What the WikiLeaks cables say about NZ

Published: 12:26PM Monday December 20, 2010 Source: ONE News/NZPA

The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has in the past month published a trove of 250,000 US diplomatic cables, many including sensitive and classified information on New Zealand.

Below is some of the more significant information released in the leaked cables concerning New Zealand.

Defence staff leaks

Senior Defence Ministry staff told the United States Embassy that former Prime Minister Helen Clark had decided to send soldiers to Iraq to stop Fonterra losing lucrative Oil for Food contracts.

One of hundreds of leaked diplomatic cables, the information from the US Embassy in Wellington said the identities of the unnamed defence staff should be "strictly protected", after they briefed embassy staff on a cabinet meeting in which Clark's government did an about turn on sending troops to Iraq.

"Senior MOD officials (strictly protect) tell us it was not until Finance Minister Michael Cullen pointed out in a subsequent cabinet meeting that New Zealand's absence from Iraq might cost NZ dairy conglomerate Fonterra the lucrative dairy supply contract it enjoyed under the United Nations Oil for Food program," the cable said.

It said the Prime Minister "found a face-saving compromise" by sending non-combat engineers to be embedded with British forces.

Another cable from 2005 said the embassy had no information to indicate any Muslim terrorist cell was operating in New Zealand but that police were monitoring some New Zealand Muslims who may have fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia and possibly Chechnya.

Hushed up

The US government quietly approved eight new areas for military co-operation with New Zealand in 2007.

The cables give some insights into the dramatic about-face by the Americans towards New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy between 2005 to 2007.

Their revelations are all the more important because of the US' insistence on no fanfare around closer defence relation.

One of the more recent cables shows the US was anxious that Prime Minister John Key did not have a "media strategy" in place on the US review of the bilateral military relationship - the implication being that the US did not expect him to reveal any details and that he would fob off any questions about it.

Cables also point to the decision by the US government in 2007 approving eight areas of co-operation between the two countries.

None of the areas of co-operation in themselves were top secret but the fact that such a decision on military co-operation had been made at all would have been more than noteworthy.

Time not 'ripe' for US trade deal

A cable revealed that the government understands the time isn't "ripe" for a free trade deal with the United States .

In a memo just last year United States deputy chief of mission Robert Clarke wrote that Trade Minister Tim Groser discussed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multi-country trade deal which the US has agreed to negotiate into.

"(Mr Groser) emphasised he understood that the time was not yet ripe for Washington to move forward. He added that he had cautioned his Vietnamese and Peruvian counterparts that it would be 'foolish and even counterproductive' to apply diplomatic pressure on the USG (United States Government) in an attempt to accelerate the time schedule beyond that dictated by the White House's internal process."

The memo said Groser expressed his confidence that the US administration wanted to progress multilateral trade at the right time.

"However, he said it is essential for the United States to eventually join the TPP for the agreement to be useful - 'a TPP without the US is like a meal of steak and potatoes without the meat dish'."

In March 2006 then US Ambassador William McCormick talks about how Goff, then Trade Minister, implied that while New Zealand wanted a FTA with the US it probably wouldn't get one.

"It is perhaps the first time that the government has shared with the public a realistic appraisal of its chance for FTA talks with Washington."

The memo says the FTA was almost more important diplomatically than economically as failure to achieve one reflected on the government. It also says a trade economist said then Prime Minister Helen Clark had an "innate discomfort" with free trade as she preferred government interventionist approaches to the economy.

In September the same year a memo details former New Zealand Ambassador to the US John Wood's comments criticising how the government had handled the trade issue and the nuclear row which led to the ANZUS split.

NZ asked to take US prisoners

A 2005 cable from the US Embassy in Wellington shows the US wanted to send a group of Guantanamo Bay inmates to New Zealand.

The classified cable, sent on August 31 2005, reveals the US wanted to transfer Uighur refugees, from Central Asia and the Xinjiang province in western China, to New Zealand.

The US has had a detention centre for terror suspects at its Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba since 2002.

Dalai Lama meeting

Prime Minister John Key assured Chinese premier Wen Jiabao no ministers would meet the Dalai Lama - despite a pre-election commitment to hold a meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, cables between Wellington and Washington show.

The cables from the United States embassy in Wellington reveal that in April last year, Key told the Chinese premier neither he nor his Cabinet would meet the Dalai Lama when he visited New Zealand last December.

That was despite give a pre-election commitment to Friends of Tibet chairman Thuten Kesan that he would meet the exiled leader, and despite Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully telling Parliament there was no boycott.

However, a cable from Wellington to Washington quoted Ministry of Foreign Affairs diplomat Grahame Morton as saying: "PM Key had earlier conversed with Premier Wen Jiabao concerning the Dalai Lama's December 4-7 visit to Auckland, saying that neither he nor any of his ministers would meet with the Dalai Lama.

"Morton said the Chinese 'obviously registered' this. Morton added that the PM ... made this decision without any consultation, but others in the government are still obliged to respect it."

Clinton's gaffe

Leaked United States diplomatic cables explain why officials appear to have been caught on the hop last year when American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the resumption of intelligence sharing between the two countries - the deal was supposed to be top secret.

