Egyptian president's ability to play on American fears of instability in the region to win aid. Emphasizing the Egyptian role in the Middle East peace process, Mubarak told four U.S. senators -- just on the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration -- that rather than pushing for democracy, "the U.S. should appreciate more the role Egypt plays in regional stability." Mubarak complained at length about U.S. efforts to push for political reform in his country and expressed hope that Obama would "listen to [his] friends" better than George W. Bush, the cable claims.

The senators met with Mubarak for "an hour and a half long breakfast at the Presidential Palace on December 14 [2008]," according to the cable. The meeting covered subjects as wide-ranging as Hamas, Somali piracy, Iran, and the Iraq war. Mubarak allegedly claimed that he had warned then-U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney to avoid war with Iraq because the United States "won't be able to get out and you will drown in Iraq." (Mubarak noted that, while George H.W. Bush had listened to similar advice, "his son does not.") Mubarak also noted that the Iraq war would strengthen Iran's position in the region.

Interestingly, the conversation also turned to U.S. assistance for Egypt, which arrived at an unconditional $1.3 billion per year. The cable claims:

In an unusual, if oblique, reference to U.S. assistance to Egypt and calls for political reform, Mubarak told Senator Dorgan that "Egypt will never accept pressure. However, we are willing to be persuaded." He then asked after the health of Congressman David Obey, seen by the Egyptians as the main force behind Congressional attempts to condition U.S. assistance to Egypt. "He is a good man," Mubarak noted. "But he has been causing us trouble for the last three years."

Newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman also appears in the 2009 cable, speaking with the senators in a separate meeting about the Middle East peace process. And finally, the delegation held meetings with the foreign minister, Aboul Gheit, who "identified the Muslim Brotherhood as the 'vanguard of radicalism' and highlighted the long history of radical Islam acting as a destabilizing and threatening force in Egypt and the region."

Such conversations seem almost ominous in the current climate, where we are watching all these same topics play out -- from U.S. concerns about what a post-Mubarak Egypt would mean for Middle East peace, to congressional worries about the Muslim brotherhood, to Mubarak's own reticence to be "persuaded" into reform. 

Air Force personnel who read WikiLeaks could be in for some harsh consequences, according to a memo reported by Security New Daily today. The U.S. government has already banned federal employees from reading WikiLeaks (it also banned FP's coverage of WikiLeaks). But now, according to the Daily:

The AFMC memo takes its anti-WikiLeaks stance a step further, declaring that Air Force members – and their family members – who view the WikiLeaks cables may be prosecuted for espionage."

This is something of an interesting twist in the larger WikiLeaks espionage debate, which is proceeding apace. Today in Alexandra, Virginia, WikiLeaks supporters are in court to try to prevent the U.S. government's request to Twitter to reveal their private information. Ostensibly, tweeters who helped disseminate the leaked cables could be implicated in any eventual espionage case against the whistle-blower organization.

I am no lawyer, but both these cases strike me as a bit intense -- if indeed they both do move forward. First, presumably some Air Force officers with clearances could already read the cables (though it's probably true that intelligence siloing would have limited the scope of access for any one person). Beyond that, however, there are real questions here about where you draw the line between facilitating the cables' dissemination and just being a natural consumer of information. If reading WikiLeaks is a crime, I'm in serious trouble!

During the summer of 2008, Britain, France, and the United States discussed the possibility of delaying the Internatoinal Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into Sudanese President Omar Hussein al-Bashir -- if Bashir's government played ball in Darfur and Southern Sudan. According to a series of cables released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday, the three powers considered enticing Sudan's president with an Article 16 deferral of his indictment -- a U.N. Security Council resolution that could suspend the investigation for up to 12 months. According to an August 2008 cable, "If 'played right,' the UK [United Kingdom] assessed the leverage of an Article 16 deferral could provide an opportunity to ameliorate conditions in Darfur and possibly the [implementation of the] Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) [that ended conflict between northern and southern Sudan]."

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