WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the massive WikiLeaks disclosures today as “an attack on the international community” — and summed up the fiasco by saying that a foreign official told her: “Don’t worry, you should see what we say about you.”
In her first public comments since the weekend release of the classified State Department cables, Clinton said that WikiLeaks acted illegally in posting the material.
The Obama administration was “aggressively pursuing” those responsible for the leak, she added.
But Clinton said she was “confident” that US partnerships would withstand the challenges posed by the latest revelations.
WIKILEAKS DOCS REVEAL US HIDDEN ACTIONS
“There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people,” Clinton said. “There is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends.”
Appearing in the Treaty Room at the US State Department, Clinton made her comments one day after WikiLeaks’ latest cache of leaked documents was posted to the Internet and released by five major newspapers in four different languages.
“This disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests — it is an attack on the international community,” she said.
Clinton is set to begin the delicate diplomatic mending shortly, as she departs Monday on a long-planned trip to the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.
Among the confidential information exposed were details of Saudi Arabian efforts to encourage Washington, D.C., to attack Iran in order to stop the country from pursuing nuclear weapons.
Clinton’s comments came as the White House ordered a government-wide review of how agencies safeguard sensitive information.
Attorney General Eric Holder said that there is an “active and ongoing criminal investigation” into the release of the classified documents and that the feds will prosecute anyone found responsible.
“To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law, they will be held accountable,” Holder said, adding that the disclosure of the documents was a criminal offense.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs joined the chorus of Obama administration officials Monday condemning the disclosure of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables calling the move a “serious violation of the law” that left President Obama “not pleased.”
“The president was — as an understatement — not pleased with this information going public,” Gibbs said of the release of the classified cables.
“Obviously there is an ongoing criminal investigation about the stealing of and dissemination of classified and sensitive information,” Gibbs added during the daily press briefing at the White House, emphasizing that the decision to air the secret information was against the law.
Meanwhile, a new report from the leaked documents says Britain’s Prince Andrew gave an “astonishingly candid” performance at an official lunch in Kyrgyzstan that included scathing attacks on British anti-corruption investigators, journalists and the French, The Guardian newspaper reported.
The secret cable from Tatiana Gfoeller, US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, said the prince led a discussion at the 2008 luncheon in the capital Bishek that “verged on the rude.”
According to The Guardian, one of several journalistic sites to receive the cables from WikiLeaks, Andrew, who is a special UK trade representative, attacked Britain’s corruption investigators in the Serious Fraud Office for what he called “idiocy.”
He also denounced Guardian reporters investigating bribery as “those [expletive] journalists … who poke their noses everywhere and (presumably) make it harder for British businessmen to do business.”
And in an exchange with British and Canadian businessmen during the lunch at a hotel in the capital, the cable said, Andrew listened when “one businessman said that doing business here is ‘like doing business in the Yukon’ in the 19th century, ie only those willing to participate in local corrupt practices are able to make any money … At this point the Duke of York laughed uproariously, saying that: ‘All of this sounds exactly like France.'”
The Guardian also quoted the ambassador as saying Andrew “reacted with almost neuralgic patriotism whenever any comparison between the US and UK came up. For example, one British businessman noted that despite the ‘overwhelming might of the American economy compared to ours’ the amount of American and British investment in Kyrgyzstan was similar.
Snapped the duke: ‘No surprise there. The Americans don’t understand geography. Never have. In the UK, we have the best geography teachers in the world!'”
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the leaked documents Monday, according to Sky News.
The director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, Jacob Lew, said in ordering the agency-wide assessment Monday that the disclosures are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
In another revelation, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said revelations that he gives and attends “wild parties,” as claimed in secret US diplomatic cables published by the WikiLeaks website, are false, Italy’s ANSA News Agency reported.
“I don’t frequent these so-called ‘wild parties’ and I don’t even know what they are,” the premier said, branding the content of the WikiLeaks dossiers “revelations from third-or fourth-level functionaries.”
“Once a month I give dinners in my homes where everything happens in a correct, dignified and elegant way,” he said.
Berlusconi also vigorously denied allegations by a prostitute who attended his parties who said under-age girls were present and that sex was involved.
Publication of the secret memos and documents made public by the online whistle-blower WikiLeaks Sunday amplified widespread global alarm about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It also unveiled occasional U.S. pressure tactics aimed at hot spots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea. The leaks disclosed bluntly candid impressions from both diplomats and other world leaders about America’s allies and foes.
It was, said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, the “Sept. 11 of world diplomacy.”
Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called the release very damaging.
“The catastrophic issue here is just a breakdown in trust,” he said Monday, adding that many other countries — allies and foes alike — are likely to ask, ‘Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?’ “
The encrypted e-mails and other documents unearthed new revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing U.S., Israeli and Arab world fears of Iran’s growing nuclear program, American concerns about Pakistan’s atomic arsenal and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.
None of the disclosures appeared particularly explosive, but their publication could become problems for the officials concerned and for any secret initiatives they had preferred to keep quiet. The massive release of material intended for diplomatic eyes only is sure to ruffle feathers in foreign capitals, a certainty that already prompted U.S. diplomats to scramble in recent days to shore up relations with key allies in advance of the leaks.
The documents published by The New York Times, France’s Le Monde, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, German magazine Der Spiegel and others laid out the behind-the-scenes conduct of Washington’s international relations, shrouded in public by platitudes, smiles and handshakes at photo sessions among senior officials.
With AP and Newscore