The End Of Secrecy_ The Rise And Fall Of WikiLeaks Part 9

The directive from Was.h.i.+ngton asked for sensitive communications information pa.s.swords, encryption codes. It called for detailed biometric information "on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders", as well as intelligence on Ban's "management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat". Was.h.i.+ngton also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures. It was also after "biographic and biometric information on UN security council permanent representatives".

The "national human intelligence collection directive" was distributed to US missions at the UN in New York, Vienna and Rome; and to 33 emba.s.sies and consulates, including those in London, Paris and Moscow. All of Was.h.i.+ngton's main intelligence agencies the CIA's clandestine service, the US Secret Service and the FBI as well as the state department, were circulated with these "reporting and collection needs".

The UN has long been the victim of bugging and espionage operations. Veteran diplomats are used to conducting their most sensitive discussions outside its walls, and not everyone was surprised at the disclosures. Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer in the Middle East, remarked: "There is a reason the CIA station is usually next door to the political section in our emba.s.sies. There are amba.s.sadors who love that stuff. In the American system it sloshes over from side to side."

But the cable signed "CLINTON" illuminated a cynical spying campaign. American diplomatic staff enjoy immunity and can operate without suspicion. The British historian and Guardian Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash was one of many disturbed by the directive. Garton Ash remarked that "regular American diplomats are being asked to do stuff you would normally expect of low-level spooks". columnist Timothy Garton Ash was one of many disturbed by the directive. Garton Ash remarked that "regular American diplomats are being asked to do stuff you would normally expect of low-level spooks".

Experts on international law were also affronted. The cable seemed to show the US breaching three of the founding treaties of the UN. Ban's spokesman, Farhan Haq, sent off a letter reminding member states to respect the UN's inviolability: "The UN charter, the headquarters agreement and the 1946 convention contain provisions relating to the privileges and immunities of the organisation. The UN relies on the adherence by member states to these various undertakings."

The American cables held numerous other secrets that it was right to disclose in the public interest. Memo after memo from US stations across the Middle East exposed widespread behind-the-scenes pressures to contain President Ahmadinejad's Iran, which the US, Arab states and Israel believed to be close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Startlingly, the cables showed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urging the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme. Other Arab allies, too, had secretly been agitating for military action against Tehran. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities had hitherto been publicly viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war one that was not seriously on anyone's diplomatic table except possibly that of the Israelis.

The Saudi king was recorded as having "frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme". He "told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake", the Saudi amba.s.sador to Was.h.i.+ngton, Adel al-Jubeir, said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.

The cables further highlighted Israel's anxiety to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly, its readiness to go it alone against Iran and its relentless attempts to influence American policy. The defence minister, Ehud Barak, claimed, for example, in June 2009, that there was a window of "between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable". Thereafter, Barak said, "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage".

The true scale also emerged of America's covert military involvement in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation. Was.h.i.+ngton's concern that Yemen has become a haven for Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) was understandable. The group had carried out a series of attacks on western targets, including a failed airline cargo bomb plot in October 2010 and an attempt the previous year to bring down a US pa.s.senger jet over Detroit. Less justifiable, perhaps, was why the US agreed to a secret deal with Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to pa.s.s off US attacks on al-Qaida targets as his own.

The cables showed Saleh gave the Americans an "open door" to conduct counter-terrorist missions in Yemen, and to launch cruise missile strikes on Yemeni territory. The first in December 2009 killed dozens of civilians along with alleged militants. Saleh presented it as Yemen's own work, supported by US intelligence. In a meeting with Gen Petraeus, the head of US central command, Saleh admitted lying to his population about the strikes, and deceiving parliament. "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours and not yours," he told Petraeus. It was a lie the US seemed ready to condone.

As the New York Times New York Times's Bill Keller put it, the doc.u.ments advanced our knowledge of the world not in great leaps but by small degrees. For those interested in foreign policy, they provided nuance, texture and drama. For those who followed stories less closely, they were able to learn more about international affairs in a lively way. But the cables also included a few jaw-dropping moments, when an entire curtain seemed swept aside to reveal what a country is really like.

The most dramatic such disclosures came not from the Middle East but Russia. It is widely known that Russia nominally under the control of President Dmitry Medvedev but in reality run by the prime minister, Vladimir Putin is corrupt and undemocratic. But the cables went much further. They painted a bleak and despairing picture of a kleptocracy centred on Putin's leaders.h.i.+p, in which officials, oligarchs and organised crime are bound together in a "virtual mafia state".

Arms trafficking, money laundering, personal enrichment, protection for gangsters, extortion and kickbacks, suitcases full of money and secret offsh.o.r.e accounts the American emba.s.sy cables unpicked a political system in which bribery totals an estimated $300bn year, and in which it is often hard to distinguish between the activities of government and organised crime. Read together, the collection of cables offered a rare moment of truth-telling about a regime normally accorded international respectability.

Despite the improvement in US-Russian relations since President Obama took power, the Americans are under no illusions about their Russian interlocutors. The cables stated that Russian spies use senior mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations such as arms trafficking. Law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, such as the police, spy agencies and the prosecutor's office, run a de facto protection racket for criminal networks. Moscow's former mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, sacked in 2010 by Medvedev for political reasons, presided over a "pyramid of corruption", US officials suggested. (Luzkov's billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina, dismissed the accusations as "total rubbish".) Russia's bureaucracy is so corrupt that it operates what is in effect a parallel tax system for the private enrichment of police, officials, and the KGB's successor, the federal security service (FSB), the cables said. There have been rumours for years that Putin has personally ama.s.sed a secret fortune, hidden overseas. The cables made clear that US diplomats treat the rumours as true: they speculate that Putin deliberately picked a weak successor when he stepped down as Russian president in 2008 because he could be worried about losing his "illicit proceeds" to law enforcement investigations. In Rome, meanwhile, US diplomats relayed suspicions that the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, could be "profiting personally and handsomely" by taking a cut from clandestine energy deals with Putin.

