WikiLeaks - The Secret Life of a Superpower Part 1. BBC Documentary

BBC Documentary about WikiLeaks

It was the scoop of the century.

WikiLeaks lifts the curtain on the secret communications between Washington

and the diplomats that we have stationed all over the globe.

I'm not aware of any release of information in human history comparable to the amount that was released via WikiLeaks.

These were cables that show the superpower's secret thoughts.

It was hard for me to look Secretary Clinton in the eye when she was like, "How did this happen?"

A quarter of a million US diplomatic messages apparently stolen by one of their own soldiers,

turned into a global sensation by a whistle-blowing website and its controversial founder, Julian Assange.

I like crushing bastards.

I think every diplomat around the world would have one overriding thought, "Thank God it wasn't me," and "Thank God it's not us."

In the first in-depth television analysis of the secret cables,

we lift the lid on how the world's greatest superpower does business and how it gets what it wants.

We reveal a superpower on a mission to change the world.

But a superpower that sometimes fails to live up to its own ideals.

It's a complete outrage --

Diplomats stepping in to attempt to obstruct the course of the criminal investigation.

Over a year has passed since the leaking of the cables.

[Protests]

Now we assess what the impact of the leak has been in the US and beyond.

And we ask, can American Diplomacy ever be the same again?

They don't trust you anymore.

Many of them don't, and it will take a long time, I think, to recover that trust.

[WIKILEAKS: The Secret Life of A Superpower]

It's late November 2010.

Two journalists arrive at the US State Department in Washington DC --

The enormous ministry that controls America's relationship with the rest of the world.

They're not here for a friendly chat.

They're about to blow the lid on America's diplomatic secrets.

They were maybe a dozen senior officials and, behind them,

you know, at least a dozen more minions taking notes on laptops and so on.

They represented not just the State Department

but all of the intelligence agencies and the defense department.

They did not look happy.

The US State Department was facing a crisis unlike any other.

A quarter of a million internal messages, or cables, between Washington and US embassies all over the world

had found their way into the hands of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks

and, from there, to five major newspapers.

Their message at the opening of the meeting, in uncertain terms, was "You've been given stolen material -- classified material.

There would be grave consequences if you publish any of it."

At that meeting, one of the people leading the state department's response to the crisis was P.J. Crowley.

These stories resulted from a crime.

For us, this was still classified material.

It was our responsibility to, you know, continue to protect them.

The State Department was right to be worried.

The cables reveal what American diplomats say when they think the world will never know --

Who they trust and who they mock,

what they want and how they get it.

"Some inside the US government dismiss [Berlusconi] as feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader."

"Merkel is risk averse and rarely creative."

"Gaddafi relies heavily on his long-time Ukrainian nurse, who has been described as a 'voluptuous blonde.'"

Detailed records from thousands of secret meetings and conversations involving US diplomats

were about to become a media sensation.

"Bank of England Governor Mervyn King expressed great concern about Conservative leaders' lack of experience."

"It was related that King Abdullah remains a heavy smoker, regularly receives hormone injections, and uses Viagra excessively."

Here were records of American diplomats' secret plans and strategies, their uncertainties and fears.

"We should aim at influencing the narrow group of individuals that surround him."

"Saudi energy facilities remain highly vulnerable to external attack."

"[The Secretary of Defense] pointedly warned that urgent action is required. Without progress in the next few months, we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East."

All of this classified information was now in the hands of journalists.

In Washington, there was panic.

When the newspapers gave us access so that we could begin to get a sense of it,

I think there was just a growing sense of horror.

Can you remember Secretary Clinton's reaction?

She wasn't thrilled. [laughs]

I mean, Secretary Clinton knew probably better than anybody exactly just how delicate some of our relations were with different countries.

The leak threatened the basics of US diplomacy.

When you're confronted with 250,000 cables, in a way, it's overwhelming.

You know, it involves everything.

But there was little they could do.

The five newspapers had already agreed on a publication date.

Nothing was going to stop them.

All the US government could do now was try to get ready.

They knew that within a matter of weeks, the world would know their secrets, and the only question was how bad it would be.

We knew that it was going to potentially do an enormous amount of damage to some of our key relationships.

What was the atmosphere like in the State Department that these cables would be there for all to see?

Battening down the hatches.

On the 28th of November of 2010, it began.

Huge trove of documents released just hours ago by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.

The whistle-blowing website released another pile of government documents Sunday, including...

Whoever leaked all those State Department documents to the Wikileaks website is a traitor.

Within 24 hours, the cables had become a global sensation.

It's hard to think of a worse day for US diplomacy.

America's private opinions and conversations splashed across every front page in the world.

[various news reports]

So what's in there? Everything from global fears about Iran's nuclear programme to news that China may have sabotaged Google...

