THE CABLES

AMERICAS

Salvadorans are not into the idea of other people investigating Salvadorans.

MIDDLE EAST

U.S. officials in 2006 were concerned about the security of Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure.

THE NEWS

The U.S. government is trying to keep attorneys for Guantanamo detainees from being able to used their WikiLeaked files in legal proceedings (although they are now allowed to look at them).

You still have a couple days to bid on a lunch date with Julian Assange and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek.

Assange's supporters accuse British authorities of spying on him, while Assange complains that his house arrest is keeping him from getting any work done.

The granddaddy of WikiLeaks is officially released at last.

THE BIG PICTURE

Trying to make sense of the LulzSec hackers' motives.

How WikiLeaks begat the Sarah Palin email frenzy.

THE CABLES

AFRICA

U.S. diplomats' relationship with Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi's government wasn't always so cold.

Is Chinese demand for ivory killing Kenyan elephants?

MIDDLE EAST

An Israeli settlement leader tells U.S. officials he's willing to move, for a price.

Bahrain's king is proud of intelligence ties to Israel, wants his government to drop references to the "Zionist enemy."

Israel and Egypt locked horns over smuggling on the Gaza strip.

Israel suspects that Turkey is helping Iran skirt international sanctions.

What the WikiLeaks cables tell us about the United States' relationship with embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

THE NEWS

Ecuador kicks out U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges (above) over a WikiLeaks cable.

The Pentagon won't let anyone -- including U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich and investigators from the United Nations and Amnesty International -- meet with Pfc. Bradley Manning in private. The British government is also raising concerns over Manning's treatment.

Julian Assange has another court date.

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee proposes new penalties for leakers.

The feds won't leave friend of WikiLeaks Jacob Applebaum alone.

Karl Rove is copping WikiLeaks' style.

Qaddafi's Ukrainian nurse tells all.

Pentagon contractor (and Anonymous nemesis) HBGary's ambitious scheme to catch the next WikiLeaker.

As you've probably heard, U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual stepped down from his post in Mexico City over the weekend following his WikiLeaks-based falling out with Mexican President Felipe Calderón. In noting his departure, we thought it would be worth looking back over the arc of the U.S. State Department's slow-rolling PR catastrophe -- now rounding out its fourth month -- and tallying the casualties. The results are here.

The WikiLeaks unfortunates are a pretty varied group -- the expected array of diplomatic officials and WikiLeaks associates, plus a few politicians, a CEO, a university administrator, and a dictator -- and it's hard to draw much of a trend line through the circumstances of their respective scandals. The first and last of them were both genuine scandals: A German party official passing documents to American embassy officials, the prime minister of India's party allegedly buying votes with chests full of rupees.

But what strikes me as most noteworthy is how un-noteworthy most of the cables that got a lot of these people in trouble really were. U.S. ambassadors were pulled from their posts for noting that Mexico's drug war was going badly and that Muammar al-Qaddafi was rather eccentric. The fact that Tunisia's Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was a fantastically corrupt ruler was not exactly news to anyone in Tunisia. Europe's still-incomplete satellite system really is a boondoggle. There have been a few bombshells in the WikiLeaks cables -- some of them literal -- but these weren't them. They were significant only because they confirmed that the U.S. government knew what everyone else knew.

THE CABLES

AFRICA

Muammar al-Qaddafi's kids are a real piece of work.

Qaddafi worried about a U.S. military presence in Africa.

Bernie Madoff once discussed investment opportunities with Qaddafi.

AMERICAS

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe OK'd "clandestine operations" against FARC rebels across the border in Venezuela.

U.S. Ambassador to Colombia (and later Afghanistan) William Wood was not aware of the top Colombian military leader's dodgy résumé.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce tried to take down Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega.

ASIA

China used U.S. debt obligations to pressure the United States on arms sales to Taiwan.

For the first time since World War II, Japan is building a full-blown foreign intelligence agency.

EUROPE/CAUCASUS

U.S. diplomats pushed Norway to buy American-made fighter jets.

Britain blocked an arms sale to Swaziland over fears the weapons could end up in Iran.

MIDDLE EAST

Bahrain's crown prince is not a big fan of the whole democracy thing.

THE NEWS

A British judge rules in favor of Julian Assange's extradition to Sweden.

George W. Bush doesn't like the idea of sharing a stage with Assange.

Gaddafi's "voluptuous nurse" has had enough of Libya.

WikiLeaks cable revelations are factoring in Peru's 2011 elections.

PayPal freezes the account of a group raising defense funds for Pfc. Bradley Manning.

More on HBGary, the cybersecurity firm that tried to take down WikiLeaks' supporters.

WikiLeaks now has a gift shop.

Anonymous makes "The Colbert Report" (slightly NSFW)

THE BIG PICTURE

FP looks at WikiLeaks in our new March/April issue, including contributions from Fouad Ajami, Peter W. Galbraith, Margaret MacMillan, Maya Jasanoff, and Marjorie Garber.

