jpost:Mideast expert: US letter on freeze deal was completed

Mideast expert: US letter on freeze deal was completed

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND HERB KEINON
11/24/2010 01:07

'Post' learns Netanyahu made verbal commitment to make progress on borders during renewed freeze as part of agreement.

Talkbacks (27)

The parties have finalized the text for the US letter to Israel concerning the terms of a renewed settlement freeze, according to Middle East expert David Makovsky.

Makovsky highlighted, however, complicating factors in the effort to get from a deal on paper to actually having it approved by the Israeli cabinet and signed by the United States.

Makovsky, who spoke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Tuesday, recently returned to the US after extensive conversations with Israeli and Arab leaders.

The crux of the deal centers on the US providing Israel with advanced fighter jets in return for a three-month West Bank settlement freeze that both the US administration and the government in Jerusalem hope will get Palestinians back to the negotiating table, he said.

Makovsky pointed out that while the Obama administration is making the offer, it’s Congress that must eventually sign off on sending fighter jets to Israel. Although Congress is typically supportive of Israeli aid and military acquisitions, incoming Republicans who will be taking over the US House have been talking about the need to save money and perhaps cut foreign aid.

In this climate, Makovsky said that Netanyahu is looking for some sort of “fallback understanding” so that he can present the security cabinet with an iron-clad arrangement for the planes in order to get the ministers’ backing for the freeze.

He also referred to a “verbal affirmation” from Netanyahu to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the there would be “meaningful progress” on border issues during the 90-day freeze. He said that Israeli officials have concerns about a solitary focus on territory, or even on territory and security, over those 90 days, since Israel sees its best “chips” as being land. Officials are worried that if they give ground on this issue it will leave them in a weaker position when it comes to dealing with the even more sensitive issues of Jerusalem and refugees, so they are looking to find a formula they feel comfortable with.

Makovsky said that while the text didn’t contain any references to a long-term Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley – a key point Palestinians objected to – Israel would raise it in the future.

In addition, Shas ministers are trying to “ramp up” East Jerusalem building, Makovsky noted. While the agreement between the US and Israel would keep the same terms of the previous moratorium – which exempted East Jerusalem – Shas is looking for explicit permission for building which the US has long opposed and is unlikely to look on favorably.

Meanwhile, the wide gaps inside the government were on full display on Tuesday, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak saying Israel must work toward a two-state solution or face losing its Jewish or democratic character, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman saying that a final agreement with the Palestinians is unrealistic, and that the diplomatic focus should instead be on reaching a long-term interim agreement.

These widely varying visions of the future came as Jerusalem continued to wait for the just finalized letter of commitment from the US.

But while Barak indicated that direct talks with the Palestinians were absolutely vital for Israel, Lieberman said they were as important for the Palestinians as they were for Israel.

“There is no choice but to separate from the Palestinians,” the defense minister said at a conference of regional authority heads in the Negev. “Two states for two peoples is not a formula or slogan and is not a favor that we are doing for the Palestinians. That is the only way to ensure the future of the Jewish people.”

Barak said two states were necessary because if a boundary could not be drawn through the Land of Israel and there were only one political entity, that entity would have to be either Jewish or democratic, but it could not be both.

Barak said it was critical for Israel to come to an agreement with the US over the understandings regarding settlement construction.

“Either we will reach an understanding with the Americans, and the Palestinians and the Arab world will have to suit themselves to it, or the opposite will occur – the Arab world and the Palestinians will reach an understanding with the Americans, and we will have to suit ourselves to the conclusions,” he said.

Barak said a way had to be found to end the disagreement with the US over the construction issues, “because this is our greatest vulnerability in the world; there is not a government in the world that recognizes our right to build in Judea and Samaria.”

Lieberman, meanwhile, displayed the government’s other approach, saying at a press conference with visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini that it would be wise to move from the current track of trying to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians – reaching a final agreement – to a different track where the goal would be a long-term interim agreement.

“I think we have a deep political, diplomatic disagreement, which is very emotional,” Lieberman said of the conflict with the Palestinians. “So it is preferable now to focus on the two issues where there is joint interest and cooperation that has proven itself in the past: in the spheres of security and economics.”

Regarding negotiations with the Americans over the document concerning a settlement freeze, Lieberman said that if the Palestinians were truly interested in talks, then the “guarantees [from the US] and the document are much less important than starting the direct talks.”

Lieberman said that while he didn’t know the status of the talks with the US, “I am not willing to pay another additional price for the joy of conducting negotiations [with the Palestinians]. This is in their interests just as it is in ours.”

Frattini, meanwhile, related to recent Palestinian threats to get the world to recognize a Palestinians state inside the June 4, 1967, lines, thereby imposing a solution on the parties, by saying that “so far” there is an understanding among the EU states that “we should support negotiations and negotiators, not replace the negotiations and negotiators.

“What is very important is to let the negotiators sit around the table and get an agreement including on the borders, not to decide from Brussels or elsewhere what should the Palestinian state be,” Frattini said. “We do want a Palestinian state as soon as possible, but there is no consensus and there are no proposals in Europe to have a decision on behalf of the two negotiators.”

As Frattini was meeting with top Israeli officials, in Brussels foreign ministers and other senior representatives of EU countries were discussing the Middle East at the monthly Foreign Affairs Council.

Following the meeting, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton issued a statement saying that the ministers exchanged views and “voiced their concern at the current lack of progress and the ongoing settlement activities, particularly in east Jerusalem. The High Representative [Ashton] pointed to the Council’s December 2009 conclusions and recalled that settlements are illegal under international law, are an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible.”

According to the statement, the “ministers also expressed their ongoing concern at the situation in Gaza, calling for the Gaza crossings to be opened and, in particular, for exports to be allowed out of Gaza.”

One Israeli diplomatic official said that what was so striking was that the statement was completely out of sync with the message that Frattini brought to Israel, one reason why the EU’s influence here is so limited.

Regarding the EU statement, the official said that “as long as this is their world view, they will continue to remain locked in their own fantasy work, without any possibility of influencing the real one.”

It is also mind boggling, the official said, that the statements routinely issued from the EU “make no acknowledgment of Israeli positions. They hold on to their slogans for dear life, and no reality makes them change it.”

jpost:Analysis: Burying linkage between peace process, Iran

Analysis: Burying linkage between peace process, Iran

http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/OpinionAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=197286

While US maintains that solving Palestinian conflict is key to peace, Israel's position is to first deal with Iran - neutralize it.

Talkbacks (7)

Since the earliest days of Barack Obama’s presidency, there have been two major conceptual differences between how Israel and how the US administration view the Middle East.

The first difference has to do with the region. While the US maintains that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum is the key to unlocking peace in the Middle East and getting other countries in the region on board to help stop the Iranian threat, Israel’s position is to first deal with Iran – neutralize it – which will then make it easier to reach an accord with the Palestinians.

Israel’s logic is that Hamas and Hizbullah – Iran’s two proxies – will be much less able to gum up the works whenever diplomatic progress looms if Iran is defanged.

The second key conceptual difference has to do with how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the US still tied into the land-forpeace formula – Israel gives up land and gets peace in return – and much of Israel, bitten badly by reality, no longer convinced that formula is relevant.

And along comes the cache of WikiLeaks documents and reveals that Obama’s linkage of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Iran is nothing short of fiction – a fiction he and his key aides have been spinning since the beginning of his tenure.

At his very first White House meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in May 2009, that famous meeting in which Obama called for a complete halt to all settlement construction, Obama was asked what he thought about Israel’s position that only if the Iranian threat were solved could there be real progress on the Palestinian track.

“Well, let me say this,” Obama said. “There’s no doubt that it is difficult for any Israeli government to negotiate in a situation in which they feel under immediate threat. That’s not conducive to negotiations. And as I’ve said before, I recognize Israel’s legitimate concerns about the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon when they have a president who has in the past said that Israel should not exist. That would give any leader of any country pause.