A particularly d.a.m.ning cable about Russia was sent from Madrid. Dated 8 February 2010, it fed back to Was.h.i.+ngton a briefing by a Spanish prosecutor. Jose Gonzalez spent more than a decade trying to unravel the activities of Russian organised crime in Spain. He met US officials in January and told them that Russia had become a "virtual mafia state" in which "one cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and OC [organised crime] groups." Gonzalez said he had evidence thousands of wiretaps have been used in the last 10 years that certain political parties in Russia worked hand in hand with mafia gangs. He said that intelligence officers orchestrated gun s.h.i.+pments to Kurdish groups to destabilise Turkey and were pulling the strings behind the 2009 case of the Arctic Sea cargo s.h.i.+p suspected of carrying missiles destined for Iran. Gangsters enjoyed support and protection and, in effect, worked "as a complement to state structures", he told US officials.

Gonzalez said the disaffected Russian intelligence services officer Alexander Litvinenko secretly met Spanish security officials in May 2006, six months before he was murdered in London with radioactive polonium. Litvinenko told the Spanish that Russia's intelligence and security services controlled the country's organised crime network. A separate cable from Paris from December 2006 disclosed that US diplomats believed Putin was likely to have known about Litvinenko's murder. Daniel Fried, then the most senior US diplomat in Europe, claimed it would be remarkable if Russia's leader knew nothing about the plot given his "attention to detail". The Russians were behaving with "increasing self-confidence to the point of arrogance", Fried noted.

The Guardian Guardian published WikiLeaks' Russia disclosures on 2 December 2010, over five pages and under the striking headline: "Inside Putin's 'mafia state'". The front-page photo showed Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer, wearing a pair of dark gla.s.ses. For many, the Russia WikiLeaks disclosures were the most vivid to emerge. Janine Gibson, the published WikiLeaks' Russia disclosures on 2 December 2010, over five pages and under the striking headline: "Inside Putin's 'mafia state'". The front-page photo showed Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer, wearing a pair of dark gla.s.ses. For many, the Russia WikiLeaks disclosures were the most vivid to emerge. Janine Gibson, the Guardian Guardian's website editor, was struck by the online response: "The Russia day was brilliant and hugely well read. It was the best day. We were able to say everything you might want to say, but you could never previously say because everybody is so terrified. It was an extraordinary thing." She went on: "You can tell what the internet thinks about things. You could tell what everyone thought. There was an enormous sense of, 'Ah-hah!'"

(Across the Atlantic, however, as though determined to cement its reputation for understatement, the New York Times New York Times published the same material under a studiedly diffident headline: "In cables, US takes a dim view of Russia". The contrast between US and British journalistic practices could give future media studies students much to ponder.) published the same material under a studiedly diffident headline: "In cables, US takes a dim view of Russia". The contrast between US and British journalistic practices could give future media studies students much to ponder.) Undoubtedly, the cables showed the dysfunctional nature of the modern Russian state. But they also showcased the state department's literary strengths. Among many fine writers in the US foreign service, William Burns Was.h.i.+ngton's amba.s.sador to Moscow and now its top diplomat emerged as the most gifted. Burns has a Rolls-Royce mind. His dispatches on diverse subjects such as Stalin or Solzhenitsyn are gripping, precise and nuanced, combining far-reaching a.n.a.lysis with historical depth. Were it not for the fact that they were supposed to be secret, his musings might have earned him a Pulitzer prize.

In one glorious dispatch Burns described how Chechnya's ruler Ramzan Kadyrov was the star guest at a raucous Dagestani wedding and "danced clumsily with his gold-plated automatic stuck down the back of his jeans". During the "lavish" reception Kadyrov showered dancers with $100 notes and gave the happy couple an unusual wedding present "a five kilo lump of gold". The amba.s.sador was one of more than 1,000 guests invited to the wedding in Dagestan of the son of the local politician and powerful oil chief Gadzhi Makhachev.

Burns went to dinner at Gadzhi's "enormous summer house on the balmy sh.o.r.es of the Caspian Sea". The cast of guests he describes is almost worthy of Evelyn Waugh. They included a Chechen commander (later a.s.sa.s.sinated), sports and cultural celebrities, "wizened brown peasants", a nanophysicist, "a drunken wrestler" called Vakha and a first-rank submarine captain. Some were slick, he noted, but others "Jura.s.sic".

"Most of the tables were set with the usual dishes plus whole roast sturgeons and sheep. But at 8pm the compound was invaded by dozens of heavily armed mujahideen for the grand entrance of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, dressed in jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt, looking shorter and less muscular than his photos, and with a somewhat c.o.c.k-eyed expression on his face." Kadyrov and his retinue sat at the tables eating and listening to "Benya the Accordion King", Burns reported. There was a fireworks display followed by lezginka lezginka a traditional Caucasus dance performed by two girls and three small boys. "First Gadzhi joined them and then Ramzan ... Both Gadzhi and Ramzan showered the children with $100 bills; the dancers probably picked upwards of $5,000 off the cobblestones." a traditional Caucasus dance performed by two girls and three small boys. "First Gadzhi joined them and then Ramzan ... Both Gadzhi and Ramzan showered the children with $100 bills; the dancers probably picked upwards of $5,000 off the cobblestones."

This was entertaining and telling stuff, about a region the north Caucasus that had fallen off the world's radar. It was reportage of the best kind.

But there were also disclosures from other troublesome areas that had long been of concern in Was.h.i.+ngton. Far from being firm, natural allies, for example, as many people had a.s.sumed, China had an astonis.h.i.+ngly fractious relations.h.i.+p with North Korea. Beijing had even signalled its readiness to accept Korean reunification and was privately distancing itself from the North Korean regime, the cables showed. The Chinese were no longer willing to offer support for Kim Jong-il's bizarre dictators.h.i.+p, it seemed.