Newly instated Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman has been a longtime favorite of Israel, according to new WikiLeaks cables released Monday.  The cables reveal snippets from a strategic partnership that is often fraught with differences, but mostly sharing of similar concerns, among them Gaza, Iran, and terrorism. The revelations seem particularly notable in the context of ongoing turmoil in Egypt, where protestors are calling for Mubarak to step down. The United States is now backing Suleiman as a leader of a transition government -- something that, according to the recently released cables, should  help quell Isreali anxiety.

In a cable dated August 29, 2008, David Hacham, a senior adviser to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, told U.S. diplomats about Barak's visit to Egypt earlier that month, calling it a success. While Hacham said the Israelis were "shocked" by President Hosni Mubarak's "aged appearance and slurred speech," they had only nice things to say about Suleiman, then head of Egypt's foreign intelligence service. Israel and Suleiman were apparently quite close, a relationship built through the daily use of a hot line set up between the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Suleiman's office. And even as most of the world expected Mubarak's son, Gamal, to be his successor, the Israelis had different thoughts, according to the cable:

Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim President if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated. (Note:  We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman.)

With Egypt eager to position itself as a leader in the Middle East, Suleiman also apparently took a keen interest in the Israel-Palestinian negotiations, according to a different 2008 cable. He told a U.S. Congressional delegation that he was optimistic about the situation between Egypt's neighbors, but stressed his concern over "continuing Israeli criticism of Egyptian anti-smuggling efforts."

According to the cable, the timing for Israeli-Palestinian progress was right, in 2008, for four reasons:

First, the PA leadership is moderate and willing to negotiate. Second, Hamas is isolated and politically cut off in Gaza. Third, the Israelis are ready for peace; Soliman assessed that the GOI coalition is broad and strong, and larger than Rabin's coalition of the mid-nineties. Fourth, Arab states are ready to see an end to "the struggle."

Suleiman said that Egypt wanted to help the United States continue the peace process, recommending steps to continue progress:

First , both the Israelis and Palestinians must be pressed hard to sign an agreement, which the U.S. and international community could endorse, to be implemented at the proper time. Second, the U.S. should insist that "phase one" of the Roadmap should be completed before the end of 2008.

The U.S. government has justifiably taken a lot of heat for its relative silence regarding -- and occasional complicity in -- the human rights abuses committed by Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt. But it's worth highlighting an exception in a recently WikiLeaked November 2008 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, signed by Amb. Margaret Scobey, in which American diplomats did the right thing -- while Silicon Valley played it safe.

The cable concerns an Egyptian blogger whose name is redacted in the document, but who CNET thinks is most likely Wael Abbas, a celebrated dissident journalist whose efforts to distribute videos of human rights abuses by Egyptian authorities have in one case led to convictions of the perpetrators (and who, incidentally, was arrested on Friday in Cairo, though according to his Twitter feed he's since been released):

Prominent Egyptian blogger XXXXXXXXXXXXX, contacted us November 17 to report that YouTube removed from his website two videos exposing police abuses -- one of Sinai bedouin allegedly shot by police and thrown in a garbage dump during the past week's violence (ref A), and the other of a woman being tortured in a police station.  XXXXXXXXXXXXX told us that YouTube is also preventing XXXXXXXXXXXX from posting new videos, and asked us for assistance in urging YouTube to re-post his removed videos and reinstate his access to uploading new material.  XXXXXXXXXXXXX said XXXXXXXXXXXXXX has tried to contact Google, but has not received a response.

The cable notes that the same thing happened to the blogger the previous year -- which again suggests that the blogger in question is Abbas, who had his YouTube access restored in December 2007 after getting kicked off for posting videos of Egyptian police brutality. At the time, YouTube explained in a statement that the company's general policy banned videos depicting graphic violence, but that "Having reviewed the case, we have restored the account of Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas -- and if he chooses to upload the video again with sufficient context so that users can understand his important message we will of course leave it on the site."

While the incident was widely reported at the time, there was no mention of any involvement of the State Department in YouTube's decision. But the 2008 cable notes:

In December 2007, DRL [State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor] and Embassy Cairo worked to convince Google [which owns YouTube] to restore XXXXXXXXXXXXX' YouTube access after a similar incident. We believe that a similar Department intervention with Google representatives could help in restoring XXXXXXXXXXXXX' access again. XXXXXXXXXXXXis an influential blogger and human rights activist, and we want to do everything we can to assist him in exposing police abuse.

A YouTube spokeswoman wouldn't confirm or deny the cable's account of the two incidents, saying in an emailed statement that "In order to protect the privacy of our users, we do not comment on actions taken on individual videos or accounts."