“Having said that,” the president went on, “if there is a linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, I personally believe it actually runs the other way. To the extent that we can make peace with the Palestinians – between the Palestinians and the Israelis – then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.”

And that position, that progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue – that stopping settlement construction – would somehow magically mollify the Arab world and get it to put its shoulder to the wheel regarding Iran has been a constant thread throughout the Obama regime. Here it was popularly dubbed “Yitzhar for Bushehr.”

What the WikiLeaks cache revealed, however, was that this argument was a fabrication. There was no need to crack the Palestinian-Israeli nut before getting the “moderate” Arab nations in the region – Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan – on board regarding Iran, because those nations were already fully camped out on board the deck of the ship, just waiting for action against Iran.

Now this doesn’t mean efforts should not be made toward trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but don’t say the reason is to get the Arabs to stop Iran.

The following quotes from Arab leaders culled from the WikiLeaks trove do not exactly portray a picture of leaders who need any further enticements before “getting on board.”

• Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, quoted by the monarchy’s envoy to the US in 2008 as exhorting the US to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons program, said in reference to Iran – according to one cable – that it was necessary to “cut the head of the snake.”

• King Hamad of Bahrain was quoted in 2009 as saying, “That program [the Iranian nuclear program] must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.”

• Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed in 2009 urged the US, according to another cable, not to appease Teheran and said, “Ahmadinejad is Hitler.”

• Maj-Gen. Muhammad al-Assar, assistant to the Egyptian defense minister, was quoted in a cable in 2010 as saying that “Egypt views Iran as a threat to the region.”

Obama was obviously well aware of the views of these leaders, most of whom he personally met, yet he continued to propagate what he must have known to be a falsehood – that these countries would only sign on to sanctions and otherwise support efforts to neutralize Iran if there were progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track.

Obviously these countries wanted to see progress on that track, but this desire had nothing to do with Iran. Nor would an Israeli-Palestinian accord lead them to be supportive of aggressive steps toward Iran, because they were already practically dreaming of those steps.

To link the two issues – the conflict with the Palestinians, and Iran – was to badly muddle the issue. Why exactly Obama felt compelled to do so is one of the key questions the WikiLeaks documents raised in relation to our region.

WeeklyStandard:Palau Problems

Palau Problems

1:34 PM, Jun 20, 2009

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/palau_problems.asp

There have been two pieces of Palau and Uighur-related news since yesterday. The first was a New York Times op-ed by Stuart Beck, the South Pacific island of Palau's representative to the United Nations. The second comes from the Wall Street Journal, which reports that at least some of the 13 remaining Uighurs at Gitmo don't want to go to Palau.

Four of the Uighur's compatriots were recently transferred to Bermuda, which certainly has a superior nightlife to the relatively isolated and poor Palau. You would think the lack of a hopping nightlife in Palau is the real reason behind the Uighur jihadists' reticence, but no. The Journal says the Uighurs, according to Obama administration officials, "have concerns about the lack of a Uighur community in Palau, and restrictions on becoming a citizen there."

We have apparently arrived at a point where the Uighurs -- who have been rejected by "more than 100 nations" -- are being picky about their final destination.

Meanwhile, Stuart Beck is concerned about how the media has portrayed his nation's agreement to take in some of the Uighurs held at Gitmo. Beck says that media reports suggesting Palau is receiving nearly $12 million in aid per Uighur are false. Palau has been in talks with the Obama administration about renewing its new aid package, Beck says, and Palau's willingness to accept a number of Uighurs is not part of some quid pro quo.

As Beck himself notes, the initial reporting on the Uighurs-for-cash deal came from the Associated Press. The AP cited two anonymous State Department officials in the Obama administration as saying that the Uighurs' transfer was contingent upon Palau receiving $200 million in aid. $200 million in aid divided by 17 Uighurs gives you the $12 million per Uighur figure that Beck says is wrong.

That has clearly changed since the AP's account first ran. Four of the 17 Uighurs have been transferred to Bermuda, so Palau isn't taking all 17 Uighurs. And now Beck says that the $200 million figure has never been discussed. Beck says the Obama administration has "offered to pay relocation costs for the Uighurs of less than $90,000 per person" and "no one has even hinted at linking the [aid] deal to Palau's acceptance of the Uighurs."

Perhaps. The aid package is probably not intended to directly compensate Palau for its hospitality towards the Uighurs. But it is hard to believe that the aid package did not affect Palau's willingness to accept the Uighurs in the first place. Beck notes that negotiations over the amount of aid Palau will receive are ongoing because the existing package runs out later this year. That makes it even more appealing for Palau to find a way to please the Obama administration, especially after more than 100 other nations turned down the administration's request.

And here is how Beck says the Obama team explained the situation to his government:

President Obama, much admired in Palau, asked our new president, Johnson Toribiong, to do the United States a favor: Please accept, as refugees, a group of innocent Chinese Muslims. They are not anti-American terrorists, but victims of human rights violations, who landed at Guantánamo Bay for seven years. Innocent, stateless, harmless.

Did Obama, or his surrogates, really describe the Uighurs detained at Gitmo in this manner? Did someone in the administration tell Palau's president that they are "innocent," "harmless," "victims of human rights violations"?

If so, this is hardly an accurate representation.

A more accurate representation of the Uighurs detained at Gitmo would have started by pointing out that all of them are members or associates of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement ("ETIM"), or its successor organization, the Turkistan Islamic Party ("TIP"). The ETIM/TIP has been designated an al Qaeda affiliate by both the UN and the United States.
The Obama team should have explained that at least eight of the Uighurs have also admitted that they were trained by Abdul Haq, who has been designated an al Qaeda terrorist and a member of al Qaeda's elite Shura council by Obama's own Treasury Department.

The Obama team should have also pointed out that nearly all of them trained at an ETIM camp in Tora Bora. And some of them have had severe behavioral problems at Gitmo too -- including one instance in which a Uighur detained threw a television because a woman's bare arms were shown. Such is the radical nature of their beliefs.

Certainly in this new era of transparency, the Obama team would have explained all of that to Palau.

WashPost:Al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate spreading its reach for recruits, targets

Al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate spreading its reach for recruits, targets

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/29/AR2010112905459.html

In mid-October, several days before authorities intercepted two bombs planted on cargo airliners bound for the United States, Saudi Arabian intelligence officials tipped off their French counterparts about another terrorist plot.

An al-Qaeda affiliate had dispatched a cell of North Africans, who crossed the Mediterranean Sea by boat, to carry out an attack in France, according to an Arab intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. It was the latest in a rash of far-flung strikes planned by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemen-based group that operated in relative obscurity for years but has more recently demonstrated an ability to launch attacks worldwide.

French officials quietly broke up the plot and have not released details about the intended target or the number of suspects involved. The operation largely has been overlooked since U.S., European and Saudi investigators turned their attention to the cargo plot at the end of October, when al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula concealed two powerful bombs in printer cartridges.

Yet the involvement of North Africans in the French plot - which has not been previously reported - marked the first known instance in which al-Qaeda's Yemeni arm has partnered with foot soldiers from North Africa.

Counterterrorism officials described it as another sign that the Yemeni chapter - once confined to the Arabian desert - has boosted its ambitions and sophistication by drawing on a pool of international recruits. The new members come from North America, South Asia, North Africa and Europe and are lending their skills in critical areas, from making bombs to designing propaganda.

About 18 months ago, the group sent an emissary to North Africa, where he met with leaders of the local affiliate there, known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, according to Maj. Gen. Abdeljebbar Azzaoui, the director of intelligence and counterterrorism for the kingdom of Morocco.

Little is known about the meeting, but "he came to try to build a relationship," Azzaoui said in an interview. It didn't go well; the Yemeni representative was found decapitated in Algeria. "They didn't like anybody besides al-Qaeda in Afghanistan," Azzaoui said of the North African group.

Other counterterrorism officials, however, said that the Yemeni faction has continued to try to build contacts in North Africa because of its proximity to Europe, an effort that culminated in the plot to attack France in October.