China's emerging position was revealed in sensitive discussions between Kathleen Stephens, the US amba.s.sador to Seoul, and South Korea's vice foreign minister, Chun Yung-woo. Citing two high-ranking Chinese officials, Chun told the amba.s.sador that younger-generation Chinese Communist Party leaders no longer regarded North Korea as a useful or reliable ally. Moreover, they would not risk renewed armed conflict on the peninsula, he stated. The cable read: "The two officials, Chun said, were ready to 'face the new reality' that the DPRK [North Korea] now had little value to China as a buffer state a view that, since North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006, had reportedly gained traction among senior PRC [People's Republic of China] leaders."

It is astonis.h.i.+ng to hear the Chinese position described in this way. Envisaging North Korea's collapse, the cable said, "the PRC would be comfortable with a reunified Korea controlled by Seoul and anch.o.r.ed to the United States in a 'benign alliance' as long as Korea was not hostile towards China." The Chinese, in short, were fed up with their troublesome North Korean neighbours. In April 2009 Pyongyang blasted a three-stage rocket over j.a.pan and into the Pacific in an act of pure belligerence. China's vice foreign minister He Yafei was unimpressed. He told US emba.s.sy officials that the North Koreans were behaving like a "spoiled child" to get Was.h.i.+ngton's attention. This was all new.

The cables also disclosed, ominously for the internet future, that Google had been forced to withdraw from mainland China merely because of an unfortunate piece of bad luck. A senior member of the Communist Party used the search engine to look for his own name. He was unhappy with what he found: several articles criticising him personally. As a result Google was forced to drop a link from its Chinese-language search engine to its uncensored Google.com page and as the cable put it "walk away from a potential market of 400 million internet users". page and as the cable put it "walk away from a potential market of 400 million internet users".

As far as the UK was concerned, the cables made distinctly uncomfortable reading. Educated Americans frequently regard Britain's royal family with amused disdain, as a Ruritanian throwback. Rob Evans of the Guardian Guardian realised that, and had rapidly discovered a pen portrait which shed painful light on Prince Andrew, one of the Queen's sons. Andrew, who was regularly flown around the world at the British taxpayers' expense as a "special trade representative", was the subject of an acid cable back to Was.h.i.+ngton from faraway Kyrgyzstan. He emerged as rude, bl.u.s.tering, guffawing about local bribery, and to the shocked delight of reporters at the realised that, and had rapidly discovered a pen portrait which shed painful light on Prince Andrew, one of the Queen's sons. Andrew, who was regularly flown around the world at the British taxpayers' expense as a "special trade representative", was the subject of an acid cable back to Was.h.i.+ngton from faraway Kyrgyzstan. He emerged as rude, bl.u.s.tering, guffawing about local bribery, and to the shocked delight of reporters at the Guardian Guardian highly offensive about their own newspaper's exposures of corruption. The US amba.s.sador quoted him denouncing "these (expletive) reporters, especially from the National [sic] Guardian, who poke their noses everywhere' and (presumably) make it harder for British businessmen to do business." highly offensive about their own newspaper's exposures of corruption. The US amba.s.sador quoted him denouncing "these (expletive) reporters, especially from the National [sic] Guardian, who poke their noses everywhere' and (presumably) make it harder for British businessmen to do business."

Less comic was the overall tone adopted by the Americans towards their junior UK allies, who craved a "special relations.h.i.+p". While there was evidence everywhere of the intimacy and intelligence-sharing which went on worldwide between the two Anglophone states, there were also signs of a condescending att.i.tude. The cables showed that the US superpower was mainly interested in its own priorities: it wanted unrestricted use of British military bases; it wanted British politicians to send troops for its wars and aid its sanctions campaigns, against Iran in particular; and it wanted the UK to buy American arms and commercial products. Richard LeBaron, the US charge d'affaires at the Grosvenor Square emba.s.sy in London, recommended that the US continue to pander to British fantasies that their relations.h.i.+p was special: "Though tempting to argue that keeping HMG [Her Majesty's government] off balance about its current standing with us might make London more willing to respond favourably when pressed for a.s.sistance, in the long run it is not in US interests to have the UK public concluding the relations.h.i.+p is weakening, on either side. The UK's commitment of resources financial, military, diplomatic in support of US global priorities remains unparalleled."

In the leaked cables, the unequal relations.h.i.+p between senior and junior partners was visibly played out. When then British foreign secretary David Miliband tried to hamper secret US spy flights from Britain's Cyprus base, he was peremptorily yanked back into line. When Britain similarly thought of barring US cl.u.s.ter bombs from its own territory on Diego Garcia, the Americans soon put a stop to it. Britain even offered to declare the area around the US Diego Garcia base a marine nature reserve, so the evicted islanders could never go back. However, when Gordon Brown, as British prime minister, personally pleaded in return for compa.s.sion for Gary McKinnon, a British youthful computer hacker wanted for extradition, his plea was humiliatingly ignored. The incoming British Conservative administration, headed by foreign secretary-designate William Hague, lined up cravenly to promise the US amba.s.sador a "pro-American regime".

Sifting through this huge database of diplomatic doc.u.ments, it was hard not to come away with a depressing view of human nature. Mankind, the world over, seemed revealed as a base, grasping species. Many political leaders showed remarkable greed and venality. One of the most egregious examples was Omar al-Bas.h.i.+r, the Sudanese president. He was reported to have siphoned as much as $9 billion out of the country, and stashed much of it in London banks. A conversation with the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court said some of the funds may be held by Lloyds Bank in London. The bank denied any connection.