Controversial and often embarrassing revelations include an American diplomat describing Prince Andrew as "rude and cocky."

It was like that moment when an email gets sent to the wrong person, only went to the whole world.

As the leaks poured out, foreign politicians looked on with horror.

I think every diplomat around the world will have had one overriding thought: "Thank God it wasn't me," and "Thank God it's not us."

There is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends.

In the weeks after the leak, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, traveled the globe saying sorry.

Clinton even joked about getting special "apology tour" jackets made.

But in some parts of the world, the fallout from the leak would be unstoppable.

We had to pull our ambassador out of Libya, for example, because thugs were making threatening gestures to him.

We had an ambassador in Mexico, the Mexican government had just made clear, "we can no longer do business with this American ambassador,"

and he's now being replaced.

In Washington, tough questions were being asked.

President Obama's a pretty calm guy, even in tough times and stressful times.

But he was clearly incredibly angry along with the rest of us,

and the question, obviously, to me, and to others, was, "How in the world could this happen?"

The suspect had been identified.

Online chat logs had given him away.

The suspected source was not a foreign government or a spy at the heart of the US machine.

It was an American soldier sitting in a remote base in the deserts of Iraq.

Bradley Manning was a lowly PFC, a Private First Class, but he had access to a world of secrets.

We live in a world now when, you know, a 20-something PFC in the American army can cause diplomatic damage of biblical proportions.

An enormous flaw in US military security that left American diplomats and the US State Department compromised.

The State Department security was actually tighter than military security in this instance,

so there was anger, disappointment, a feeling that this simply should not have happened.

Is it embarrassing personally that it came out of your department?

Well, of course, I mean, it was hard for me to look Secretary Clinton in the eye when she'd say, "How did this happen?"

Because it did come out of the Department of Defense, it came out of a military installation.

As the cables made headlines around the world, some in America were demanding a tough response.

For them, the leak was the ultimate crime, and Bradley Manning a traitor.

What do you think of Bradley Manning?

I think he committed treason, I think he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

What does that mean?

Well, treason is the only crime defined by our Constitution. It says "treason shall consist only of levying war against [the United States],

or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

He gave our enemies a lot of aid and comfort.

So what should happen to him?

Well, he should be prosecuted, and if he's found guilty, he should be punished to the fullest extent possible.

And what is that?

Death.

You think he should be killed?

Yes.

The leak had rocked America and created a global sensation.

The superpower had shown it wasn't in control of its secrets.

It's now over a year since the first cables were released.

So what has been the real impact of the leaking of these documents?

And what have the cables really told us about how America does business in the world?

The fallout from the secret cables was more than just damaged trust or lurid headlines.

We found places where some believe that the cable release itself changed countries.

In mid-October 2010, two Tunisian political activists, Sami Ben Gharbia and Malek Khadraoui, got hold of some of the secret US cables.

At the time, Tunisia was ruled by a dictator, President Ben Ali.

Someone got the cable and they gave me a bunch of Arab leaks, around 300 cables.

Sami Ben Gharbia called and he told me that I had the bomb. So I opened the file and I start tweeting.

Inside the cables were damning reports written by the American ambassador about the dictator Ben Ali.

They showed the extent of his regime's corruption and excess.

Corruption in Tunisia is getting worse, whether it's cash, services, land, property, or, yes, even your yacht.

President Ben Ali's family is rumored to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants.

This is Ben Ali's daughter, Nesrine, and her billionaire husband, Mohamed Sakhr El Materi.

And this was one of their houses, a luxury villa on the Tunisian coast.

This villa's obviously been smashed up by looters.

This place inspired one of the most infamous cables to come out of Tunisia.

The American ambassador was invited here for dinner, and what he found - the wealth, the opulence astounding.

Ancient artifacts everywhere. Roman columns, frescoes, and even a lion's head from which water pours into the pool.

The opulence with which El Materi and Nesrine live and their behavior make clear why they and other members of Ben Ali's family are disliked and even hated by some Tunisians.

The excesses of the Ben Ali family are growing.

This cage is very, very famous in Tunisia, and

it's all because of the cables.

This is where Ben Ali's son-in-law kept his pet tiger,

and from the cables, we're told that at a time when there were people here in Tunisia who couldn't afford to eat,

this animal was fed four chickens a day.

At the time of the cable release, Tunisia was already suffering economic unrest.

Food prices were rising, youth unemployment was at crisis point.

The cables showed the contrast between the lives of ordinary people and their rulers.

For activists like Malek and Sami, the cable leak was an extraordinary opportunity.

The Wikileaks cable was, for us, like a new tool or a new weapon to make this contest come down from the internet to the street.

They published the Tunisian cables on the same day as the Wikileaks splash.