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux confirmed Oct. 17 that Saudi intelligence officials had sent an urgent warning that "al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula was certainly active, or expecting to be active, in Europe, especially France." He told French television: "The threat is real."

The precise number of foreign recruits active in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is unknown, but officials said it is clearly increasing.

On Friday, Saudi officials said they had arrested 149 alleged al-Qaeda members in the past eight months. Of those, 25 were foreigners, including individuals from Africa, South Asia and other Arab countries, Saudi officials said.

British authorities say the Yemeni-based al-Qaeda group also has recently targeted their country. On Nov. 3, Home Secretary Theresa May disclosed that police had arrested a member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for allegedly plotting an attack in Britain.

May did not identify the suspect or say when he was detained. But she said the Yemen-based network had suddenly vaulted to "the forefront" of terrorist groups active in Britain and had "shown the ability to project a threat far beyond the borders of Yemen."

An influx of foreign recruits

Many of the group's members are veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who fought alongside jihadis from other countries. Its leadership includes several Saudis and former prisoners from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The network also has benefited from an influx of foreign recruits who traveled to Yemen to study at religious schools. Officials say these recruits - including Pakistanis, Sudanese, Germans and at least one Australian - give the group a more international outlook, as well as connections outside the region.

"There's a sense that they have an opportunity here to expand the franchise," said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to a reporter.

One visible result has been the group's new English-language propaganda department, which since July has churned out three editions of a flashy online magazine called "Inspire." Counterterrorism officials say the the editor is a U.S. citizen, Samir Khan.

A Saudi native, Khan left his home in Charlotte, N.C., for Yemen in October 2009. The second edition of Inspire, released last month, includes a feature article about Khan, titled, "I am proud to be a traitor to America."

A more well-known propagandist for the group is another U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric originally from New Mexico, was in frequent e-mail contact with Maj. Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who is charged with killing 13 in a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Tex., last year.

More recently, British authorities said that Awlaki's online sermons inspired a female student to try to kill a member of Parliament in May as "punishment" for voting in favor of the war in Iraq. Roshonara Choudry, 21, of London, was convicted this month and given a life sentence for stabbing the lawmaker, Stephen Timms.

Since 2001, other regional al-Qaeda affiliates have vowed to go global and target what they refer to as "the far enemy" - the United States and European powers that support governments in Muslim countries.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq blew up luxury hotels in Amman, Jordan, in 2005, but otherwise never made good on threats to strike outside the region. Similarly, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has failed to back up its repeated pledges to terrorize Europeans and Americans at home.

The Yemeni branch first sought to expand its reach in August 2009 with an ingenious plot in neighboring Saudi Arabia. A member of the group finagled a personal audience with Prince Muhammed bin Nayef, the kingdom's deputy interior minister. Carrying a tiny bomb in his rectum, the operative blew himself up in the prince's presence.

Bin Nayef survived, but the incident alarmed the Saudi government and served notice that the Yemeni group had achieved a new level of sophistication.

Four months later, another operative from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula boarded a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with explosives hidden in his underwear. He allegedly tried to detonate the device just before landing but failed. This time, the incident alarmed governments worldwide. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a Nigerian citizen who once lived in Britain.

At the same time, the network has continued to mount guerrilla attacks inside Yemen. In August, about 200 al-Qaeda fighters battled with Yemeni government forces near the city of Lawdar. The director-general of the Lawdar district told Arab journalists that the al-Qaeda force included Saudi, Pakistani, Egyptian, Syrian and Somali fighters.

Thomas Hegghammer, a senior researcher for the Norwegian Ministry of Defense who has studied the origins of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said the group's strategic aims have been inconsistent, a possible sign of schisms in the ranks.

"It's very hard to tell whether their focus is on the far enemy or the near enemy," he said in a telephone interview from Oslo. "They're one of the least predictable groups in that regard."

The emir, or leader, of the network is a Yemeni, Nasir al-Wuyhashi, who once fought in Afghanistan and served as a personal secretary to Osama bin Laden. But the upper ranks include a number of Saudis, including the deputy emir, Said Ali al-Shihri, a former Guantanamo prisoner who was released in 2007.

Counterterrorism officials and analysts said that, for most of the network's new members, overthrowing the Saudi royal family was a much more important goal than winning power in Yemen.

"Yemen is of little interest. It's just a platform. Saudi Arabia is fundamentally the prize in that part of the world," the senior U.S. official said.

nytimes:Iran Calls Leaked Documents a U.S. Plot

Iran Calls Leaked Documents a U.S. Plot

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/world/middleeast/30iran.html?ref=world

TEHRAN — In Iran’s first official reaction to leaked State Department cables quoting Arab leaders as urging the United States to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the documents as American psychological warfare that would not affect his country’s relations with other nations, news reports said.

The documents seemed to show several Arab nations, notably Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival for influence in the Persian Gulf, displaying such hostility that King Abdullah repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.

Nonetheless, Mr. Ahmadinejad said at a news conference on Monday that Iran’s relations with its neighbors would not be damaged by the reports.

“Regional countries are all friends with each other. Such mischief will have no impact on the relations of countries,” he said, according to Reuters.

“Some part of the American government produced these documents,” he said. “We don’t think this information was leaked. We think it was organized to be released on a regular basis and they are pursuing political goals.”

News reports quoted Mr. Ahmadinejad as calling the documents “worthless” and without “legal value.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s news conference was scheduled before the leaked cables were published on Sunday and had been expected to focus on such issues as Iran’s scheduled negotiations on Dec. 5 with world powers over its nuclear program and plans at home to drastically reduce energy and food subsidies. Mr. Ahmadinejad said on Monday that while Iran and the world powers had agreed on a date, the site of the talks was still under discussion.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes but many Western powers say it is designed to build nuclear weapons. That issue was one of the overarching themes of the first batch of leaked documents published Sunday in The New York Times and four European newspapers.

With steadily increasing sanctions, outside powers have been seeking to persuade Iran to curb its uranium enrichment, a process that can lead to the production of weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

Mr. Ahmadinejad reiterated that Tehran’s enrichment program was legal and “nonnegotiable,” Reuters said.

“The complete enrichment cycle and the production of fuel are basic rights” of member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, and “are nonnegotiable,” Mr. Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

nytimes:Leaked Cables Depict a World Guessing About North Korea

Leaked Cables Depict a World Guessing About North Korea

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/world/asia/30korea.html?_r=1&hp

WASHINGTON — With North Korea reeling from economic and succession crises, American and South Korean officials early this year secretly began gaming out what would happen if the North, led by one of the world’s most brutal family dynasties, collapsed.

Over an official lunch in late February, a top South Korean diplomat confidently told the American ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that the fall would come “two to three years” after the death of Kim Jong-il, the country’s ailing leader, Ms. Stephens later cabled Washington. A new, younger generation of Chinese leaders “would be comfortable with a reunited Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the United States in a benign alliance,” the diplomat, Chun Yung-woo, predicted.

But if Seoul was destined to control the entire Korean Peninsula for the first time since the end of World War II, China — the powerful ally that keeps the North alive with food and fuel — would have to be placated. So South Korea was already planning to assure Chinese companies that they would have ample commercial opportunities in the mineral-rich northern part of the peninsula.

As for the United States, the cable said, “China would clearly ‘not welcome’ any U.S. military presence north of the DMZ,” the heavily mined demarcation line that now divides the two Koreas.

This trove of cables ends in February, just before North Korea began a series of military actions that has thrown some of Asia’s most prosperous countries into crisis. A month after the lunch, the North is believed to have launched a torpedo attack on the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, that killed 46 sailors.

Three weeks ago it revealed the existence of a uranium enrichment plant, potentially giving it a new pathway to make nuclear bomb material. And last week it shelled a South Korean island, killing two civilians and two marines and injuring many more.

None of that was predicted in the dozens of State Department cables about North Korea obtained by WikiLeaks, and in fact even China, the North’s closest ally, has often been startlingly wrong, the cables show. But the documents help explain why some South Korean and American officials suspect that the military outbursts may be the last snarls of a dying dictatorship.