It was a similar story in Afghanistan, a regime like Russia sliding into kleptocracy. The cables show fears of rampant government corruption; the US is apparently powerless to do anything about it. In one astonis.h.i.+ng alleged incident in October 2009, US diplomats claimed that the then vice-president Ahmad Zia Ma.s.soud was stopped and questioned in Dubai, after flying into the emirate carrying $52 million in cash. Officials trying to stop money laundering interviewed him. Then they let him go. (Ma.s.soud denies this happened.) The US was also deeply frustrated by Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's leader. It regarded him as erratic, emotional, p.r.o.ne to believing conspiracy theories and linked to criminal warlords. US diplomats spelled out their conviction that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's younger half brother and a senior figure in Kandahar, is corrupt.

Some of the world's biggest companies have also been involved in dubious practices and dirty tricks, the communiques alleged. Sh.e.l.l's vice-president for sub-Saharan Africa boasted that the oil giant had successfully inserted staff into all of the main ministries of Nigeria's government. Sh.e.l.l was so well placed that it knew of the government's plans to invite bids for oil concessions. The Sh.e.l.l executive, Anne Pickard, told the US amba.s.sador Robin Renee Sanders that Sh.e.l.l had seconded employees to every government department so knew "everything that was being done in those ministries".

The revelations appeared to confirm what campaigners had long been saying: that there were intersecting links between the oil giant and politicians in a country where, despite billions of dollars in oil revenue, 70% of people still lived below the poverty line.

Pfizer, the world's biggest pharmaceutical company, was also identified in Africa dispatches. According to a leaked cable from the US emba.s.sy in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, Pfizer hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the country's attorney general. The drug firm wanted to pressure him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis. Pfizer denies wrongdoing. It says it has now resolved a case brought in 2009 by Nigeria's government and Kano state, where the drug was used during a meningitis outbreak.

What did this worldwide pattern of diplomatic secrets actually all mean? Some commentators saw it as proof that the United States was struggling to get its way in the world, a superpower entering a long period of relative decline. Others thought the revelations at least showed the bureaucracy of the state department in a fairly good light. In the Guardian Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash confessed he had been impressed by the professionalism of the US diplomatic corps a hard-working and committed bunch. "My personal opinion of the state department has gone up several notches," he wrote. "For the most part ... what we see here is diplomats doing their proper job: finding out what is happening in places to which they are posted, working to advance their nation's interests and their government's policies."

Some world leaders brushed off the embarra.s.sing revelations, at least in public, while others went on the attack. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who did not come out well in the disclosures of his regional unpopularity, dismissed the WikiLeaks data drop as "psychological warfare". He claimed the US must have deliberately leaked its own files in a plot to discredit him. Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, reacted furiously to cables that suggested he was a corrupt closet Islamist. But in countries where there is no free press Eritrea is a good example, but there are lots of them there was no reaction at all, only silence.

The Russians executed a remarkable handbrake turn. President Medvedev at first dismissed the Russia cables as "not worthy" of comment. But when it became clear that the leak was far more damaging in the long-term to the US and its multilateral interests, one of Medvedev's aides proposed, tongue-in-cheek, that Julian a.s.sange should be nominated for the n.o.bel peace prize.

It was a.s.sange himself that dominated the coverage in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald Sydney Morning Herald hailed a.s.sange as the "Ned Kelly of the internet age", in reference to the country's 19th-century outlaw folk hero. However, Australia's prime minister, Julia Gillard, behaved more like the rest of the irritated world leaders: she condemned the publication as illegal, and a.s.sange's actions as "grossly irresponsible". The cables themselves revealed an unflattering view of Australia's political cla.s.s. The former prime minister now foreign minister Kevin Rudd was called an abrasive, impulsive "control freak" presiding over a series of foreign policy blunders. hailed a.s.sange as the "Ned Kelly of the internet age", in reference to the country's 19th-century outlaw folk hero. However, Australia's prime minister, Julia Gillard, behaved more like the rest of the irritated world leaders: she condemned the publication as illegal, and a.s.sange's actions as "grossly irresponsible". The cables themselves revealed an unflattering view of Australia's political cla.s.s. The former prime minister now foreign minister Kevin Rudd was called an abrasive, impulsive "control freak" presiding over a series of foreign policy blunders.

Was the Big Leak of the cables changing anything? As the year ended, it was for the most part too early to say. The short-term fall-out in some cases was certainly rapid, with diplomats shuffled and officials made to walk the plank. Der Spiegel Der Spiegel reported that a "well-placed source" within the Free Democratic Party had been briefing the US emba.s.sy about secret coalition negotiations in the immediate aftermath of the German general election in 2009. The mysterious man was quickly outed as Helmut Metzner, head of the office of party chairman and vice-chancellor Guido Westerwelle. Metzner lost his job. reported that a "well-placed source" within the Free Democratic Party had been briefing the US emba.s.sy about secret coalition negotiations in the immediate aftermath of the German general election in 2009. The mysterious man was quickly outed as Helmut Metzner, head of the office of party chairman and vice-chancellor Guido Westerwelle. Metzner lost his job.

In January 2011 Was.h.i.+ngton was forced to withdraw its amba.s.sador from Libya, Gene Cretz. Colonel Gadaffi had clearly been stung by comments concerning his long-time Ukrainian nurse a "voluptuous blonde", as Cretz put it. Other US diplomatic staff were also quietly told to pack their bags and move on. Sylvia Reed Curran, the charge d'affaires in Ashgabat, was rea.s.signed after penning an excoriating profile of Turkmenistan's president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. She described him as "vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative", a "micro-manager" and "a practised liar". She added, memorably: "Berdymukhamedov does not like people who are smarter than he is. Since he's not a very bright guy, our source offered, he is suspicious of a lot of people."

Curran's fate? She was sent to Vladivostok, where the sun rarely s.h.i.+nes.