It was a very huge reaction. First of all,

on the social networks, Twitter, Facebook, and, you know, our community,

it was like a bomb.

Now, the secret American reports of the Ben Alis' excess were out there for ordinary Tunisians to read.

It wasn't that Tunisia didn't know about the corruption.

Most people here were well aware of how the elite lived.

It was now that they could see that the Americans knew.

Ben Ali was a president who made an awful lot of his relationship with the United States.

But the cables show that the Americans knew him for what he was.

They were critical, and they were disparaging.

When the people were in the street,

they had in their mind

that this regime is really corrupt, that this regime is not really supported by foreign forces,

so that maybe people were saying, okay, maybe he's not too strong,

maybe he's not too invincible.

Then senior ministers in Ben Ali's regime saw the cables were having an impact.

When the people of Tunisia saw US criticism of the president,

of the surrounding circle, et cetera,

of course maybe they were not expecting this from the Americans.

So what difference did that make?

It did encourage people to speak in a more open and louder way.

And this is, in my opinion,

there is no doubt.

The regime tried to block the websites carrying the cables.

They failed.

The secret documents helped fuel a mood of change in Tunisia.

We published them on November 28th, and the Revolution started on December 17th.

It was two weeks. Two weeks.

[rioting and protesting]

The Revolution began when a young Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi,

set himself on fire in protest at his mistreatment by the regime.

His death provoked outrage and brought crowds to the streets.

As they vented their anger, the cables inspired many of their chants.

[shouting, gunshots]

You see, during the Revolution, some slogans talk about the content of these cables,

making reference to the very rich life that those people are living, and

the role of the state, a lot of people were referring to these stories.

[rioting and protesting]

Those protests would bring down a dictatorship that had lasted 23 years.

Ben Ali fled the country.

The Tunisian Revolution spread and prompted a wave of uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring.

The cable leak had played a part in history.

But what about America itself?

What do the cables reveal about the superpower?

We've spent months analyzing these documents.

They show how America's diplomats try to get what they want,

how they gather gossip and how they use it.

How they deal with their enemies, and what they say about their friends,

when they think no one's listening.

So, what does America say about its closest friend of all - us?

Two countries who fought alongside each other in Iraq and Afghanistan,

but the cables reveal harsh US criticism of the British military.

A secret document from December 2008 offered a bleak assessment of British capabilities.

The British are not up to the task of securing Helmand.

It forced Hillary Clinton to offer yet another apology.

I personally want to convey to the government,

and the people of the United Kingdom,

both our deep respect and admiration, or

the extraordinary efforts, and I regret

if anything that was said by anyone suggests to the contrary.

But the secret documents show the Americans were hearing concerns about our political leaders.

In February 2010, the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King,

and the US ambassador in London discussed the then-Conservative opposition.

This is the cable that followed:

King expressed great concern about Conservative leaders' lack of experience.

Cameron and Osborne have only a few advisors,

and seemed resistant to reaching out beyond their small inner circle.

It is the duty of a diplomat to report those conversations,

so people can take that into account,

so they know what's going on.

And gossip is not gossip if it's conversations that are had.

"Gossip" is speculation. There is no speculation.

But some cables are not so easy to explain away.

In 2009, Ivan Lewis was a foreign office minister in Tony Blair's government.

He got to know the Americans during this time,

and they tried to get to know him.

No detail or rumor was too [unintelligible].

"Lewis reportedly remains a bit of a hound dog where women are concerned."

"Contacts who know him well report he has manic-depressive tendencies."

"He's very up one minute, very down the next.

And at least one Foreign and Commonwealth Office colleague has described Lewis as a bully."

US diplomats may claim to be simply reporting what they hear,

but it seems from the cables that no detail is too trivial.

Biographic data is something that is valuable.

Building and understanding of the personalities, proclivities,

what might be distracting to individuals,

what might explain the behavior of third parties toward that individual.

Finding out that somebody has a reputation, a bad reputation,

with women, once might have been an advantage,

but these days, generally isn't.

So why, then, did Hillary Clinton send this to London one month after the cable about Lewis was written?

"Washington analysts appreciate the excellent background and biographic reporting on Ivan Lewis.

[Cable] regarding Lewis's bullying, possible depression, and scandals,

as well as comments on the state of his marriage

are particularly insightful and timely."

We contacted Mr. Lewis, but he didn't want to comment.

As for America's diplomats, well, the cable speaks for itself.

Dirt and gossip even on America's closest friends goes down very well in Washington.

Gossip can reveal information about people

that shows their strengths and weaknesses,

just like politicians use it, it doesn't mean that you believe everything,

but information is information.

And there is no limit to America's desire for information on its friends.

It's about much more than just gossip.

What we've seen is the Americans want any piece of information no matter how trivial.

And no one, it seems, is off-limits.

America's most important Arab ally in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia.