They also show that talk of the North’s collapse may be rooted more in hope than in any real strategy: similar predictions were made in 1994 when the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung, suddenly died, leaving his son to run the most isolated country in Asia. And a Chinese expert warned, according to an American diplomat, that Washington was deceiving itself once again if it believed that “North Korea would implode after Kim Jong-il’s death.”

The cables about North Korea — some emanating from Seoul, some from Beijing, many based on interviews with government officials, and others with scholars, defectors and other experts — are long on educated guesses and short on facts, illustrating why their subject is known as the Black Hole of Asia. Because they are State Department documents, not intelligence reports, they do not include the most secret American assessments, or the American military’s plans in case North Korea disintegrates or lashes out.

They contain loose talk and confident predictions of the end of the dynasty that has ruled North Korea for 65 years. Those discussions were fueled by a rash of previously undisclosed defections of ranking North Korean diplomats, who secretly sought refuge in the South.

But they were also influenced by a remarkable period of turmoil inside North Korea, including an economic crisis set off by the government’s failed effort to revalue the currency and sketchy intelligence suggesting that the North’s military might not abide the rise of Mr. Kim’s son Kim Jong-un, who was recently made a four-star general despite having no military experience.

The cables reveal that in private, the Chinese, long seen as North Korea’s last protectors against the West, occasionally provide the Obama administration with colorful assessments of the state of play in North Korea. Chinese officials themselves sometimes even laugh about the frustrations of dealing with North Korean paranoia.

When James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, sat down in September 2009 with one of China’s most powerful officials, Dai Bingguo, state councilor for foreign affairs, Mr. Dai joked that in a recent visit to North Korea he “did not dare” to be too candid with the ailing and mercurial North Korean leader. But the Chinese official reported that although Kim Jong-il had apparently suffered a stroke and had obviously lost weight, he still had a “sharp mind” and retained his reputation among Chinese officials as “quite a good drinker.” (Mr. Kim apparently assured Mr. Dai during a two-hour conversation in Pyongyang, the capital, that his infirmities had not forced him to give up alcohol.)

But reliable intelligence about Mr. Kim’s drinking habits, it turns out, does not extend to his nuclear program, about which even the Chinese seem to be in the dark.

On May 13, 2009, as American satellites showed unusual activity at North Korea’s nuclear test site, officials in Beijing said they were “unsure” that North Korean “threats of another nuclear test were serious.” As it turns out, the North Koreans detonated a test bomb just days later.

Soon after, Chinese officials predicted that negotiations intended to pressure the North to disarm would be “shelved for a few months.” They have never resumed.

The cables also show that almost as soon as the Obama administration came to office, it started raising alarms that the North was buying up components to enrich uranium, opening a second route for it to build nuclear weapons. (Until now, the North’s arsenal has been based on its production of plutonium, but its production capacity has been halted.)

In June 2009, at a lunch in Beijing shortly after the North Korean nuclear test, two senior Chinese Foreign Ministry officials reported that China’s experts believed “the enrichment was only in its initial phases.” In fact, based on what the North Koreans revealed this month, an industrial-scale enrichment plant was already under construction. It was apparently missed by both American and Chinese intelligence services.

The cables make it clear that the South Koreans believe that internal tensions in the North have reached a boiling point. In January of this year, South Korea’s foreign minister, who later resigned, reported to a visiting American official that the South Koreans saw an “increasingly chaotic” situation in the North.

In confidence, he told the American official, Robert R. King, the administration’s special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, that a number of “high-ranking North Korean officials working overseas” had recently defected to the South. Those defections were being kept secret, presumably to give American and South Korean intelligence agencies time to harvest the defectors’ knowledge.

But the cables also reveal that the South Koreans see their strategic interests in direct conflict with China’s, creating potentially huge diplomatic tensions over the future of the Korean Peninsula.

The South Koreans complain bitterly that China is content with the status quo of a nuclear North Korea, because they fear that a collapse would unleash a flood of North Korean refugees over the Chinese border and lead to the loss of a “buffer zone” between China and the American forces in South Korea.

At one point, Ambassador Stephens reported to Washington, a senior South Korean official told her that “unless China pushed North Korea to the ‘brink of collapse,’ ” the North would refuse to take meaningful steps to give up its nuclear program.

Mr. Chun, now the South Korean national security adviser, complained to Ambassador Stephens during their lunch that China had little commitment to the multination talks intended to force North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. The Chinese, he said, had chosen Wu Dawei to represent Beijing at the talks. According to the cable, Mr. Chun called Mr. Wu the country’s “ ‘most incompetent official,’ an arrogant, Marx-spouting former Red Guard who ‘knows nothing about North Korea, nothing about non-proliferation.’ ”

But the cables show that when it comes to the critical issue of succession, even the Chinese know little of the man who would be North Korea’s next ruler: Kim Jong-un.

As recently as February 2009, the American Consulate in Shanghai — a significant collection point for intelligence about North Korea — sent cables reporting that the Chinese who knew North Korea best disbelieved the rumors that Kim Jong-un was being groomed to run the country. Several Chinese scholars with good contacts in the North said they thought it was likely that “a group of high-level military officials” would take over, and that “at least for the moment none of KJI’s three sons is likely to be tapped to succeed him.” The oldest son was dismissed as “too much of a playboy,” the middle son as “more interested in video games” than governing. Kim Jong-un, they said, was too young and inexperienced.

But within months, a senior Chinese diplomat, Wu Jianghao, was telling his American counterparts that Kim Jong-il was using nuclear tests and missile launchings as part of an effort to put his third son in place to succeed him, despite his youth.

“Wu opined that the rapid pace of provocative actions in North Korea was due to Kim Jong-il’s declining health and might be part of a gambit under which Kim Jong-il would escalate tensions with the United States so that his successor, presumably Kim Jong-un, could then step in and ease those tensions,” the embassy reported back to Washington in June 2009.

But carrying out plans for an easy ascension may be more difficult than expected, some are quoted as saying. In February of this year the American Consulate in Shenyang reported rumors that Kim Jong-un “had a hand” in the decision to revalue the North’s currency, which wiped out the scarce savings of most North Koreans and created such an outcry that one official was executed for his role in the sudden financial shift. The cables also describe secondhand reports of palace intrigue in the North, with other members of the Kim family preparing to serve as regents to Kim Jong-un — or to unseat him after Kim Jong-il’s death.

foxnews:AP Exclusive: Close calls for al-Qaida's No. 2

AP Exclusive: Close calls for al-Qaida's No. 2

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/29/ap-exclusive-close-calls-al-qaidas/#ixzz16frwLsXZ

The CIA has come closer to capturing or killing Osama bin Laden's top deputy than was previously known, during a nine-year hunt at the root of a devastating 2009 suicide bombing at an agency base in Afghanistan, The Associated Press has learned.

The CIA missed a chance to nab Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2003 in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, where he met with another senior al-Qaida leader who was apprehended the next day, several current and former U.S. intelligence officials said.

The fugitive Egyptian doctor may also have narrowly survived a bombing by Pakistani military planes in 2004, the former and current officials said. And a well-publicized U.S. missile strike aimed at him in 2006 failed because he did not turn up at the attack site, they said.

Targeting al-Zawahiri — along with bin Laden — is a main goal of U.S. counterterror efforts, focused on a man who has retained control of al-Qaida's operations and strategic planning even as he has led an underground existence in Pakistan's rugged tribal border zone.

"Finding senior al-Qaida terrorists — at a time when we're pursuing the most aggressive counterterrorism operations in our history — is of course a top priority for the CIA," said agency spokesman George Little.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/29/ap-exclusive-close-calls-al-qaidas/#ixzz16fs0D47Y

But unlike bin Laden, a cipher since the Sept. 11 attacks who has surfaced only in occasional taped statements, al-Zawahiri has kept a higher public profile, taking risks that expose him more.

He is known to travel cautiously and regularly issues audio and video harangues that are scrutinized closely for clues, said the current and former officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the classified hunt for the al-Qaida leader.