The cables obtained by The Sunday Star Times confirmed that it had been the intention of both countries to keep the news that intelligence collaboration had been "fully restored" secret. A classified American embassy cable sent to Clinton on January 6 warned her not to acknowledge the position in public ahead of a visit to New Zealand, which was later postponed.

But Clinton had, in fact, already lifted the lid on the news, announcing the decision to restore intelligence sharing at a press conference with Foreign Minister Murray McCully in Washington in October last year.

New Zealand's government refused to comment at the time despite Clinton labelling the decision to resume intelligence sharing cooperation as "very significant".

Anti-nuclear stance

A 2004 cable between Washington and Wellington said that the country's anti-nuclear stance was influenced as much by wanting to cut defence costs as by ideology.

It was headed "What we could not say in the mission programme plan", the Dominion Post reported.

"We have been told by retired government of New Zealand officials who were in senior positions in the Lange government at the time the anti-nuclear policy was instituted that one of the considerations favouring the policy was that it would lead to New Zealand withdrawing or being pushed out of Anzus, thereby lessening the country's defence spending requirements at a time of fiscal and economic crisis," the cable from the United States embassy in Wellington says.

New Zealand adopted nuclear-free legislation in 1984 when David Lange's Labour government swept into power - effectively blocking visits by US warships.

The cable also notes an attempt by the Labour government of the 2000s to move away from the traditional American and Australian influence in the Pacific by favouring China and France.

"In laying groundwork for the visit of Chinese President Hu, the Clark government privately mooted that it was necessary for New Zealand to work more closely with other powers such as China and France to curtail US and Australian influence in the region," it said.

"During the visit of the Chinese Vice-Minister for Trade, New Zealand Trade Minister Jim Sutton publicly claimed that China was New Zealand's most important and valued trading partner, a claim that left Australian officials here scratching their heads in wonder."

New Zealand's defence spending was also criticised as being too inadequate to cover even "replacement costs for basic coastal defence hardware" and the defence force as having not enough troops to for effective peacekeeping operations.

Spying on Fiji

New Zealand's intelligence agencies spied on Fiji's military before and after the 2006 coup, cables reveal.

NZ used signals intelligence to listen in to Fijian mobile phone calls. The cable does not detail what information was intercepted.

It said that former Prime Minister Helen Clark realised after the coup that New Zealand had become "too reliant" on Australia for intelligence.

Auckland beaches labelled vital

The Southern Cross undersea cable landings at two Auckland beaches were labelled critical infrastructure and key resources by the United States government, a cable released in early December revealed.

They are the landings for the fibre optic link at Whenuapai and Takapuna.

The memo from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was titled critical foreign dependencies (critical infrastructure and key resources located abroad) dated February 18 last year and is classified secret.

It said it is not for internet distribution.

Concern over Michael Moore film

Concern was raised about a New Zealand government minister attending the screening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a cable revealed.

Moore's 2004 documentary film looked critically at George W Bush's presidency and the war on terror.

He commented about the New Zealand cable on a television show.

The 2004 cable reveals US deputy chief of mission to New Zealand David Burnett called Environment Minister Marian Hobbs, concerned she was hosting an event where Moore's film would be screened and he also rang Prime Minister Helen Clark about it.

Moore said that level of micro-managing raised questions about raised questions about the reach and influence of the United States.

Hobbs, who retired from politics in 2008, told the Guardian newspaper she did not recall the event.

Bin Laden's Killing Could Alter Af-Pak, Other Policies

By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON, May 2, 2011 (IPS) - Sunday's killing of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden by a small, helicopter-borne team of U.S. Navy Seals could result in significant impacts on U.S. relations and strategy both in Pakistan, where the raid was carried out, and neighbouring Afghanistan, where it was launched, according to policy experts here.

Analysts agreed that the operation, which targeted a compound in a wealthy suburb of Islamabad without prior consultation with Pakistani officials, will likely worsen already-fraught ties with that country.

They also agreed that the operation's success offers President Barack Obama a chance to more fully embrace a counterterrorist (CT) strategy in Afghanistan, as opposed to the more ambitious counterinsurgency (COIN) and nation-building strategy pursued by the outgoing commander there, Army Gen. David Petraeus. If so, the 100,000 troops currently deployed there could be drawn down more quickly than has been anticipated.

Broadly hailed as a major victory for Washington in its nearly decade-long pursuit of al Qaeda's leadership, most analysts here also agreed that bin Laden's death could hasten the demise of al Qaeda itself, even as threats posed by its affiliates in the Islamic world are likely to persist for some time.

"With his demise, …it will take a long time for anyone to reclaim bin Laden's influence in the salafi terrorist circles, regardless of who and how quickly someone nominally replaces him at the head of al Qaeda," according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a South Asia specialist at theBrookings Institution, who described his status and prestige among violent Islamists as "almost mythical".

"Bin Laden was the only al-Qaeda figure able to command the attention of a mainstream Arab audience," wrote Marc Lynch, an Arab public opinion expert at George Washington University, on his foreignpolicy.com blog Monday.

