Updated :
Sunday January 23 , 2011 8:00:19 PM
LONDON: Nearly two months after WikiLeaks outraged the U.S. government by launching the release of a massive compendium of diplomatic documents, the secret-spilling website has published 2,628 U.S. State Department cables — just over 1 percent of its trove of 251,287 documents.
Here's a look at what the consequences of the cables' release has been so far, and what the future could hold for WikiLeaks.
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IT'S LIFTED THE VEIL ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
WikiLeaks has given the world's public an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at U.S. diplomacy. Among the most eye-catching revelations were reports that Arab countries had lobbied for an attack on Iran, China had made plans for the collapse of its North Korean ally, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had ordered U.S. diplomats to gather the computer passwords, fingerprints and even DNA of their foreign counterparts.
Some of the most controversial cables dealt with a directive to harvest biometric information on a range of officials. U.S. diplomats have been forced repeatedly to deny spying on their counterparts — although none have specifically addressed the instructions to gather personal details, sensitive computer data, and even genetic material or iris scans.
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IT'S SHOWN HOW LEADERS LIE
Over and over again, the cables captured world leaders lying — to each other, to their allies, and to their own citizens.
Diplomacy "comes across as a scheming, duplicitous profession — which it kind of is," said Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who resigned over the Iraq war.
Ross said the most outrageous example of double-dealing he had seen so far was the 2009 cable that caught Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh sharing a joke about how another senior official had covered up a series of U.S. attacks by lying to parliament.
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IT'S SHAKEN U.S. DIPLOMACY
Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini drew considerable attention when he described the WikiLeaks release as the "September 11 of world diplomacy."
At the very least, the cables have angered some major world figures. Turkey's prime minister demanded that U.S. diplomats be punished for claiming that he had money stashed away in a collection of Swiss bank accounts; cables covering attempts to secure nuclear material in Pakistan drew outrage in a country where public hostility to the United States is already high; rivals such as Russia jumped on the cables to accuse the U.S. of arrogance and dishonesty.
Richard Dalton, the former British ambassador to Libya and now a fellow at London's Chatham House think tank, dismissed Frattini's prediction of a worldwide diplomatic meltdown, suggesting that things would eventually return to business as usual.
"It is — so far — a bump in the road," he said, although he noted longterm damage to U.S. diplomacy was still hard to gauge.
___
WHAT'S NEXT?
Although only a small sliver of the entire trove of State Department documents has made it online, the secret memos have been held by The New York Times, Britain's The Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, and Spain's El Pais for weeks, if not months. Recent cables have made news, but lately they haven't carried the same punch as earlier releases.
It isn't clear whether WikiLeaks or what it calls its "media partners" have gone through the documents in their entirety. The secret-spilling website did not return an e-mail seeking comment on its future plans, although its founder Julian Assange has repeatedly promised to speed the cables' release.
Whether or not the State Department cables have already yielded their most arresting secrets, WikiLeaks is still sitting on a huge archive of leaked data from nearly every country in the world — including, Assange has hinted, a massive trove of e-mails from Bank of America.
Assange said the material could be online within weeks.
LONDON: Nearly two months after WikiLeaks outraged the U.S. government by launching the release of a massive compendium of diplomatic documents, the secret-spilling website has published 2,628 U.S. State Department cables — just over 1 percent of its trove of 251,287 documents.
Here's a look at what the consequences of the cables' release has been so far, and what the future could hold for WikiLeaks.
___
IT'S LIFTED THE VEIL ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
WikiLeaks has given the world's public an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at U.S. diplomacy. Among the most eye-catching revelations were reports that Arab countries had lobbied for an attack on Iran, China had made plans for the collapse of its North Korean ally, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had ordered U.S. diplomats to gather the computer passwords, fingerprints and even DNA of their foreign counterparts.
Some of the most controversial cables dealt with a directive to harvest biometric information on a range of officials. U.S. diplomats have been forced repeatedly to deny spying on their counterparts — although none have specifically addressed the instructions to gather personal details, sensitive computer data, and even genetic material or iris scans.
___
IT'S SHOWN HOW LEADERS LIE
Over and over again, the cables captured world leaders lying — to each other, to their allies, and to their own citizens.
Diplomacy "comes across as a scheming, duplicitous profession — which it kind of is," said Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who resigned over the Iraq war.
Ross said the most outrageous example of double-dealing he had seen so far was the 2009 cable that caught Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh sharing a joke about how another senior official had covered up a series of U.S. attacks by lying to parliament.
___
IT'S SHAKEN U.S. DIPLOMACY
Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini drew considerable attention when he described the WikiLeaks release as the "September 11 of world diplomacy."
At the very least, the cables have angered some major world figures. Turkey's prime minister demanded that U.S. diplomats be punished for claiming that he had money stashed away in a collection of Swiss bank accounts; cables covering attempts to secure nuclear material in Pakistan drew outrage in a country where public hostility to the United States is already high; rivals such as Russia jumped on the cables to accuse the U.S. of arrogance and dishonesty.
Richard Dalton, the former British ambassador to Libya and now a fellow at London's Chatham House think tank, dismissed Frattini's prediction of a worldwide diplomatic meltdown, suggesting that things would eventually return to business as usual.
"It is — so far — a bump in the road," he said, although he noted longterm damage to U.S. diplomacy was still hard to gauge.
___
WHAT'S NEXT?
Although only a small sliver of the entire trove of State Department documents has made it online, the secret memos have been held by The New York Times, Britain's The Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, and Spain's El Pais for weeks, if not months. Recent cables have made news, but lately they haven't carried the same punch as earlier releases.
It isn't clear whether WikiLeaks or what it calls its "media partners" have gone through the documents in their entirety. The secret-spilling website did not return an e-mail seeking comment on its future plans, although its founder Julian Assange has repeatedly promised to speed the cables' release.
Whether or not the State Department cables have already yielded their most arresting secrets, WikiLeaks is still sitting on a huge archive of leaked data from nearly every country in the world — including, Assange has hinted, a massive trove of e-mails from Bank of America.
Assange said the material could be online within weeks.
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