It's been a while since WikiLeaked checked in on Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's newly embattled president and a reliably interesting character in the WikiLeaks oeuvre. Most of what we've seen from Saleh in the leaked U.S. State Department cables has followed a pattern in which U.S. diplomats try to coax more counterterrorism cooperation out of the veteran strongman, while Saleh -- whose government received $155 million in military aid from the United States in 2010, twice the previous year's amount -- tries to finagle more cash and materiel out of the Americans. A newly released December 2004 State Department cable recounting a meeting between Saleh and U.S. Ambassador Thomas C. Krajeski (pictured above with Saleh in a 2007 photo) is no exception.

The meeting takes place a little more than a month after U.S. President George W. Bush's reelection; Saleh badly wants to meet with Bush in Washington to congratulate him personally, he tells Krajeski, and also talk about "important new developments in the region 'that can only be discussed face to face,'" according to the cable. Krajeski hems and haws a bit about this, at which point, the cable notes, "True to form, Saleh launched into a list of what he believes the U.S. owes him. 'Where is the money for the Army, and what about my spare (F-5) parts?' Saleh demanded." (The cable notes, a little acidly, that there have been reported problems with getting the Yemeni Ministry of Defense "to follow through with the necessary paperwork on parts and equipment in order to spend the 17 million USD in Yemen's [foreign military financing] account.")

There's also the matter of smaller weapons, specifically the massive number of small arms being bought and sold in Yemen:

Pointing out that any meetings with senior U.S. officials would quickly turn to the subject of Yemen's huge grey market in SA/LW [small arms/light weapons], Ambassador told Saleh that Yemen needs to gain control over the huge flow of these weapons in and through the country. Washington is very concerned about this issue and ready to help the ROYG tackle it, added Ambassador. "I will do it!" Saleh exclaimed, insisting that he was insisting that he was already "cracking down" on the SA/LWs market.

The conversation soon turns, inevitably, to counterterrorism, in which Saleh has been a longstanding if not unproblematic partner to the United States. Pressed on the subject of Hadi Dulqum, an arms dealer with alleged links to Al Qaeda, the cable reports that "Saleh stuck to his line that Hadi Dulqum is just a 'simple arms dealer:'"

The Saudis want Dulqum, said the President, "they are crazy for him. What do you expect?" he asked, "if we arrest every arms dealer in the country, we will have hundreds of them in prison." The USG [U.S. government] agrees with the Saudis, said Ambassador, adding that Dulqum's connections with AQ are too extensive for him to be simply another Yemeni arms dealer.

Months later, Saleh does manage to swing a White House invite, prompting a June 2005 cable from the Sanaa embassy titled PRIORITIES FOR WASHINGTON VISIT: SALEH NEEDS TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION. The cable characterizes relations with Saleh's government as "frustrating and difficult," noting that "Saleh has indicated to top advisors in the past that he believes he can pull the wool over the eyes of the [U.S. government.]" On the political front, "Saleh touts Yemen as a leader in regional reform and has committed to democratization," the cable says. "Domestically, however, he has run-out of reforms he can implement at no political cost to himself."

The cable proposes "a public show of support via a greater role in public fora such as the G-8" as a possible inducement to greater democratization, but it seems that half a decade later, the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt may have done the job more effectively.

The L.A. Times' Babylon and Beyond blog reports that unlike in most of the world, the WikiLeaks dump of U.S. diplomatic cables isn't getting that much attention in the pan-Arab press:

Headlines in the heavily state-controlled Saudi media were dominated by news of King Abdullah's ongoing physiotherapy, while the top story in the Emirati newspaper, Al Bayan, centered on Prince Mohamad bin Rashid's praise for the country's progress toward "transparency." Most mentions of the WikiLeaks documents in official Arabic news outlets were scrubbed of any reference to the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, focusing instead on U.S. attempts to control the damage to its diplomatic relations.

Even the Qatar-based Al Jazeera, considered one of the most credible pan-Arab news outlets, tread lightly in its coverage and generally refrained from repeating the most incendiary quotes from the heads of neighboring states.

It's hardly surprising that state-controlled Arab media wouldn't report on the repeated requests by Arab heads of state for the United States to put a stop to Iran's nuclear program. Some Arab leaders have gone as far as supporting military strikes against Iran. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, for example, called on the U.S. to "cut the head off" the Iranian snake.  

These positions might make sense from the point of view of an Arab autocrat, but they remain deeply unpopular with the populations they rule over. A 2010 public opinion poll of the Arab world found that 57 percent of Arabs think that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be positive for the Middle East. (H/T Friday Lunch Club.)

Issandr El Amrani (a frequent Foreign Policy contributor) writes on his blog:

There is so much information flowing around about US policy - and often, a good deal of transparency - that a smart observer with good contacts can get a good idea of what's happening. Not so in the Arab world, and the contents of the conversations Arab leader are having with their patron state are not out in the Arab public domain or easily guessable, as anyone who reads the meaningless press statements of government press agencies will tell you. Cablegate is in important record from the Arab perspective, perhaps more than from the US one.

The leaked cables bring to light the behind-the-scenes positions of Arab politicians from Mubarak to Abdullah, but if that information doesn't make its way into the mainstream Arabic media, what kind of effect will it really have?