Will WikiLeaks unravel the American 'secret government'?

[Magda Hassan]

How many leaks does it take to become a threat to humanity?

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Thursday, December 9, 2010 - 4:32 PM Share



While the demonization of Julian Assange continues apace, the following thought occurred to me (it probably occurred to you already). Suppose a reporter like David Sanger or Helene Cooper of the New York Times had been given a confidential diplomatic cable by a disgruntled government employee (or "unnamed senior official"). Suppose it was one of the juicier cables recently released by Wikileaks. Suppose further that Sanger or Cooper had written a story based on that leaked information, and then put the text of the cable up on the Times website so that readers could see for themselves that the story was based on accurate information. Would anyone be condemning them? I doubt it. Whoever actually leaked the cable might be prosecuted or condemned, but the journalists who published the material would probably be praised, and their colleagues would just be jealous that somebody else got a juicy scoop.
So if one leaked cable is just normal media fodder, how about two or three? What about a dozen? What's the magic number of leaks that turns someone from an enterprising journalist into the Greatest Threat to our foreign policy since Daniel Ellsberg? In fact, hardly anyone seems to be criticizing the Times or Guardian for having a field day with the materials that Wikileaks provided to them (which is still just a small fraction of the total it says it has), and nobody seems to hounding the editors of these publications or scouring the penal code to find some way to prosecute them.
I don't know if the sex crime charges against Assange in Sweden have any merit, and I have no idea what sort of person he really is (see Robert Wright here for a thoughtful reflection on the latter issue). I also find it interesting that the overwrought U.S. reaction to the whole business seems to be reinforcing various anti-American stereotypes. But the more I think about it, the less obvious it is to me why the man is being pilloried for doing wholesale what establishment journalists do on a retail basis all the time.

I agree that some journalist do use leaks which become the basis of their story but much of this story doesn't work for me. There have been plenty of people who have leaked stuff to a journalist and then said journalist does nothing with it. Also there are plenty of journalists who've had the leaks and the story but higher up the food chain don't want to touch it or it gets mangled beyond recognition. The concentration of the MSM has resulted in a much more managed and packaged media. Often more in common with PR than journalism. The guy writing this story seems to think that the media is 'free'. It isn't really and that is why Wikileaks is such a threat to them. It is not in their control even if they use it themselves for their own purposes. If the NYT and other media had been doing their job to tell the real news there would be no need to invent Wikileaks and it would be the NYT and other media in the firing line if they were really talking truth to power or showing the emperor has no clothes.

[Ed Jewett]

December 9. Consider the myth of Julian Assange. We don't know the reality. Maybe he's a megalomaniac, a creepy guy who sneaks condoms off during sex, and he hasn't done any of the real work for WikiLeaks, which anyway is being played by some intelligence agency. Or not. But myth doesn't care. Here's a reddit thread about how Assange is like a James Bond villain. My favorite comment:
Oh man this remind me of 'Leak hard 2' movie! The bad guy is a web terrorist that hold himself in nuclear bunker. He is brainwashing net people into anarchist and try to topple the capitalism! Not only that, he also hire pirate and b-tard to guard his base! I still remember the last scene where the terrorist hold a remote that will spread poisonus data file to internet. To bad i dont remember the ending......
And over email, Anton writes:
Not only are Assange and Wikileaks doing great stuff for the world, but they are also real-life comic book characters. Assange is a bleached-hair hacker who brazenly attacks the global power structure, stashes computer servers in former bomb shelters, has a network of global contacts...
Also, he has a really cool name. Suppose the leaks continue, and the leaks are popularly seen to contribute to America's decline as a world power. How will they think of Julian Assange in 100 years, or 1000 years? His myth has the potential to be like Robin Hood, if Robin Hood had brought down the Roman Empire. Or he might fade into the background as the Empire takes even bigger blows from somewhere else.

If they make a movie about Assange, the most interesting character will be Obama. He also wanted to change the world by empowering people from the bottom up, but his fatal mistake was working within the system. It's popular to blame Obama personally for the decisions that pass through his office, but I think a file clerk has more autonomy, more room to bend the job description, than the president of the United States. The farther you go up the hierarchy, the more you must obey the logic of the hierarchy itself. I wonder if Obama fantasizes about being Assange, and yet, is required to crush him.


http://ranprieur.com/

[Ed Jewett]

From http://ricefarmer.blogspot.com/2010/12/new...er-10-2010.html

- Intelligence/security/internet --

WikiLeaks Being Used to Justify "Patriot Act" Legislation For Internet

From WikiLeaks to #ukuncut, Twitter gets political

Pro-WikiLeaks cyber army gains strength; thousands join DDoS attacks
*The implications of this are much bigger than WikiLeaks.