Some other developments were positive and suggested that WikiLeaks' mission to winkle out secrets might help bring results. One cable, from the US emba.s.sy in Bangladesh, showed the British government was training a paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a "government death squad", held responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial killings. The British were revealed to be training the "Rapid Action Battalion" in investigative interviewing techniques and "rules of engagement". Since the squad's exposure in the cables, no more deaths have been announced.

In Tunisia, the country's repressive president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, blocked the website of a Lebanese newspaper that published cables about his regime. The reports from the US emba.s.sy in Tunis were deeply unflattering, and made no bones about the sclerotic state of the small Maghreb country, widely considered one of the most repressive in a repressive region. "The problem is clear," wrote amba.s.sador Robert G.o.dec in July 2009, in a secret dispatch released by Beirut's al-Akhbar al-Akhbar newspaper. "Tunisia has been ruled by the same president for 22 years. He has no successor. And, while President Ben Ali deserves credit for continuing many of the progressive policies of [predecessor] President Bourguiba, he and his regime have lost touch with the Tunisian people. They tolerate no advice or criticism, whether domestic or international. Increasingly, they rely on the police for control and focus on preserving power." newspaper. "Tunisia has been ruled by the same president for 22 years. He has no successor. And, while President Ben Ali deserves credit for continuing many of the progressive policies of [predecessor] President Bourguiba, he and his regime have lost touch with the Tunisian people. They tolerate no advice or criticism, whether domestic or international. Increasingly, they rely on the police for control and focus on preserving power."

The cable went on: "Corruption in the inner circle is growing. Even average Tunisians are keenly aware of it, and the chorus of complaints is rising. Tunisians intensely dislike, even hate, first lady Leila Trabelsi and her family. In private, regime opponents mock her; even those close to the government express dismay at her reported behaviour. Meanwhile, anger is growing at Tunisia's high unemployment and regional inequities. As a consequence, the risks to the regime's long-term stability are increasing."

The amba.s.sador's comments were prescient. Within a month of the cable's publication, Tunisia was in the grip of what some were calling the first WikiLeaks revolution.

CHAPTER 17.

The ballad of Wandsworth jail

City of Westminster magistrates court, Horseferry Road, London 7 December 2010

"I walked, with other souls in pain"

OSCAR W WILDE, B BALLAD OF R READING G GAOL.

If aliens had landed their s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p outside, they might have presumed that one of G.o.d's saints was about to ascend. Julian a.s.sange had just become, in many eyes, the St Sebastian of the internet age, a martyr pierced by the many arrows of the unbelievers. A scrum of cameramen thronged the gates of the City of Westminster magistrates court. On the pavement a polyglot huddle of journalists waited impatiently to get in. Other reporters had managed to sneak inside and they milled around the ground-floor vestibule.

The previous evening Swedish prosecutors had decided to issue a warrant for a.s.sange's arrest, over the still unresolved investigation into allegations he had a.s.saulted two women in Stockholm. He was listed as a wanted man by Interpol wanted, the Red List notice said, for "s.e.x crimes". That night, sitting in the Georgian surroundings of Ellingham Hall, and with his options rapidly narrowing, a.s.sange had concluded that he was going to have to hand himself in. He had scarcely slept for days; he was under siege from the world's media; the way forward must have seemed rocky and difficult. According to his WikiLeaks a.s.sociates, after taking the decision to go to the police a.s.sange at last fell heavily asleep.

Early that morning he drove to London. There, he met at 9.30am with officers from the Metropolitan police's extradition unit. The meeting had been arranged in advance; a.s.sange was with his lawyers Mark Stephens and Jennifer Robinson. The officers promptly arrested him. They explained they were acting on behalf of the Swedish authorities. The Swedes had issued a European arrest warrant, valid in Britain. It accused a.s.sange of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of s.e.xual molestation and one count of rape, all allegedly committed in August 2010. Westminster magistrates court would decide later that afternoon whether to grant him bail, they said.

News of his arrest prompted some rejoicing in Was.h.i.+ngton, which had found little to cheer about in recent days, as the contents of its private diplomatic dispatches were sprayed around the world. "That sounds like good news to me," said the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, speaking from Afghanistan. There was a big smirk on his face.

At 12.47pm a.s.sange slipped into court via a back entrance. Stephens told the waiting media his client was "fine". He had held a successful meeting with police. "It was very cordial. They verified his identify. They are satisfied he is the real Julian a.s.sange and we are ready to go into court." But the rest of the afternoon's proceedings didn't go according to plan. In a beige upstairs courtroom, the district judge Howard Riddle asked a.s.sange whether he consented to his extradition to Sweden. Was he ready to answer the charges in the arrest warrant? "I understand that, and do not consent," a.s.sange replied. The judge then asked a.s.sange to give his address. a.s.sange fired back: "PO Box 4080."

It was the kind of apparently flippant answer you might expect from a global nomad. a.s.sange was, after all, an international man of mystery who moved from country to country, carrying only a couple of rucksacks with computer gear and a slightly rank T-s.h.i.+rt. As his friends well knew, getting hold of a.s.sange was exceptionally difficult. But in fact, his answer may not have been as flippant as it sounded. He had not known what to expect in the courtroom, and was nervous about giving away his location in public for fear of ill-wishers. He would have been better-advised to ask to submit his true current address written down on a piece of paper. That would have been perfectly normal.

As it was, his answer entertained the gallery, but dissatisfied the court. Riddle made it clear he was not here to pa.s.s judgment on a.s.sange's Manichean struggle with the Pentagon or other dark forces: "This case isn't about WikiLeaks." After hearing a brief outline of the evidence from Sweden the judge concluded that a.s.sange's community ties in the UK were weak. The prosecution also claimed unreasonably as it later turned out that it was unclear how a.s.sange had entered Britain. Judge Riddle concluded there was a risk a.s.sange might not show up for his extradition hearing or, in colloquial British parlance, do a runner. He refused a.s.sange bail.

