A cobbled-together Christchurch pipe band made it into the WikiLeaks "cablegate" documents after playing a concert for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

WikiLeaks this morning published 250,000 State Department cables. Among them are 1490 cables from American staff at the US Embassy in Wellington and 14 cables from the US Consul in Auckland.

Cables sent by US diplomats in Wellington also reveal American concern around the activities of New Zealand shell companies in North Korean arms trading.

WikiLeaks has published 1.6 gigabytes of text files according to the Guardian website.



Some of the cables provide an inside peek at US diplomatic views and actions in North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and elsewhere.



Revelations in the cables include:



- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah pressed the US to invade Iran and destroy its nuclear programme;



- China had hacked computers of the US government and other western allies;



- The US and South Korean officials discussed the prospects for a unified Korea should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode.



Websites carrying the data have crashed under heavy traffic this morning.

PIPERS FOR GADDAFI: 'IT WAS A MUSICAL EVENT, NOT A POLITICAL ONE'



Members of the "Pipes and Drums of Christchurch City" travelled to the north African country last year at the ruler's request, to became part of the three-day spectacle held to mark his 40th anniversary in power.



According to the US Ambassador in Tripoli, Gene Cretz, the party provided "rare insights into Gaddafi's inner circle and personal proclivities."



Gaddafi, who took over Libya's leadership in a coup in 1969, is a controversial figure world wide, as much for his choice of an all-female bodyguard as for his political activities.



Cretz's "Not for Foreign Eyes" cable sent back to Washington said the 40th anniversary "included performances by dance troupes from Ukraine, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco, as well as musical performances by bands from Mexico, Russia, New Zealand, and a number of other nations."



A check of news archives showed the band was a group of 60 pipers and drummers "cobbled together" from around the South Island, who were flown, all-expenses paid, to perform a military tattoo.



Band member Alan Carlyle, who plays the side drum, said he couldn't believe their trip had been reported on.



"It was a musical event, not a political one. Although there was a lot of political capital made out of it."



Carlyle said the political interested stemmed from the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi just a "week or so" before they left for Libya.



"There was suggestion that then, because we were going to perform, Scotland and our pipe band supported the Libyan government. We were just there to play music," Carlyle said.



While in Libya, the band gave three performances. Because the traditional Scottish outfits were heavy woollen affairs, their tattoo was scheduled for midnight, the coolest part of the day in a country that averaged about 40 degrees Celsius in late summer.



The band's performance didn't make a second mention in the Ambassador's dispatch, however, unlike the flamenco dancers.



Cretz reported: "[Gaddafi] appeared particularly enthralled by Tuareg horse racing during two of the events, clapping and smiling throughout the races. The flamenco dancers that participated in his celebratory events appeared to spark a similar interest, as [Gaddafi] decided to stop in Seville (for a "personal trip" according to the Spanish Ambassador here) on his way back to Libya from Venezuela specifically to attend a flamenco dance performance. "



He also reported that Gaddafi "appears to have an intense dislike or fear of staying on upper floors, reportedly prefers not to fly over water... His recent travel may also suggest a diminished dependence on his legendary female guard force, as only one woman bodyguard accompanied him to New York."



WikiLeaks has published 1.6 gigabytes of text files according to the Guardian website.



Among them are 1490 cables from American staff at the US Embassy in Wellington and 14 cables from the US Consul in Auckland. The full text of diplomatic cables sent between the United States and Wellington are still unpublished.

NZ CABLES

Diplomats in Washington and Wellington exchanged 69 cables on the subject of terrorists and terrorism and 169 on security over six years of exchanges released today.



The full text of diplomatic cables sent between the United States and Wellington are still unpublished, but an analysis suggests discussion about other countries and travel details are common themes.

The headline details show the most leaked cables between Wellington and Washington in 2006 (448 cables) and 2007 (384 cables). There are only 119 cables from 2009 and just 10 from the first two months of this year.



Codes on the New Zealand cable titles show 574 mentions of "PREL", which means external political relations. Across all of the leaked cables, there are more than 145,000 with this tag.



There are 446 tagged on travel (OTRA); 409 on internal government affairs (PGOV) and 211 on foreign trade (ETRD). Security (ASEC) gets 169 tags and terrorists and terrorism 69. Arms control and disarmament (PARM) is tagged in 67 cables.

On February 25 this year, the US Embassy in Wellington sent four cables to Washington.

