Clinton vows to 'aggressively pursue' those behind the leak

Holder: We will prosecute those responsible for Wikileaks dossier

Republican senator: Make WikiLeaks a 'terrorist organisation'

Ahmadinejad blames U.S. 'mischief' for Wikileaks scandal



At the centre of the storm: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

The Obama administration launched a full-bloodied assault on Wikileaks today just hours after the whistle-blowing website plunged the U.S. into an unprecedented diplomatic crisis. As the White House began a frantic damage limitation exercise , Hillary Clinton said the government was taking 'aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.' In a defiant press conference in Washington, the Secretary of State said: ' This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. 'It is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.' Despite the damage to international relations, Mrs Clinton said she was 'confident' that U.S. partnerships would withstand the diplomatic crisis.

And she joked that one senior U.S. diplomat told her: 'Don't worry, you should see what we say about you.'

Mrs Clinton will be the first American politician to gauge the international reaction to the furore for herself as she is setting off today on a potentially embarrassing tour of central Asia.



She will be at a summit which will also be attended by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and German chancellor Angela Merkel.



And she will end the four-nation tour in Bahrain by delivering a speech to Middle East leaders from many of the countries whose confidences were compromised by the leaks.

Mr Medvedev was portrayed as being the Robin to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s Batman in the Kremlin and his country was described in the leaked cables as being a ‘virtual mafia state.’

Mrs Merkel was portrayed as an unimaginative leader who ‘avoids risk and is rarely creative.’

According to one diplomatic cable, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifah told U.S. general David Petraeus that America must take whatever action was necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.

Two-pronged attack: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder hopes to prosecute those responsible for the WikiLeaks dossier. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today backed Mr Holder, saying the leaks were illegal and an attack on America and the international community

Mrs Clinton has already apologised to Russia and Germany for the leaks, but aides fear it could still be ‘uncomfortable’ for her during the trip.



She said that she and Barack Obama were confident that the diplomatic partnerships they had built around the world would survive the embarrassing disclosures contained in the cables.



Mrs Clinton will be at a summit which will also be attended by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and German chancellor Angela Merkel.

In what appeared to be co-ordinated retaliation by the Obama administration, the Attorney General today launched a criminal investigation into the WikiLeaks dossier - the biggest intelligence leak in history.

Eric Holder pledged to prosecute those behind the publication of the confidential documents.



He said: 'To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law, they will be held responsible.'

On Capitol Hill, the reaction was less guarded.

Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate homeland security committee, said those responsible for the 'outrageous, reckless and despicable' leaks are going to have blood on their hands'. He urged the US to do everything it could to shut down the whistle-blowing website. According to Peter Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House intelligence committee, the documents contained a “whole number of time bombs” and he described the likely breakdown in trust between the US and other countries as a “catastrophic issue”.

Earlier a senior Republican today had urged the Attorney General to designate WikiLeaks a 'foreign terrorist organisation'.

Pete King said the website 'posed a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is damned as 'risk aversive and rarely creative', while Dmitry Medvedev of Russia is a 'pale, hesitant' figure who 'plays Robin to Putin's Batman'.

WHAT AMERICA THINKS OF LEADERS AROUND THE WORLD

French President Nicolas Sarkozy: ‘has a thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style’ and is an ‘emperor with no clothes’ Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: ‘feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader’. He is a ‘physically and politically weak’ leader whose ‘frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest’ Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: ‘plays Robin to Putin’s Batman’ and is ‘pale and hesitant’ Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: an ‘alpha dog’ Chancellor Angela Merkel: ‘avoids risks and is rarely creative’ Iranian President Mahmoud Amhadinejad: like ‘Hitler’ Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi: is ‘strange’ and ‘accompanied by voluptuous blonde Ukranian “nurse”’ Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: governs with ‘a cabal of incompetent advisors’

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il: ‘flabby old chap’ who suffers from ‘physical and psychological trauma’ Afghan president, Hamid Karzai: ‘driven by paranoia’ and ‘an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him’

Zimbabwean tyrant, Robert Mugabe: ‘the crazy old man’

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is said to 'float along on paranoia' and is dismissed as 'an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him'.

Kim Jong-il, the ailing dictator of North Korea is described as a 'flabby old chap' who had suffered 'physical and psychological trauma'.

The White House has slammed the decision to publish the information.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama supports open and accountable government, but the WikiLeaks was being 'reckless and dangerous'.

'By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals,' Gibbs said. 'We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.' Today desperate efforts were being made on both sides of the Atlantic to shore up the special relationship in the wake of the revelations about the U.S. assessment of Britain.

There were no further details of the claims concerning the member of the British royal family or of the requests for intelligence about MPs, expected to emerge in the days ahead.

