[The Globe and Mail] The publication of a quarter-million sensitive diplomatic cables Sunday exposed years of U.S. foreign-policy maneuvering that could prove embarrassing to the U.S. and its allies, especially in the Islamic world.

Among activities detailed in the documents was the extensive, and increasingly successful, push by the U.S. for an international consensus to confront Iran's nuclear program. Five newspapers obtained early access to the documents, which had been gathered by the website WikiLeaks.

The cables showed how some Arab leaders were largely in sync with Israel to support greater financial penalties, if not military operations, against Iran unless it abandons its nuclear ambitions. Regarding Iran, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was portrayed in an April 2008 memo as having told the U.S. "to cut off the head of the snake."


The cables showed the Obama administration working to get skeptical European states to back more-biting sanctions against Tehran, and also working to forestall United Nations vetoes of the effort by China and Russia.

One cable showed that U.S. intelligence believes Iran has obtained from North Korea powerful missiles able to reach European capitals.

The leaks, which the State Department decried as illegal, will undoubtedly place domestic pressure on key American allies shown to have cooperated closely with the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations, despite statements to the contrary at home.

The release was the third by WikiLeaks in recent months, following caches of U.S. documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The New York Times, the U.K.'s Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, El Pais of Spain and France's Le Monde gained access to the documents well ahead of their release and wrote extensive reports about them. Some of the cables—largely from 2007 through last February, many but not all classified—were attached to those organizations' websites. Though commonly called cables in the diplomatic world, they were encrypted emails sent by special devices.

The Wall Street Journal had declined to accept a set of preconditions related to disclosure of WikiLeaks documents, said a spokeswoman for Dow Jones, the News Corp. unit that publishes the Journal.

A February 2010 cable showed U.S. intelligence believes Iran has obtained from North Korea 19 powerful missiles, BM-25 models that are a version of a Russian design called the R-27. The cable said Iran has been trying to copy the missile's propulsion system to speed development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, an effort that, if successful, could add about 800 miles to the estimated 1,200-mile range of current Iranian missiles.

The documents presented often-stinging assessments of foreign leaders involved in the effort to combat Islamic radicalism. U.S. diplomats were portrayed as referring to allegedly corrupt business practices of Ahmad Wali Karzai, a half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Saudi King Abdullah was described as saying he viewed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a proxy for Iran.

The State Department and Pentagon have sought to limit the diplomatic fallout and possible strategic losses by calling dozens of foreign governments, according to U.S. officials.

The disclosures "place at risk ongoing cooperation between countries—partners, allies and common stakeholders—to confront common challenges from terrorism to pandemic diseases to nuclear proliferation that threaten global stability," State Department legal adviser Harold Koh wrote to a lawyer for the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, Saturday, in a last-ditch effort to forestall publication.

U.S. diplomats and defense officials have worried the disclosures could undercut the ability of foreign leaders to continue cooperating with Washington on counter-terror and counter-proliferation operations, with Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan among those most focused on.

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh allowed American forces to conduct counter-terror operations against al Qaeda militants inside his country. During a January meeting with visiting U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, the Yemeni leader made clear he wanted to disguise Washington's role, according to a cable from the American ambassador in Sana'a.

"We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," Mr. Saleh said, according to the cable, prompting Yemen's deputy prime minister to "joke that he had just 'lied' by telling Parliament" that Yemeni forces had carried out the strikes.

The cables also showed U.S. officials exploring ways to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani nuclear site in a way that wouldn't spur a political backlash against Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.

The leaked cables detailed a secret U.S. intelligence-gathering campaign at the U.N., blurring the line between the work of diplomats and spies. In a U.S. intelligence directive, American diplomats were asked to collect biometric information on key U.N. officials, from under secretaries to the heads of specialized agencies and peacekeeping operations. It also asked for intelligence on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's management and decision-making style.

The secret document, titled "Reporting and Collection Needs: the United Nations," asked for both basic "biographical information" and detailed work schedules, credit-card numbers and frequent-flier accounts. Such information could be used to track the movements and activities of U.N. officials.

With respect to Iran's nuclear ambitions, one cable described Bahrain's King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa as telling Gen. Petraeus last year the U.S. and its allies must use any means possible to deny Iran's government a nuclear arsenal. "The danger of letting it go on is greater than the dangers of stopping it," the king was quoted as saying.

The leaked cables show sometimes-derogatory ways America's allies referred to diplomatic partners. Saudi King Abdullah told U.S. officials that Pakistan's President Zardari was incapable of reforming his country. "When the head is rotten it affects the whole body," the Saudi monarch said, according to a cable.

Another cable has an Israeli official, Amos Gilad, speculating in 2009 about the life span of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, 82, and questioning whether his son, Gamal, was "ready to assume command."


Denunciations of WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange intensified Sunday, from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Rep. Peter King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, called for Mr. Assange's arrest for violating the U.S. Espionage Act. Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the release as "a reckless action which jeopardizes lives by exposing raw, contemporaneous intelligence."

A former low-level U.S. Army intelligence analyst stationed in Baghdad, Pfc. Bradley Manning, was charged earlier this year with improperly accessing a State Department cable on Iceland and providing it to WikiLeaks, and is being held in Virginia in pretrial detention. He hasn't been charged in connection with the three recent WikiLeaks leaks. In an electronic communication with a former hacker, since posted on the Internet, Pfc. Manning said he had taken 260,000 State Department cables. A lawyer for Mr. Manning declined to comment.

By Jay Solomon, Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes
—Matthew Rosenberg and Tom Wright contributed to this article.