Among the coded headings out of Wellington are cables directed to "Military and Defense Arrangement" and "Military Nuclear Applications"

NORTH KOREA REFERENCE



One of the codes in the cables on that day refers to North Korea.



In December last year SP Trading of Queen Street charted a Russian jet to fly arms from North Korea to Iran. It was seized in Bangkok.



The day before the US Embassy cabled Washington, Stuff reported that the creator of the shell companies, including SP Trading, had moved into a hotel in Auckland.



Another cable, sent on February 2, dealt with a visit of an important person. In January US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled her visit to Auckland so that she could visit earthquake devastated Haiti.

Of the 1490 cables sent from the Wellington embassy, 12 were coded "Secret - not for foreigners" - the highest security classification possible.



The 12 messages were sent between 2000 and 2008, according to the data released by the German publication Der Spiegel.



Der Spiegel said there were also 20 messages coded with the second-highest security classification "secret", and 53 coded "confidential - not for foreigners", the third-highest classification.



Wellington's US Embassy sent a similar number of the secret cables to the Consulate in Lagos, the Embassy in Pretoria and the Embassy in Berlin. It sent about half the number of cables as the Embassies of Beijing, Tel Aviv and Jakarta.



Those messages peaked in 2006.

Prime Minister John Key said he had been given an indication of the contents of some of the cables relating to New Zealand and sent from the US embassy in Wellington, but he declined to reveal what they said.



However, he said some were sure to contain some material that would cause red faces.



"We don't know all of the details in them, but there's bound to be one or two comments in there that might lead to embarrassment at most, but nothing more serious than that.



"I think it's important to understand that every embassy and every high commission around the world plays a role in gathering information ... as they understand it or perceive it and then reporting back to the mothership, if you like. There's always a bit of colour and artistic license about that so, certainly, I'm sure that some of those cables will cause agitation in some of the centres they've been sent from and a little bit of embarrassment, but take it all with a grain of salt."



He acknowledged that some of the cables from Wellington were from the time he was elected prime minister, but said he wasn't worried about what they might say about him.

"I'm sure I'd be glowing."

PENTAGON CONDEMNS 'RECKLESS' DUMP



The Pentagon immediately condemned WikiLeaks' "reckless" dump of classified documents and said it was taking steps to bolster security of US military networks.



"The (Defence) Department has undertaken a series of actions to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.



The White House said the leak of the diplomatic cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders and may put at risk the lives of named individuals living "under oppressive regimes."



The US Government, which was informed in advance of the contents, has contacted governments around the world, including in Russia, Europe and the Middle East, to try to limit any damage.



WikiLeaks had reported earlier on Sunday (Monday NZT) that its website was under attack, but said later that media outlets would publish some of the classified documents it had released even if the group's website crashed.

MAJOR REVELATIONS (*reported by the The New York Times)

Here is a look at some of the main substantive revelations in the cables:



- China's Politburo directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the US Embassy in January, as part of a computer sabotage campaign carried out by government operatives, private experts and internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into US government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.



- King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme and is reported to have advised Washington to "cut off the head of the snake" while there was still time.



- US and South Korean officials discussed the prospects for a unified Korea should the North's economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans considered commercial inducements to China to "help salve" Chinese concerns about living with a reunified Korea that is in a "benign alliance" with Washington, according to the American ambassador to Seoul.



- Since 2007, the United States has mounted a secret and so far unsuccessful effort to remove highly enriched uranium from a Pakistani research reactor out of fear it could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device.



- Iran has obtained sophisticated missiles from North Korea capable of hitting western Europe, and the United States is concerned Iran is using those rockets as "building blocks" to build longer-range missiles. The advanced missiles are much more powerful than anything US officials have publicly acknowledged Iran has in its arsenal.



- When Afghanistan's vice president, Ahmed Zia Massoud, visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered he was carrying $52 million in cash that a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul said he "was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money's origin or destination." He denied taking the money out of Afghanistan.



- American diplomats have bargained with other countries to help empty the Guantanamo Bay prison by resettling detainees. Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Barack Obama, and Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees. In another case, accepting more prisoners was described as "a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe," a cable said.



- Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar was the "worst in the region" in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar's security service was "hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the US and provoking reprisals," the cable said.



- The United States has failed to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel, the cables said. One week after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official he would not send "new" arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained it had information that Syria was giving the group increasingly sophisticated weapons.

* The 'major revelations' section of this story was supplied by Reuters. Yesterday, however, Stuff.co.nz failed to carry Reuters' attribution to the NY Times. This has now been corrected.

- with Reuters