The CIA's pursuit of al-Zawahiri climaxed last December in the suicide bombing that left seven agency employees dead at the agency's eastern Afghanistan base in Khost, one of the worst U.S. intelligence debacles in recent decades.

The bomber turned out to be an al-Qaida double agent who had lulled U.S. intelligence into believing he could bring them closer to al-Zawahiri. Part of the terrorist's bait was his claim that al-Zawahiri suffered from diabetes — a revelation about his health, if true.

A blunt internal inquiry raked the CIA last month for failing to properly vet the double agent in the months before the bombing and suggested its preoccupation with al-Zawahiri may have led to lapses in judgment. One person familiar with the inquiry said the agency's intent on getting to al-Zawahiri was a "significant driver" behind the mistakes, a conclusion even CIA director Leon Panetta acknowledged.

"That's what this mission was all about," Panetta said. "It was the opportunity that we all thought we had to be able to go after No. 2." He added that "in some ways maybe the mission itself clouded some of the judgments that were made here."

Al-Zawahiri has presented a more opportunistic target than bin Laden both because of his visibility and also because of the CIA's ability to develop better intelligence about his movements.

"We felt like we did at times come very close to getting him," said a former senior U.S. official familiar with the targeting efforts. "We had more of it (intelligence) and we had better confidence in it."

Former intelligence officials say both bin Laden and al-Zawahiri take elaborate precautions, keeping their distance from each other to ensure that al-Qaida's top leadership would not be eliminated in a single strike.

Bin Laden, 53, is believed to be hiding near the border between Pakistan's lawless tribal regions and Afghanistan. Al-Zawahri, 59, appears to have spent time in Pakistan's northwest tribal region of Bajaur, populated by large numbers of Wahabi Islam followers.

Both men are believed wary of using cell or satellite phones. But al-Zawahiri has tried at times to make contact with family members in Egypt, former intelligence officials say. More importantly, he has remained in the public eye with numerous messages.

According to the private SITE Intelligence Group, bin Laden has made 23 audio and one video tape since 2006. Al-Zawahiri has outpaced his superior, making 37 audio and 22 video recordings in the same period. In al-Zawahiri's latest audio recording, issued Nov.4, he warned the U.S. that "we will fight you until the last hour."

Each time al-Zawahiri speaks, he increases the chances the U.S. could zero in on him. The CIA scours his recordings for clues, the former officials said, sifting for signs that might indicate how long it takes al-Zawahiri to receive information about current events he cites.

"It tells us about information flow," said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism research fellow at the New America Foundation.

But despite the risks he takes, al-Zawahiri has always been able to keep several steps ahead of his pursuers.

The CIA had its first chance on Feb. 28, 2003. Former intelligence officials say al-Zawahiri met that day in a car with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of 9/11 attacks, in Peshawar. Al-Zawahiri, a former official said, was on his way to the remote northern tribal region.

The former officials say the CIA was pursuing Mohammed at the time, but did not have a fix on him until an informant sent a text message to a CIA handler the next day that he was in Rawalpindi, about 110 miles to the east. Pakistan's spy service, which was working with the CIA, moved in and captured Mohammed.

By then, al-Zawahiri was gone.

Mohammed was flown to a CIA black site in Poland and interrogated using harsh methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning. Mohammed admitted he had met with al-Zawahiri but would not disclose the details, a former CIA officer said.

The next chance to target al-Zawahiri came in mid-March 2004, former officials said. A detainee in U.S. custody passed along information about a possible al-Qaida hideout in the mountainous northwest Pakistani region of South Waziristan, where government troops, helicopters and planes were mounting a military offensive against militants.

The CIA passed the intelligence to the Pakistan military, which bombed the village of Azam Warzak near the Afghan border. The former U.S. officials said they later received reports that al-Zawahiri was at the scene during the bombing and suffered minor injuries.

Pakistani military spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas would not confirm the reports, but noted recently that "these were the times when the two intelligence agencies were working hand in glove."

Taliban operatives and Pakistani civilians told AP recently that al-Zawahiri was injured in the attack. The al-Qaida leader then spent three days in the town of Mir Ali in north Waziristan before heading north to Bajaur, said the militants and locals, all who insisted on anonymity for safety reasons.

One key to locating al-Qaida's upper echelon, former U.S. officials said, is cracking the crude but effective communications network linking the fugitive terrorists. The system uses a chain of human couriers ensuring no one messenger interacts with either bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.

A Taliban operative who filmed one of al-Zawahiri's messages told AP that both bin Laden and al-Zawahiri rely heavily on Arabs instead of locals for security. The operative insisted on anonymity for safety reasons. His role inside al-Qaida was confirmed by Afghan officials.

The CIA appeared to come close to cracking the network in May 2005, when Pakistani intelligence officials nabbed a high value detainee near Peshawar named Abu Faraj al-Libi. The suspect took command of the terror group's operations and communications after Mohammed's 2003 arrest.

The CIA had intelligence indicating the Libyan acted as "communications conduit," relaying messages from senior al-Qaida leaders to bin Laden. The former officials said al-Libi "almost certainly" had met with bin Laden or al-Zawahiri after 9/11.

The day he was arrested, al-Libi was believed to be delivering a message to al-Zawahiri. Taken to a black site in Romania, al-Libi gave up no information about al-Zawahiri and bin Laden or how they traded messages, the former officials said.

"Libi seemed to be the key to the puzzle but it turned out he was a dead end," said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Saban Center and a former CIA officer.

Despite his silence, the CIA thought it had another chance to target al-Zawahiri on January 13, 2006. The CIA had received a tip their target was headed to a gathering of top al-Qaida operatives in the town of Damadola in the Bajaur region. Al-Zawahiri reportedly had met with al-Libi a year earlier in Bajaur — where locals had also pinpointed the terrorist leader after the 2004 bombing.

A former senior CIA official familiar with the episode said all the "intelligence signatures" pointed to al-Zawahiri's arrival that day. Former CIA Director Porter Goss gave a green light to launch a drone missile strike, the former senior official said. Goss declined comment through a spokeswoman.

The drone strike obliterated a mud compound, killing eighteen people, provincial officials said, including several al-Qaida figures and a dozen civilians.

But al-Zawahiri was not among them. Pakistani intelligence officials said at the time that he was invited to the dinner but decided instead to send several aides. The CIA initially thought the strike had missed the terrorist leader by an hour, but a current U.S. official recently acknowledged al-Zawahiri never showed up.

Later that month after the strike, al-Zawahiri taunted then-President George W. Bush in a videotape. "Bush," he said, "do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses."

The CIA thought it had its best chance yet to strike at al-Zawahiri last year when a doctor working with Jordanian intelligence claimed to offer new details suggesting the terrorist leader suffered from diabetes. The former and current U.S. officials said there were already indications al-Zawahiri might have the disease.

CIA officers began working with the informant, Humam al-Balawai, believing the doctor might gain access to al-Zawahiri for medical reasons, the former officials said. When al-Balawi was taken to meet with CIA officials at a secret base in Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, last Dec. 30, the double agent detonated hidden explosives as the officials neared him.

Those familiar with the CIA's inquiry into the suicide bombing said the operation aimed at al-Zawahiri ran afoul of one the spy game's cardinal perils — wishfulness. In this case, the CIA was convinced it might finally have him in its sights after so many misses.

It proved to be one more miss, and a costly one.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/29/ap-exclusive-close-calls-al-qaidas/#ixzz16fs7LOSQ

nytimes:Suspect in Oregon Bomb Plot Is Called Confused

Suspect in Oregon Bomb Plot Is Called Confused

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/us/29suspect.html?hp

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Mohamed Osman Mohamud had seemed to be a well-adjusted American teenager: a solid student whose interests included basketball, girls and the night life at Oregon State University, where he studied engineering.

But those who know him say he changed in recent months. He dropped out of school and stopped attending mosque. And, perhaps most telling, he began lying about his plans for the future.

