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WikiLeaks
disclosures involve 3000 cables from Delhi to Washington
Monday November 29, 2010 09:29:45 AM ,
Arun Kumar, IANS
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Washington:
Among a cache of a quarter-million State Department cables
released by WikiLeaks, 3,038 are from the US embassy in India, but
no details were immediately available on the whistleblower
website. Other cables pertain to communications from US missions
in Islamabad, Colombo and Kathmandu.
India was one of the countries reached out by top US diplomats
before the much anticipated release of what the New York
Times described as "an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining
by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign
leaders."
"We have reached out to India to warn them about a possible
release of documents," State Department Spokesman P J Crowley said
ahead of their publication Sunday, spawning condemnation from the
White House and congressional leaders.
The United States had warned WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian
Assange that publishing the papers would be illegal and endanger
peoples' lives.
Among the 251,287 cables provided by WikiLeaks to The Times 2,278
cables are from the US mission in Kathmandu, 3,325 from Colombo
and 2,220 from Islamabad.
Many are unclassified, and none are marked "top secret," the
government's most secure communications status. But some 11,000
are classified "secret," 9,000 are labelled "noforn," shorthand
for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign
government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and 'noforn'.
Publishing the documents would jeopardise "our diplomats,
intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come
to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and
open government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Senator John Kerry, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, called the disclosure "reckless."
"This is not an academic exercise about freedom of information and
it is not akin to the release of the Pentagon Papers, which
involved an analysis aimed at saving American lives and exposing
government deception," Kerry said in a statement.
Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security
Committee, on Sunday called on the Obama administration to
prosecute Assange.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder King said WikiLeaks
has provided "material support to terrorist organizations" by
releasing the documents.
(Arun Kumar can
be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
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