"He remained uniquely charismatic and able to frame al-Qaeda's narrative in ways which resonated with a broader Arab and Muslim audience," according to Lynch, who predicted that his death will only briefly distract the Arab media's attention from the popular uprisings that have both dominated the region over the past several months and further marginalised al Qaeda's appeal for violent resistance against the U.S. and the West.

Indeed, bin Laden's killing could actually give renewed momentum to the so-called "Arab Spring", according to Christopher Davidson, a Gulf expert at Britain's Durham University.

While bin Laden himself had become "little more than a figurehead" in recent years, "the impact of his death on authoritarian regimes in Middle Eastern and other Islamic countries will be significant, as he served an important and valuable role as a 'bogeyman' that could be wheeled out to justify …why brutal crackdowns and limits on political expression were often needed," he said.

For now, however, the biggest foreign policy implications of bin Laden's killing – and the completely unilateral manner in which it was carried out – appear to lie with Pakistan.

That bin Laden had been living for some time – possibly as many as five years – in an unusually large and heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad, a community 50 kms from Islamabad whose residents include a disproportionate number of retired senior military officers, confirmed to most analysts that at least some sectors of Pakistan's government provided effective safe haven for Washington's "Public Enemy Number One".

"We are very concerned that he was inside of Pakistan," one senior administration official told reporters in a telephone conference call Sunday night immediately after Obama announced bin Laden's death.

Public charges by senior U.S. government and military officials that Islamabad was not cooperating fully with Washington's counterterrorism efforts had already become increasingly bold in the weeks leading up to Sunday's raid. And despite assurances by both sides Monday that they remain close allies, the action seems certain to worsen relations, according to virtually all analysts here.

"It strains credulity to say that Pakistani officials did not know what was going on in the suburbs of Islamabad," said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations(CFR), in a teleconference with reporters Monday.

"It suggests to me that this long-fraught and difficult relationship will be entering yet another difficult phase moving forward," he said, suggesting that Washington will find it hard to justify continued substantial aid to Islamabad – currently appropriated at 1.5 billion dollars and over one billion dollars a year in non- military and military aid, respectively – unless confidence can be restored.

"Pakistan essentially has a choice. It either partners with the United States much more completely, or it has to be prepared for the United States to act independently," according to Haass, who held senior policy positions in both the George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations.

"This will definitely worsen our relations with Pakistan," said Col. Pat Lang (ret.), who served as the top Mideast and South Asia officer at the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). "But I don't see that we can do anything about it; it's the Pakistanis that are moving away from us and toward China, and that process will continue."

Lang also noted that the success of the cross-border strike against bin Laden may also provide an opportunity for Obama to reduce his commitment to a "nation-building" COIN strategy in Afghanistan in favour of a CT strategy that would require many fewer troops on the ground.

That assessment was echoed by Haass, who has been critical of the COIN strategy and its costs in blood and treasure in Afghanistan since Obama agreed with Petraeus in November 2009 to increase U.S. troop strength to 100,000 by late 2010.

"This will very much play into a growing debate as we move towards Jul. 1 about the proper trajectory of U.S. policy in Afghanistan in general and more specifically the rate of drawdown of U.S. forces," he said.

Obama pledged in November 2009 to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan as of Jul. 1, 2011, but Petraeus has reportedly argued for only a nominal reduction.

"I am hopeful that this provides closure to the American public for 9/11, and that closure provides some form of political backbone for members of Congress to become more engaged in the debate on the war," said Matthew Hoh, director of the Afghanistan Study Group, who was deployed to Afghanistan as a marine captain and then as a State Department official.

"I'm also hopeful it will provide political space to President Obama to allow him to pursue a serious de-escalation of the war," he added.

Patrick Cronin, a national security expert at the Center for a New American Security, was even more emphatic in terms of the potential strategic importance of the moment.

"The United States needs to further pivot from counterinsurgency, which feeds the perception of occupation, to counterterrorism, which requires a sharper discrimination between al Qaeda and the Taliban," he said.

But COIN advocates warned against such a move. Max Boot, a neo- conservative who has often given public voice to Petraeus's private views, worried Monday that "many Americans may decide that the threat from al-Qaeda is (now) gone and that we can afford to draw down in Afghanistan."

Noting the continued existence in the region of a number of "Islamist terrorist groups", he argued on the CFR website that a "comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan is still vital to prevent that country from falling to Osama bin Laden's fellow travellers."

Brookings' Felbab-Brown, meanwhile, argued that bin Laden's death could enhance chances for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"Despite their separate structures and al Qaeda's limited influence over the Taliban's decision-making, bin Laden likely was a significant force against the Taliban engaging in strategic negotiations – not the least because the Taliban's disavowal of al Qaeda has been a critical precondition and/or the essential desired outcome of such negotiations," she wrote on the Brookings' website.

"Bin Laden's demise may create a more permissive environment for Taliban Central to make such a commitment, saying that whatever new leadership emerges after bin Laden's death is not the same old al Qaeda, with which the Taliban has not been willing to break for over 15 years." 


*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.