“He seemed to be in a state of confusion,” said Yosof Wanly, the imam at the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, which Mr. Mohamud attended while at college. “He would say things that weren’t true. ‘I’m going to go get married,’ for example. But he wasn’t getting married.”

A possible explanation for his erratic behavior came as Mr. Mohamud, a 19-year-old naturalized American citizen from Somalia, was arrested Friday by federal agents and charged with plotting to set off a bomb at a Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland.

The device the authorities say Mr. Mohamud sought to detonate was a fake bomb supplied by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who had orchestrated a sting operation. But the effect of the planned attack was still felt Sunday, including at the Islamic center here, which was the target of a firebomb early in the day.

No one was injured, but federal agents were here later in the day, investigating a possible link to Mr. Mohamud’s arrest, even as Mr. Wanly tried to calm his mosque members’ nerves.

Mr. Mohamud is scheduled to appear in federal court in Portland on Monday on a charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Many questions remain about the extent of Mr. Mohamud’s connections to Islamic extremists, whom investigators say he wrote to and plotted with, as well as about the apparent contradictions in his personal life, as a studious, friendly teenager and a young man seeking to wage jihad within his adopted country.

“When you think of someone doing what he did, you think of some crazy kind of guy,” said Mohamed Kassim, 21, a fellow Oregon State student who knew Mr. Mohamud from around campus. “He wasn’t like that. He was just like everybody else.”

Many Muslims in Oregon worried that they would face a backlash. And on Sunday, local Muslim leaders emphasized that the case was an isolated incident.

“If this kid’s being radicalized, it’s not from the locals,” said Jesse Day, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Portland and Masjed As-Saber, where Mr. Mohamud sometimes worshiped.

The president of the center, Imtiaz Khan, shared that concern, and said in an interview that he worried that the mosque and Islam in general would be portrayed unfairly because of the arrest. On Sunday morning, a Portland police car was parked outside the mosque.

“We have women and children here that we want to protect,” Mr. Khan said.

But a sense of suspicion and worry prevailed.

Mr. Khan and Mr. Day said several people who worship at the mosque said that F.B.I. agents had knocked on their doors late at night on the day of Mr. Mohamud’s arrest, but that none had agreed to speak to the agents.

“People were finding cards in the doors that said F.B.I.,” Mr. Day said.

The mosque, the largest in Portland, has been at the center of controversy before. In 2002, the mosque’s imam, Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, also a naturalized American citizen from Somalia, was arrested at Portland International Airport.

Prosecutors said that trace elements of TNT were found in his luggage, though those tests were later said to be inconclusive and he was not convicted of any crime.

Mr. Kariye did not immediately respond to a request for comment made through Mr. Day, but Mr. Khan repeated that Mr. Mohamud’s actions were his own.

“Whatever this event is, it has nothing to do with the mosque,” Mr. Khan said.

Mr. Mohamud, his younger sister and their parents had long lived in the Portland area, including in Beaverton, a suburb that has a small Somali population.

Mr. Mohamud’s family fled Somalia in the early 1990s, and his father, Osman Barre, a well-educated engineer, worked to establish them in Oregon.

“Osman was very sophisticated,” said Chris Oace, a former refugee worker for Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon who helped the family resettle here in the early 1990s. “Some refugees are afraid of having Christian churches help them. But it wasn’t an issue with his family at all.”

Stephanie Napier, a former neighbor, said that the family had been quiet but friendly and that Mr. Mohamud’s mother was fiercely proud of her only son.

“He seemed like a great kid,” she said. “His mother spoke very highly of him. He always did what he was told and got great grades.”

At some point over the last year or so, however, Mr. Mohamud’s parents separated, and tensions grew in the family.

A friend of the family said Mr. Barre, who eventually became an engineer for Intel, could be temperamental.

Several people who said they knew Mr. Mohamud’s family said they believed that his parents had reported him to law enforcement authorities, citing concerns that his views were becoming extreme. Those people refused to be quoted by name.

A law enforcement official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss certain aspects of the case, said investigators first became aware of Mr. Mohamud because of what the official said were his efforts to connect with Islamic extremists through e-mail.

Soon after that they received information from Mr. Mohamud’s father, alerting them to what the official described as increased radicalization. According to the federal affidavit for his arrest, Mr. Mohamud at one point wrote in an e-mail that he felt “betrayed” by his family.

Law enforcement officials also confirmed that his parents had marital problems, but said they were irrelevant to the investigation.

Family members could not be reached for comment.

Cawo Abdi, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota who studies Somali youth, said some young Somali men in the United States struggle to find a sense of belonging.

“They are trying to find somewhere they can fit in,” Ms. Abdi said. “This has led some to join gangs, while others are lured by the Jihadist Web sites and YouTube videos on the Internet.”

But for those who knew Mr. Mohamud in Corvallis, a liberal college town whose engineering program draws a sizable number of international students, assimilation did not seem to be the problem.

Mr. Kassim, the Oregon State student, said that Mr. Mohamud seemed to be a normal student, playing basketball at the recreation center, talking about girls and obsessing about the Portland Trailblazers, his favorite team.

On Sunday, such trivial concerns had been replaced by more pressing issues.

Outside the Corvallis mosque, a steady stream of well-wishers — both Muslim and non-Muslim — arrived during the day. At the rear of the unmarked structure, a charred and broken window was boarded up. Mosque members said there had been extensive damage, including burned Korans, wedding and death certificates, and other items.

Mohamed Alyajouri, 31, who is married and has three children, said he was in shock when he heard of Mr. Mohamud’s arrest and was concerned about the effect on Muslims everywhere.

“This kid had friends here, went to school here,” Mr. Alyajouri said. “It’s so stupid. Nobody I know thinks that way. But we have to deal with this now.”

google:Pakistan criticizes release of secret US cables

Pakistan criticizes release of secret US cables

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hr8ybssGwn71iMAvJayESvb3pxQg?docId=394017aa47d54d78aeb64f8487da09ee

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan on Monday criticized the release of classified U.S. diplomatic cables that reportedly raise concerns that highly enriched uranium could be diverted from its nuclear program to build an illicit weapon.

U.S. officials have long expressed concern that Islamic extremists in Pakistan could target the country's nuclear program in an attempt to steal a weapon or, more likely, the materials needed to build one.

Pakistan has always said it is confident its nuclear security is good enough to prevent this from happening — a stance supported publicly by the U.S. But classified cables released by online whistle-blower Wikileaks reportedly reveal the U.S. has doubts and has clashed with Pakistan over the issue.

"We condemn the irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents," said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit.

U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter also criticized the release in an editorial in The News, a Pakistani English-language newspaper.

"I cannot vouch for the authenticity of any one of these documents," said Munter. "But I can say that the United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential. And we condemn it."

Details from the roughly quarter million confidential cables were published Sunday by The New York Times, France's Le Monde, Britain's Guardian newspaper, German magazine Der Spiegel and other media outlets that received them in advance from Wikileaks.

According to the cables, the U.S. has mounted an unsuccessful secret effort since 2007 to remove from a Pakistani reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device, The New York Times reported.

Former U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson reported in May 2009 that Pakistan refused to schedule a visit by American technical experts, according to the newspaper, because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons,' he argued."

Rumors that the U.S. is intent on seizing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal have contributed to strong anti-American sentiment in the country despite frequent denials by U.S. officials.

Basit, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, did not comment directly on the details of the cables that were leaked. He said the U.S. warned Pakistan in advance about the release and officials were still examining the relevant documents.

Wikileaks released over 200 of the confidential cables on its website Sunday, but none of them appeared to contain information about the Pakistani nuclear program. Wikileaks said it plans to release the rest of the cables over the next few months.

The documents could prove embarrassing for other countries allied with Pakistan as well.

The king of Saudi Arabia reportedly called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari the greatest obstacle to the country's progress, The New York Times said.

"When the head is rotten, it affects the whole body," the newspaper quoted King Abdullah as saying.

Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar dismissed the reported comment, saying "President Zardari regards Saudi King Abdullah as his elder brother."