They're close militarily, and the US relies on Saudi for oil.

But when it comes to information, everything's up for grabs,

including the king's secret medical file.

"Upon arrival, the royal clinic accidentally provided this physician with the king's medical file.

It was related that King Abdullah is 92 years old.

He remains a heavy smoker, regularly receives hormone injections,

and 'uses Viagra excessively.'"

It looks like US diplomats behaving like tabloid hacks, anything to get the story.

But this has a serious side.

There have been cases in which elderly rulers, members of ruling families, that

quite literally in the case of viagra, have died from stroke from an overdose of viagra,

so it's, you know, we laugh about it, but in fact,

as a medical question, it's serious.

The cables seem to bear this out.

"The Saudi Arabian government has always kept close hold any personal information on royal family members.

This medical information provides some detail into the King's health and longevity,

and is provided to Washington for additional analysis.

The cables are a snapshot of America's vast information gathering machine.

But, again, what's most revealing is the sort of behavior that's officially demanded,

even of US diplomats at the United Nations.

Diplomats are not spies,

which is why the US didn't want the world to see these secret requests.

"Reporting officers should include as much of the following information as possible:

credit card account numbers, frequent flyer account numbers,

work schedules, and other relevant biographical information."

This seems pretty clear: the Secretary of State requesting US diplomats to do their best to collect personal and private information on foreign diplomats at the UN.

Even the Secretary General and members of the Security Council were targeted.

"Plans and intentions of the UN Secretary General...

biometric information on UN Security Council Permanent Representatives..."

But those on the inside of the State Department deny the obvious conclusion.

Should we view diplomats as effectively spies, as well?

No.

Why?

They're not.

They're asked to spy in that cable.

That doesn't mean they do.

But for those outside of the US government, that secret cable was disturbing.

What I think is troubling is, here were American diplomats,

in a sense asked to do the spade work of spying,

and collect this kind of data on their counterparts,

and I suspect that's being very damaging to the relationships of trust and confidence and friendship

that they would have been trying to develop with people from other countries.

The cables reveal aspects of US diplomacy that America did not want us to see.

But the real story of the cables is more complicated.

These secret documents show US diplomats apparently trying to do good.

In country after country, even behind closed doors, they're raising issues like freedom, democracy, and human rights.

"[The Assistant Secretary] stressed the importance of human rights to the US government and public."

"The Deputy [Secretary of State] stressed US government concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in Vietnam."

"We should take every opportunity to promote sustained, democratic change in Burma."

And, yet, the cables show a real tension in American diplomacy.

The US wants to spread its ideals across the world but struggles to reconcile this with its other interests,

like protecting some of its unsavory alliances.

September 11th brought this tension to the fore.

We're really talking about what happened after 9/11.

You have this attack. The question that then arises is

"What happened? Why? What produces this?"

And the answer that President Bush came to, in his own mind,

was repression produces it,

the embitterment of young people who have no place to go, politically, in their own countries,

which are very repressive dictatorships.

And the antidote, therefore, is what he called the "freedom agenda,"

the expansion of democracy.

One of the places where that "freedom agenda" was applied was Egypt.

For over two decades, it had been ruled by Hosni Mubarak, a pro-American dictator.

The Americans were giving him $1.3 billion in military assistance every year,

but the cables show US diplomats were also pushing for reform.

"We do not have a silver bullet, but we can press reforms that will lead, inexorably, to the 'death by 1,000 cuts' of Egypt's authoritarian system."

The cables show that the US push for greater freedom in Egypt reached into Mubarak's home,

targeting his son, Gamal, and his wife, Suzanne.

"We should aim at influencing the narrow group of individuals that surround him [including] Gamal and Suzanne Mubarak."

One man came to symbolize America's drive for change: Ayman Nour.

Nour had challenged Mubarak for the Egyptian presidency in 2005.

Four months later, he was convicted and imprisoned on what the US believed to be trumped-up charges.

"The Embassy has raised strong concerns about the arrest and detention of Ayman Nour with a variety of government-of-Egypt contacts at both senior and working levels."

The cables show that America repeatedly raised Nour's case with the Mubarak regime.

And they reveal the dictator's angry response.

"Mubarak takes this issue personally and it makes him seethe when we raise it."

Nabil Fahmy was Egypt's ambassador in Washington during the Bush years.

The Ayman Nour issue was impacting on Mubarak's dealing with the US.

Reference to specific cases annoyed him quite a bit.

How he reacted toward the US administration generally: he did not come back to the US in Bush's second term.

Not once.

America's push for reform, pursued privately and publicly, was poisoning relations.

When the Americans linked the war against terrorism to democracy promotion,

it really complicated things, and it made [] the tensions between the two presidents,

in particular President George W. Bush, and President Mubarak.