The decision at 3.30pm was an unexpected hammer-blow. a.s.sange had confidently expected he would be free to walk out of court. He had even failed to bring a toothbrush. There would be no triumphant press conference, however; instead a.s.sange was carted off in a "meat wagon" to HM Wandsworth prison, his new home. This forbidding ensemble of grey Victorian buildings might have come from the pages of Charles d.i.c.kens. It proved to be an excellent setting for another reel in what would surely become a.s.sange's biopic. His life story already had the trajectory of a thriller. But now it had an unexpected change of pace, with a sequence to come on its protagonist's suffering and martyrdom. Nelson Mandela, Oscar Wilde, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (a.s.sange's hero), all had spent time in prison. They had used their confinement to meditate and reflect on the transitory nature of human existence and in Solzhenitsyn's case on the brutalities of Soviet power. Now it was a.s.sange's turn to be incarcerated, as some saw it, in a dank British gulag.

a.s.sange's situation attracted a group of glamorous left-wing a.s.sangistas, many initially rounded up by his lawyers to offer sureties for bail. They included John Pilger, the campaigning UK-based Australian journalist, the British film director Ken Loach, and Bianca Jagger (former wife of Mick), the human rights activist and onetime model. Also present was Jemima Goldsmith, generally described as a socialite. She was to complain about this appellation, tweeting indignantly "'Socialite' is an insult to any self respecting person." From the US, the left-wing doc.u.mentary maker Michael Moore had pledged to contribute $20,000 bail money, while urging observers "not [to] be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey". Other well-wishers who would attend subsequent court hearings included Gavin MacFadyen, the former TV producer from City University's Bureau for Investigative Journalism who over the summer had given a.s.sange a bed in his London townhouse. Some knew a.s.sange personally; others did not. Some seemed convinced that the court case was unconnected with what happened in a Swedish bedroom. Instead, as they saw it, it was an attempt to imprison a.s.sange for his real "crime": releasing secret doc.u.ments that humiliated the United States.

For a certain kind of radical, a.s.sange had extraordinary appeal: he was brave, uncompromising and dangerous. Did Pilger and Loach, perhaps, see in a.s.sange the ghosts of their own revolutionary youth? a.s.sange's targets were those that the original 60s radicals had themselves struggled against chiefly US imperialism, then in Vietnam, but now in Afghanistan and Iraq. There were other secret abuses a.s.sange had revealed, too: the callousness of the US military, and the widespread use of torture. But the proceedings at Horseferry Road had, strictly speaking, little to do with this.

Several of the broadcasters outside court were also bemused by the celebrities' spontaneous appearance. When the grey-haired Loach emerged from court, reporters from CNN, broadcasting live, had no idea who he was. "Who was that gentleman? It may be Julian a.s.sange's attorney; we're trying to find out," the stumped CNN anchor said. Jemima Goldsmith's attendance was even more bizarre. Goldsmith admitted she didn't know a.s.sange, but said she was offering support for him because of her backing for freedom of speech. This cause had not been one that appealed much to her late father, James Goldsmith, an eccentric right-wing billionaire with a fondness for making libel threats.

For some of a.s.sange's supporters, the series of extradition and bail proceedings brought by Sweden seemed proof of the US conspiracy. a.s.sange's lawyer Mark Stephens hinted as much afterwards on the steps of the court. Having compared the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny to the murderous Soviet ogre Lavrentiy Beria, Stephens dismissed the s.e.x allegations as "very thin indeed". He was subsequently to a.s.sert that a.s.sange was being imprisoned in the very same cell once occupied by the 19th-century playwright Oscar Wilde, who had been martyred for his s.e.xuality. The h.o.m.os.e.xual Wilde was later s.h.i.+pped on to a second prison where he wrote his famous Ballad of Reading Gaol Ballad of Reading Gaol. Stephens said many people believed the charges against a.s.sange to be politically motivated. He also referred to a "honeytrap", implying that a.s.sange had been set up. a.s.sange himself fulminated about what he called the unseen constellation of interests personal, domestic and foreign he felt were driving the case forward. The judge's refusal to grant bail provoked a swirl of more or less ill-informed online outrage.

In the eyes of critics, a.s.sange's team was embarking on a PR strategy. The effect was to elide a.s.sange's struggle to bring governments to account (which was a good thing) with allegations of s.e.xual misconduct (which were an entirely separate matter for the courts). Over the ensuing months, these two unrelated issues the universal principle of freedom of speech, and a.s.sange's personal struggle to prevent extradition to Sweden would become entangled. This blurring may have served a.s.sange's interests. But the talk of honeytraps had a nasty air: it fuelled a global campaign of vilification against the two complaining Swedish women, whose ident.i.ties rapidly became known around the world.

In Wandsworth, a.s.sange did his best to adjust to his new life as an inmate. He had been remanded in custody for a week. For a man used to spending 16 hours a day in front of a laptop, the underground corridors and clanking Victorian cells must have been a distressing experience. His legal team went away hoping to devise a more successful line of attack. Their job was to get a.s.sange out of jail as soon as possible, certainly in time for Christmas.

a.s.sange's fame had reached what seemed like galactic proportions by the time of his second appearance in court on 14 December, when a maverick member of the British establishment was at last to ride to his rescue. The crowd outside Westminster court had grown even bigger, with the first reporters setting up their equipment at dawn. Obtaining a pa.s.s for the hearing was a bit like getting hold of one of w.i.l.l.y Wonka's golden tickets; the usual humour and tribal solidarity among journalists gave away to flagrant pus.h.i.+ng in and shoving. The court was overflowing by the time a.s.sange flanked by two private Serco company prison guards was escorted into the gla.s.s-fronted dock. He gave a thumbs-up sign to Kristinn Hrafnsson, his faithful lieutenant. But for the rest of the hearing he sat quietly.