"The so-called leaks are no more than an attempt to create misperceptions between two important Muslim countries," he said.

guardian:Fear of 'different world' if Iran gets nuclear weapons

Fear of 'different world' if Iran gets nuclear weapons

Embassy cables reveal how US relentlessly cajoles and bullies governments not to give succour to Tehran

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/united-states-iran-nuclear-weapons

Sitting in the Rome office of Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, in February this year, Robert Gates, the veteran US defence secretary and former CIA chief, issued a chilling warning of war in our time.

"Without progress in the next few months, we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both," Gates said. If Iran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, he added, the US and its allies would face "a different world" in four to five years.

As thousands of leaked state department cables show, Gates's visit was part of a tireless, round-the-clock offensive by US government officials, politicians, diplomats and military officers to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and roll back its advance across the Middle East.

Ringed by professional "Iran watchers" based in neighbouring countries, besieged by electronic, cyber and human intelligence gathering and surveillance, squeezed by sanctions, bans and prohibitions, destabilised by unacknowledged internal covert action programmes, and isolated by myriad diplomatic and political means, Iran is the most scrutinised, interrogated country on earth.

But as the cables also show, Iran is fighting back. From Iraq to Afghanistan and from Azerbaijan to the Gulf, the battle between the US and Iran for the upper hand in the Middle East is, as one regional diplomat put it, "the great hegemonic contest of modern times".

Washington's thinking proceeds from three premises. First, Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability and matching missile systems. Second, it is intent on regional hegemony in Iraq, the Gulf and across the Middle East. Third, Iran's leadership poses a clear and present – and growing danger – to Israel.

The cables illuminate other aspects of the American approach. It is clear US officials are not averse to pressurising, even bullying, third countries to attain their policy objectives. It is also clear that, lacking an embassy in Tehran and with a limited American presence of any kind inside the country, the US sorely lacks first-hand intelligence.

In his talks with Frattini, Gates sought to underscore the seriousness of the overall Iranian threat.

"SecDef [Gates] emphasised that a UNSC resolution was important because it would give the European Union and nations a legal platform on which to impose even harsher sanctions against Iran. SecDef pointedly warned that urgent action is required," the cable states. Then came his chill warning about proliferation, war in the Middle East and a permanently changed world.

One of the more ruthless examples of American pressure to contain and isolate Iran is seen in a December 2008 letter from the then US deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, to the Armenian president, Serzh Sargsyan, concerning an arms shipment to Iran that went via Armenia.

"We value our positive relationship with your government, as we explore a range of shared interests," Negroponte's letter to Sargsyan begins ominously. "At the same time, we are dismayed by a serious and, indeed, deadly arms re-export case." He goes on to convey Washington's "deep concerns about Armenia's transfer of arms to Iran which resulted in the death and injury of US soldiers in Iraq". Then he wields the big stick, warning of sanctions up to and including a discontinuation of US aid. Sargsyan is forced to back down, admit the arms sales and promise action including periodical "unannounced visit by US experts" to ensure compliance.

'Fascist' state

When rallying western allies, US officials frequently find they are knocking on an open door. In a meeting in Paris in September 2009, assistant secretary of state Phil Gordon is told by President Nicolas Sarkozy's senior foreign policy adviser, Jean-David Levitte, that Iran's response to Barack Obama's offer of talks on the nuclear issue is a "farce".

According to the cable, Levitte goes on: "The current Iranian regime is effectively a fascist state and the time has come to decide on next steps … The Iranian regime must understand that it will be more threatened by economic harm and the attendant social unrest than it would be by negotiating with the west."

Levitte says it is important to obtain Chinese and Russian support and he is actively trying to obtain it. "Levitte said that he informed the Chinese FM [foreign minister] that if they delay until a possible Israeli raid, then the world will have to deal with a catastrophic energy crisis as well."

But Levitte is plainly worried that if European governments take tougher action, Beijing may undermine them. He warns Gordon: "The debate over stopping the flow of gasoline into Iran will be very sensitive and would have to take into account which countries would be only too willing to step in and replace European companies."

William Burns, US under-secretary of state, finds a sympathetic hearing in a less expected quarter when he visits Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, one of Iran's closest neighbours, in February 2010.

According to a confidential American embassy account of their meeting [ID: 250649/summary subbed kb], President Ilham Aliyev tells Burns "that although the visible side of Azerbaijan's relations with Iran appears normal", the substance was very different. "I do not exclude that relations will be become more difficult," the president added.

Aliyev tells Burns that Iranian provocations in Azerbaijan are on the rise, specifically citing Tehran's "financing of radical Islamic groups and Hezbollah terrorists" and "the use of the President's photo alongside the Star of David on the Azeri-language [Iranian state-owned] Seher [Sahar] TV broadcast into Azerbaijan". He adds that fraud in Iran's June, 2009 presidential election was "outrageous". Aliyev "viewed the situation as very tense within Iran and believed it could erupt at any time".

Turkey, a key Iranian neighbour and close trading partner, is uphill work, however. In November 2009, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, chief architect of Ankara's policy of "zero problems with neighbours" and advocate of closer Turkish ties across the Middle East, tells US envoy Gordon that Iran cannot be bullied into compliance with western demands.

It is clearly a prickly encounter. When Gordon says Ankara should send a stern public message to Tehran about the consequences of ignoring UN resolutions, Davutoglu replies that [Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan made just such a statement during a recent visit to Tehran. "Only Turkey can speak bluntly and critically to the Iranians, Davutoglu contended, but only because Ankara is showing public messages of friendship."

The testy exchange continues: "Noting that Davutoglu had only addressed the negative consequences of sanctions or the use of military force, Gordon pressed Davutoglu on Ankara's assessment of the consequences if Iran gets a nuclear weapon. Davutoglu gave a spirited reply, that 'of course' Turkey was aware of this risk. 'This is precisely why Turkey is working so hard with the Iranians.' "

Much of the US surveillance of Iran is channelled through its so-called "Iran regional presence office" at the US consulate in Dubai, a sort of grandiose listening-post-cum-embassy-in-exile. The IRPO produces long cables full of political and economic news, Iranian media reports, and information gleaned from Iranian sources, foreign businessmen and exiles. But every US embassy in the countries around Iran (and further afield) appears to have its designated "Iran watcher".

A cable marked "secret" sent from the US embassy in Azerbaijan in June 2009, for example, reports "increasing security problems in Iranian Baluchistan, including alleged disruption of Iran-Pakistan railroad links; a message from a senior GOAJ [government of Azerbaijan] military official about the dangers of stirring up Iranian minorities; the apparent quadrupling in first quarter 2009 (compared to first quarter 2008) seizures in Azerbaijan of Iranian-transited heroin; and scepticism about Iranian gas export contracts, related by industry participants at the recently completed Baku oil and gas show".

The Iran watcher in Turkmenistan sent out a cable in June 2009, at the height of the turmoil that followed Iran's presidential election, in which a prominent Iranian source is quoted condemning Ahmadinejad's victory as a "coup d'etat" engineered by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The source says opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi gained 26 million votes, 61% of the total, against "a maximum of 4 to 5 million" for Ahmadinejad.

The cable quotes the source saying that Iranians "are puzzled by the muted reaction thus far of the US and EU governments, as well as 'very disappointed' by the number of Arab rulers who have sent messages to Ahmadinejad congratulating him on his 'victory' … He said the IRGC was behind the 'coup'. Even Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, he said, to whom the IRGC owes allegiance, is 'not totally in control' of the IRGC … It would appear that the IRGC has taken on 'a life of its own.' "

Iraq interference

The cables also lay bare US preoccupation with Iran's attempts to influence and interfere in the political process in Iraq, including its attempts to promote pro-Tehran Shia parties in Iraq's March 2010 elections. Iraqis in Najaf, "the epicentre of Shia Islam", say they fear that a power vacuum after the Americans leave next year will be filled by Iran.

