World braced for WikiLeaks flood of secrets
Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange attends a meeting between the US State Department and NGOs on the sideline of the first review of the United States by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council at the UN Office in Geneva on November 5, 2010. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI
WASHINGTON, Sunday
The whistle-blower website WikiLeaks was hours away from releasing millions of confidential US diplomatic cables on Sunday as governments braced for the potential fallout.
Late on Sunday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the looming release would cover “every major issue” in the world today.
“The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world,” he told reporters in Jordan by video link when asked if the new leaks again focused on US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Assange told the conference of investigative journalists that he was speaking to them by video link because “Jordan’s not the best place to be with the CIA on your tail.” It was unclear from where he was speaking.
Mr Assange put the number of documents to be released at more than a quarter of a million.
“Over this last month much of my energy and activities have been spent preparing for the upcoming release of a diplomatic history of the United States,” he said.
“Over 250,000 classified cables from US embassies all around the world, and we can see already in the past week or so that the United States has made movements to try to disarm the effect that this could have,” Assange said.
US diplomats worked through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend hoping to stave off anger over the cables that also target Australia, Britain, Canada, Israel and Turkey.