Gemma Lindfield, acting for the Swedish authorities, set out the charges once again. She concluded: "He [a.s.sange] remains a significant flight risk." It was then the turn of Geoffrey Robertson QC, the prominent human rights lawyer and a.s.sange's newly hired Australian-born barrister. Standing to address the judge, Robertson began seductively. In melodious tones he described the WikiLeaks founder as a "free-speech philosopher and lecturer". The idea that he would try and escape was preposterous, he said. Robertson announced that Vaughan Smith of the Frontline Club, a.s.sange's previous secret hideout host throughout November, was willing to take responsibility for his good behaviour. "Captain Smith", as Robertson winningly described him, was prepared to house a.s.sange once again up at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk, should the judge agree to give him bail.

The WikiLeaks arrest saga had so far been short of jokes. But Robertson had one ready-made. It would not be so much "house arrest as mansion arrest", he quipped. Not only that, but it was inconceivable a.s.sange would attempt to escape "since darkness descends rather early in that area of Britain". Additionally, a.s.sange was willing to give up his Australian pa.s.sport and wear an electronic tag. Finally, he wasn't likely to get very far given that "media exposure" had made him "well-known around the world".

Robertson invited Smith to give his own a.s.sessment of WikiLeaks' controversial founder. "He is a very honourable person, hugely courageous, self-deprecatory and warm. Not the kind of things you read about," Captain Smith said, loyally.

After establis.h.i.+ng that Smith was a former Guards officer and one-time captain of the British army's shooting team, the QC asked for details of Smith's family home. That, it appeared, was the clincher. "It has 10 bedrooms and 60 acres." Better still, there was even a police station. "It's a short distance on a bicycle. I can cycle it in about 15 minutes ... It's about a mile. Perhaps a little bit more." Smith added helpfully: "It's an environment where he would be surrounded. We have members of staff. My parents live in proximity as well. My father was a Queen's Messenger and a colonel in the Grenadier Guards. He patrols the estate." Smith added that his housekeeper, too, could keep a beady eye on the Australian: "My staff will be reporting to me, sir."

If the judge had cla.s.s instincts, there could hardly have been a more pitch-perfect appeal. The prosecution had by this stage also conceded that a.s.sange had arrived legitimately in Britain from Sweden on 27 September. Outside the crowded courtroom, celebrity supporters had gathered on the second floor next to the coffee machine. Pilger, Goldsmith and Loach were there again Bianca Jagger had successfully got herself a courtoom seat. Jagger later told friends that women fans had been a similar problem for her rock star ex-husband. "It was much worse with Mick. When you are world-famous other women throw themselves at you," she mused. Despite their show of support, the celebrities' presence was much less crucial than their money. All had offered to provide sureties of 20,000.

Inside the courtroom, Robertson moved to paint a picture of a.s.sange's time in prison. His conditions inside Wandsworth were a pure living h.e.l.l: "He can't read any newspapers other than the Daily Express Daily Express! This is the kind of Victorian situation he finds himself in." He went on: "Time magazine sent him a magazine with his picture on the cover but all they would allow him to have was the envelope!" magazine sent him a magazine with his picture on the cover but all they would allow him to have was the envelope!"

The judge announced that, after all, bail would be "granted under certain conditions". These turned out to be relatively onerous: an electronic tag, an afternoon and night curfew, and a requirement to report to Bungay police station near Ellingham between 6pm and 8pm every evening. Oh, and 200,000 in cash. a.s.sange's lawyers asked if the court would take cheques. No. It would have to be money up front.

The news communicated via Twitter, of course of a.s.sange's bail brought a loud cheer from the 150 people who had gathered opposite the court to cheer on their hero and brandish their banners and placards to the world. One read: "s.e.x crimes my a.r.s.e!" Another: "That's just what we need another innocent man in jail". And a third: "Sweden: muppets of the US". Three young activists were so thrilled they broke into an impromptu chorus of We Wish You a Leaky Christmas We Wish You a Leaky Christmas.

Their jubilation was premature. Lindfield and the Crown Prosecution Service predictably appealed the judge's decision up to the high court, leaving a.s.sange still temporarily jailed. But in the dock, he seemed in good spirits. As the warders led him away, he managed a thumbs up for the dusky-haired Turkish TV reporter sitting in the gallery. She boasted: "I had an exclusive interview with him a month ago."

Two days later, on 16 December, all gathered again at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, for a.s.sange's third hearing. Outside court number four a queue of journalists waited in a more orderly line than before, drinking coffee and leafing through the morning papers. Among them was a group of Australian reporters, who in nasal tones lamented their country's overnight collapse at the hands of England in the Ashes. But a.s.sange's own prospects were looking brighter. At 11.30am Mr Justice Ouseley strode into a courtroom decorated with leather-bound legal tomes and portentous Gothic wood panelling.

The judge's first concern wasn't a.s.sange but the fourth estate specifically the international journalists sitting on the packed wooden benches in front of him. Several were already playing furtively with their BlackBerry handhelds. They were micro-blogging the hearing live to the outside world. Mr Justice Ouseley made clear that tweeting although allowed by Howard Riddle two days earlier in a.s.sange's previous hearing would not take place in the high court. Twitter was banned, he said. Immediately, several journalists tweeted his ruling. It was probably the quickest contempt of court in the history of justice.

Lindfield reprised the allegations. She warned that if a.s.sange was bailed he might not flee the country but simply vanish in the UK. The judge appeared unconvinced. He seemed to accept the claim that the Stockholm prosecutor had originally decided there was no case to answer, before a second prosecutor agreed to pursue the allegations. "The history of the way it was dealt with by the Swedish prosecutor would give Mr a.s.sange some basis that he might be acquitted following a trial." For a.s.sange, sitting in the dock behind ornate bars, this was encouraging stuff.