Particular worries attach to the role in Iraq of the revolutionary guard as the US gradually hands over security to Iraqi forces. Fairly representative is a cable from the Baghdad embassy dated April 2009 which discusses IRGC support for the insurgency and possibly lethal US reprisals. "Islamic [Iranian] Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds [Jerusalem] Force (IRGC-QF) officers are active in Iraq, conducting traditional espionage and supporting violent extremists as well as supporting both legitimate and malign Iranian economic and cultural outreach," it says.

"Iraqis and their government have demonstrated increasing willingness to push back against malign Iranian influence in the last year. Working with the Iraqis, we have succeeded in stopping some IRGC-QF activity through military operations and diplomatic engagement, while we prevented some IRGC-QF officers from entering Iraq through explicit warnings that we would target them unilaterally."

The embassy cable frankly acknowledges that US leverage in Iraq is diminishing. "Under the security agreement effective 1 January [2009], all operations in Iraq must be conducted in conjunction with Iraqi security forces (ISF), and our previous unilateral warnings carry less weight. As coalition forces continue the period of responsible drawdown, we will rely increasingly on the GOI [government of Iraq] to keep the pressure on the IRGC-QF."

Kuwait and the Sunni-led Gulf states, backed by Saudi Arabia, help complete the psychological and geographical encirclement of Iran. A key concern is Iranian incitement of Shia populations in the Gulf region.

A cable from Kuwait City highlights American interest in an assertion from the Kuwait armed forces deputy chief of staff (DCOS), Lieutenant-General Ahmed Khalid al-Sabah, about Iranian activity in the region. "The DCOS also mentioned Kuwaiti understanding that Iran was supporting Shia in the Gulf and extremists in Yemen." Yemen's internal strife and al-Qaida-linked "export terrorism" has made it a particular concern to the US and its western allies; Iran's involvement there is no longer in doubt.

That the great Iranian-American struggle for control and influence in the Middle East is far from over – and may in fact be hotting up – was made plain again when US under-secretary William Burns held yet another meeting with the reluctant Turks in Ankara in February 2010. Burns insists Washington would prefer a negotiated settlement with Iran. Then, like Gates, he uses the spectre of an Israeli military attack to dramatise his arguments and unsettle the Turks.

"Burns strongly urged [Turkish foreign ministry under-secretary Feridun] Sinirlioglu to support action to convince the Iranian government it is on the wrong course. Sinirlioglu reaffirmed the GoT's [government of Turkey] opposition to a nuclear Iran; however, he registered fear about the collateral impact military action might have on Turkey and contended sanctions would unite Iranians behind the regime and harm the opposition.

"Burns acknowledged Turkey's exposure to the economic effects of sanctions as a neighbour to Iran, but reminded Sinirlioglu Turkish interests would suffer if Israel were to act militarily to forestall Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons or if Egypt and Saudi Arabia were to seek nuclear arsenals of their own. 'We'll keep the door open to engagement,' he [Burns] stressed."

And for once, it appears he has made some headway.

"A visibly disheartened Sinirlioglu conceded a unified message is important. He acknowledged the countries of the region perceive Iran as a growing threat: 'Alarm bells are ringing even in Damascus.' "

haaretz:WikiLeaks exposé: Israel offered to coordinate Cast Lead with Egypt and Fatah In diplomatic cable documenting 2009 meeting, Defense Minister B

Another cable dated July 26, 2007 reported on a meeting between Mossad chief Meir Dagan and a visiting American official.

"Departing from official GOI policy, Dagan expressed his personal opinion that after more than a decade of trying to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians, 'nothing will be achieved,'" the cable read. "Only Israeli military operations against Hamas in the West Bank prevent them from expanding control beyond Gaza, lamented Dagan, without which Fatah would fall."

WikiLeaks exposé: Israel offered to coordinate Cast Lead with Egypt and Fatah

In diplomatic cable documenting 2009 meeting, Defense Minister Barak says Egypt, PA refuse to take over Gaza in case of Hamas defeat.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/wikileaks-expose-israel-offered-to-coordinate-cast-lead-with-egypt-and-fatah-1.327514

Israel had tried to coordinate Operation Cast Lead with Egypt and Fatah, offering to allow its neighbor and the Palestinian faction to take control of Gaza after an Israeli defeat of Hamas, according to U.S. State Department documents released last night by WikiLeaks.

Numerous news outlets yesterday published the contents of hundreds of thousands of State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks. Some were labeled "secret" and contain American assessments of allies and adversaries alike.

According to a telegram tagged "confidential" by then-deputy U.S. ambassador Luis Moreno, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told a U.S. congressional delegation last year that Israel tried to coordinate its activities prior to Operation Cast Lead with Egypt, as well as with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Barak referred to the Palestinian Authority as "weak" and "lacking self-confidence," the telegram said.

"He explained that the GOI [government of Israel] had consulted with Egypt and Fatah prior to Operation Cast Lead, asking if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas," the cable read. "Not surprisingly, Barak said, the GOI received negative answers from both."

The revelations indicate that Israel, the PA and Egypt were in contact before Israel launched its offensive in Gaza. Reports had mentioned "dialogue" between Israel and its neighbors during the operation.

Some documents from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv that were revealed last night concerned diplomatic activity during Ehud Olmert's government. According to one cable, dated January 8, 2007, then-U.S. envoy Richard Jones described the trio of Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz as wracked by "dysfunction." This was before the Winograd Commission's interim report on the Second Lebanon War.

"Madam Secretary, internal tensions among GOI leaders have intensified since your last visit and have reached the point that there appears to be little coordination or even dialogue among the key decision makers," Jones wrote in a cable to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was scheduled to make a visit to the region shortly afterward. "We will need to be sensitive to perceptions that we are favoring one faction over another."

He added: "The divisions at the top here are part of an increasingly gloomy public mood, with a new corruption allegations making headlines virtually daily, and a growing sense of political failure despite Israel's strong economy and a sustained success rate in thwarting suicide attacks."

The former ambassador also alluded to Livni's rising popularity, noting: "FM Tzipi Livni is frustrated by Olmert's continued refusal to coordinate closely." And he wrote: "Livni's policy adviser has confirmed to us that she has engaged in her own discrete discussions with Palestinians, but very much in an exploratory mode ... Livni told Senators [John] Kerry and [Christopher] Dodd that she doubted that a final status agreement could be reached with Abu Mazen [Abbas], and therefore the emphasis should be on reforming Fatah so that it could beat Hamas at the polls."

Another cable dated July 26, 2007 reported on a meeting between Mossad chief Meir Dagan and a visiting American official.

"Departing from official GOI policy, Dagan expressed his personal opinion that after more than a decade of trying to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians, 'nothing will be achieved,'" the cable read. "Only Israeli military operations against Hamas in the West Bank prevent them from expanding control beyond Gaza, lamented Dagan, without which Fatah would fall."

dawn:WikiLeaks plans to release 94 papers about Pakistan

WikiLeaks plans to release 94 papers about Pakistan

http://www.dawn.com/2010/11/27/wikileaks-plans-to-release-94-papers-about-pakistan-2.html

WASHINGTON: The WikiLeaks is expected to put 94 documents about Pakistan on its website this weekend, diplomatic sources told Dawn.

The documents mainly contain telegrams sent by the US Embassy in Islamabad to the State Department in Washington.

Some of these papers relate to US observations about Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan, the debate within Pakistan on the war against terror, Islamabad’s cooperation with Washington and other military and intelligence matters.

Some documents also contain US reservations about Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

The sources said that changes in the US communication system allowed an anti-war activist access to more than 400,000 secret documents who handed them over to the whistleblower website.

US officials have warned that Afghanistan, China, Russia, Central Asian Republics, Canada, Britain, France, Turkey and Nato will all be affected by this unprecedented leak.

The New York Times and The Washington Post are expected to publish some details from the leaked papers on Sunday.

In July this year, WikiLeaks published the Afghan war logs, disclosing that the US was operating a secret assassination squad in Pakistan and Afghanistan and that Pakistani intelligence service was helping the Taliban fighters, besides throwing light on alleged crimes committed by the coalition troops in Afghanistan.