Criticism of British operations in Afghanistan were however said to be 'devastating', putting the U.S.-UK alliance under strain.

Remarks concerning Mr Cameron, who was said to have been deemed a 'lightweight' by U.S. President Barack Obama when the two first met, were described as 'serious political criticisms'.

The Obama administration told whistleblower WikiLeaks that its release of classified State Department cables will put 'countless' lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardise U.S. relations with its allies.

The State Department released a letter from Harold Koh, its top lawyer, to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his attorney telling them that publication of the documents would be illegal and demanding that they stop it

He said the move would 'place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals', 'place at risk on-going military operations,'and 'place at risk on-going cooperation between countries.'



'They were provided in violation of U.S. law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action,' he said.

Poll Is Wikileaks right to publish documents that could threaten national security? Yes - the public has a right to know No - they are secret for a reason Is Wikileaks right to publish documents that could threaten national security? Yes - the public has a right to know 31508 votes

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The White House said that the disclosure of confidential diplomatic communications would 'deeply impact' U.S. foreign interests. In London, the Foreign Office also condemned the leaks and was forced to insist they would not undermine the special relationship between the U.S. and UK.

'We condemn any unauthorised release of this classified information, just as we condemn leaks of classified material in the UK,' a spokesman said.

'They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the U.S. have said, may put lives at risk. We have a very strong relationship with the U.S. Government. That will continue.'

I taly's foreign minister Franco Frattini said the files would 'blow up the relationship of trust between states', adding: 'It will be the September 11th of world diplomacy.'

The U.S. says it has known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables. No one has been charged with passing them to the website, but suspicion focuses on Welsh-born U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak.

He told a fellow hacker he would come into work with a CD labelled 'Lady Gaga' and downloaded intelligence in 'possibly the largest data spillage in American history'.

Manning is said to have told a fellow hacker: 'Information should be free. It belongs in the public domain.'

Intended to be read by officials in Washington up to the level of the Secretary of State, the cables are generally drafted by the ambassador or subordinates.

They are marked 'Sipidis' - secret internet protocol distribution - and are classified at various levels. The most sensitive are marked 'SECRET NOFORN' [no foreigners].

Wikileaks claimed last night it had come under attack from a computer-hacking operation ahead of the release of secret U.S. documents.

'We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack,' it said on its Twitter feed. Hillary Clinton's orders to U.S. diplomats to spy on UN Secret spy mission: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton ordered American officials to spy on high ranking UN diplomats, including British representatives.

Top secret cables revealed that Mrs Clinton, the Secretary of State, even ordered diplomats to obtain DNA data – including iris scans and fingerprints - as well as credit card and frequent flier numbers.

All permanent members of the security council – including Russia, China, France and the UK – were targeted by the secret spying mission, as well as the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon.

Work schedules, email addresses, fax numbers, website identifiers and mobile numbers were also demanded by Washington.

The US also wanted ‘biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives’.

The request could break international law and threatens to derail any trust between the US and other powerful nations.

Requests for IT related information – such as details of passwords, personal encryption keys and network upgrades - could also raise suspicions that the US was preparing to mount a hacking operation.

It is set to lead to international calls for Mrs Clinton to resign.

MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS: ARAB CALLS FOR U.S. TO ATTACK IRAN

Arab leaders urged the U.S. to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons programme. Saudi Arabia 'frequently exhorted' Washington to launch an air strike against the regime in Tehran, according to leaked documents. In a report of a 2008 meeting with U.S. General David Petraeus, the Saudi ambassador to Washington said King Abdullah wanted the White House 'to cut the head off the snake' before Iran developed nuclear weapons and threatened its neighbours in the Middle East. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was compared to Hitler in the cables The secret document revealed that the Saudis demanded 'severe U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending'. It added that 'the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out'. King Abdullah was backed by the King of Bahrain who warned in a cable: 'The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.' And the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed, told the U.S. that he believed that Iran's tyrannical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 'going to take us to war'. The revelations will reverberate around the world and are likely to ratchet up tension in the Middle East. The statements will bolster the case of Israeli and U.S. hawks who believe an attack against Iran will be necessary during the near future. But they will also provoke President Ahmadinejad - referred to in one missive as 'Hitler' - to press on with his nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed earlier this year that Iran had produced its first small batch of higher-grade enriched uranium - stoking fears it was secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons capacity. The cables also included a U.S. assessment that Iran was attempting to adapt rockets from North Korea for use as long-range ballistic missiles that could strike capitals in Western European.

The fishing expedition was ordered by Mrs Clinton in July 2009, but followed similar demands made by her predecessor, Condoleeza Rice.



Mrs Clinton called for biometric details ‘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’.