Robertson got to his feet again. Next to him were several of a.s.sange's supporters Smith, Loach, Pilger and the Marchioness of Worcester, a former actress turned eco-activist. In the third row sat a.s.sange's frizzy-haired mother, Christine, who had been brought from Australia. Robertson declared it was sheer speculation that a.s.sange would try and abscond, or that his wealthy supporters would spring him from Britain.

"Is it really suggested that Mr Michael Moore is going to slip through customs wearing a baseball hat, go to Norfolk in the middle of the night and plan to transport this gentleman we know not where?"

It was ridiculous to describe a.s.sange as "some kind of Houdini figure". Even if a.s.sange did attempt to bolt from Ellingham Hall he wouldn't get far, what with the "gamekeepers looking after him and Mr Smith". Robertson claimed a.s.sange had co-operated with Swedish investigators. He also defined three categories of rape under Swedish law: gross rape four to 10 years in prison; ordinary rape two to six; and minor rape up to a maximum of four years. a.s.sange had been charged with minor rape, he said. If convicted he was likely to get "eight to 12 months, with two-thirds off for good behaviour".

The judge said he was concerned that some of a.s.sange's supporters might think going into hiding was a "legitimate response" to his predicament. "I'm troubled by the extent to which support [for a.s.sange] is based on support for WikiLeaks." But shortly before lunch, Mr Justice Ouseley decided a.s.sange could return to Ellingham Hall. He upheld the decision by the City of Westminster magistrates court to grant bail. But he also warned him that he was likely to be sent back to Sweden at the end of his two-day extradition hearing, set for 7-8 February 2011.

The judge imposed strict conditions. (It emerged that the nearest police station to Smith's estate, in the town of Bungay, had permanently closed. a.s.sange would have to report instead to Beccles, where the station was open only in the afternoon and not at all over Christmas and the new year.) The bail conditions were a 200,000 cash deposit, with a further 40,000 guaranteed in two sureties.

Over the next few hours the race was on to get a.s.sange's guarantors to deliver the cash, without which a.s.sange was going to spend another night back in Wandsworth. His legal team proposed five new sureties: the distinguished retired investigative journalist and author of The First Casualty The First Casualty, Sir Philip Knightley; millionaire magazine publisher Felix Dennis; n.o.bel prize winner Sir John Sulston; former Labour minister and chairman of Faber & Faber publis.h.i.+ng house Lord Matthew Evans; and Professor Patricia David, a retired educationalist.

The WikiLeaks team spilled out of the Gothic architecture of the British court in high spirits. Vaughan Smith promised a.s.sange a rustic dinner of stew and dumplings, and said there was no prospect he would escape from his Norfolk manor: "He isn't good at map reading. He's very topographically unaware. If he runs off into the woods I will find him." Kristinn Hrafnsson, a.s.sange's lieutenant, also welcomed the release: "I'm delighted by this decision. It will be excellent to have Julian back with us again." But it was Pilger who articulated the deeper worry among a.s.sange's supporters: that the US would charge him with espionage. Pilger, who had been rejected by the judge as a surety because he was "another peripatetic Australian", hailed the grant of bail as "a glimpse of British justice". But he went on: "I think we should be looking not so much to the extradition to Sweden but to the US. It's the great unspoken in this case. The spectre we are all aware of is that he might end up in some maximum security prison in the US. That is a real possibility."

Just before close of play, the bail conditions were met. At 5.48pm a.s.sange emerged on to the steps of the high court into the flash-flare of TV cameras and photographers clutching his bail papers, his right arm raised in triumph. There were whoops and cheers from his supporters. He had been in prison a mere nine days. But the atmosphere was as if he was had made the long walk to freedom, just like Nelson Mandela. a.s.sange addressed the crowd: It's great to smell [the] fresh air of London again ... First, some thank-yous. To all the people around the world who had faith in me, who have supported my team while I have been away. To my lawyers, who have put up a brave and ultimately successful fight, to our sureties and people who have provided money in the face of great difficulty and aversion. And to members of the press who are not all taken in and considered to look deeper in their work. And, I guess, finally, to the British justice system itself, where if justice is not always the outcome at least it is not dead yet.During my time in solitary confinement in the bottom of a Victorian prison I had time to reflect on the conditions of those people around the world also in solitary confinement, also on remand, in conditions that are more difficult than those faced by me. Those people need your attention and support. And with that I hope to continue my work and continue to protest my innocence in this matter and to reveal, as we get it, which we have not yet, the evidence from these allegations. Thank you.

It was a strange little speech, executed in curiously looping phrases and odd syntax. But as a piece of TV theatre it was perfect with a.s.sange identifying himself with freedom and justice, while expressing a virtuous concern for his fellow man. His lawyers standing to his side Robertson, Robinson, and Stephens seemed to be trying to radiate both solemnity and delight. In the long run, the court's decision was unlikely to change much: a.s.sange had yet to confront his accusers in Sweden; the prospect of extradition to the US loomed like a dark ghost. But for the moment a.s.sange and WikiLeaks were back in business.

He swept out of the court in Smith's old armour-plated Land Rover, originally driven by him all the way back from Bosnia and more usually parked sometimes with a flat tyre outside the Frontline Club. With snow beginning to fall, the Guards officer and the internet subversive set off together on the latest step of their big adventure. For Smith there had previously been the Balkans and Iraq and the mountains of central Afghanistan, where the temperatures fall below freezing at night. This was something new, which also had several ingredients in common with wars and war reporting. There was adrenaline, lots of it. There was a sense of living for the moment. But, above all, there was uncertainty. n.o.body quite knew what would happen next.

CHAPTER 18.

The future of WikiLeaks