[Peter Lemkin]

Australia: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Secret Ties Between Rudd Coup Plotters and US Embassy

by Patrick O’Connor



Global Research, December 9, 2010
World Socialist Web Site

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The latest batch of the several hundred leaked US diplomatic cables concerning Australia, provided by WikiLeaks to the Fairfax company’s Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, provide further extraordinary evidence of Washington’s direct involvement in the anti-democratic coup against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last June.
Key coup plotters in the Labor Party and trade unions—including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes—secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the leadership. As early as June 2008, the American ambassador identified Julia Gillard as the “front-runner” to replace Rudd. In October 2009, i.e., eight months before Gillard was installed in unprecedented circumstances, Mark Arbib informed American officials of emerging leadership tensions. The Australian people, on the other hand, were kept entirely in the dark about any differences between the prime minister and his colleagues until after Rudd was ousted.
Gillard was described, some two years before the coup, by US diplomatic officials as the “rising star” within the Labor government. They made various enquiries into Gillard’s foreign policy sympathies, receiving assurances from government sources that her origins in the party’s “left” faction had no policy significance whatsoever. Arbib told the embassy that Gillard was “one of the most pragmatic politicians in the ALP”; Victorian senator David Feeney added that “there is no longer any intellectual integrity in the factions” and that “there is no major policy issue on which he, a Right factional leader, differs from Gillard”. When embassy officials checked on Gillard with Paul Howes, Australian Workers Union boss and subsequent anti-Rudd coup plotter, observing that “ALP politicians from the Left, no matter how capable, do not become party leader,” he responded immediately: “but she votes with the Right’.”
The Sydney Morning Herald and Age have published parts of the latest material in excerpted form, ahead of their full public release expected in coming weeks. They focus today on Mark Arbib’s role as a “secret US source”. One of the key apparatchiks in Labor’s powerful New South Wales right-wing faction, Arbib reportedly made several requests to US officials that his identity as a “protected” informant be guarded.
The cables refer to Arbib as early as mid-2006, when he served as NSW Labor Party state secretary. After being elected to the senate in the November 2007 federal election, the factional leader deepened his relationship with Washington. A US embassy profile, authored in July 2009, noted that Arbib “understands the importance of supporting a vibrant relationship with the US” and that officials “have found him personable, confident and articulate”. The profile also recorded that he “has met with us repeatedly throughout his political rise”. Other cables referred to the senator as a “right-wing powerbroker and political rising star” and noted his influence within both Labor’s factions and “Rudd’s inner circle”.
The cables make clear that Arbib and the other identified MPs function not simply as mere US “sources”, as characterised in the media today—but rather as agents. Within the Labor and trade unions apparatuses, these party members serve as conduits for Washington’s agenda. The embassy communications reveal the extent to which the US government determines Australian foreign policy and dictates who will hold senior government posts, including the office of prime minister.
A precise chronology of Washington’s sordid, behind-the-scenes manipulation of Australian political affairs, between the Labor Party’s election victory in November 2007 and Rudd’s axing in June 2010, is likely to emerge once WikiLeaks releases the full cache of relevant cables.
Already, however, it is now beyond dispute that Washington began cultivating Gillard at the same time as embassy officials were issuing damning assessments of Rudd, above all over his stance on Beijing. In June 2008, the same month Gillard was named as the “front-runner” to succeed Rudd, the prime minister unveiled his Asia-Pacific Community project, attempting to mediate the escalating strategic rivalry between the US and China. An American embassy cable lambasted this proposal as yet another Rudd initiative launched “without advance consultation”. (See: “WikiLeaks cables cast fresh light on coup against former Australian PM Rudd”)
Beginning at this time, the Fairfax press reports: “US diplomats were anxious to establish Ms Gillard’s attitudes towards Australia’s alliance with the United States and other key foreign policy questions, especially in regard to Israel. Numerous Labor figures were drawn by US diplomats into conversation concerning Ms Gillard’s personality and political positions with ‘many key ALP insiders’ quickly telling embassy officers that her past membership of the Victorian Labor Party’s Socialist Left faction meant little and that she was ‘at heart a pragmatist’.”
Gillard was undoubtedly aware that she was being sounded out. One cable sent to the State Department in mid-2008 stated: “Although long appearing ambivalent about the Australia-US Alliance, Gillard’s actions since she became the Labor Party number two indicate an understanding of its importance. [US embassy political officers] had little contact with her when she was in opposition but since the election, Gillard has gone out of her way to assist the embassy... Although warm and engaging in her dealings with American diplomats, it’s unclear whether this change in attitude reflects a mellowing of her views or an understanding of what she needs to do to become leader of the ALP.”
These comments outline who really calls the shots in Australia’s so-called parliamentary democracy. Labor leaders must understand “what they need to do”—that is, kowtow on every major strategic and foreign policy issue to Washington. They need to recognise that Australia is an obedient servant of US imperialism, and that its political superstructure must function accordingly.
Arbib issued a terse statement today, simply outlining that he was an active member of the Australia-American Leadership Dialogue, and “like many members of the federal parliament, have regular discussions about the state of Australian and US politics with members of the US mission and consulate”. Contained here is a fairly clear warning, by Labor’s key backroom operator, to anyone in the government thinking of using the revelations against him. Arbib has helpfully reminded them that he enjoys Washington’s support, and that others are sure to be implicated as more cables are released.
The Fairfax press has already named former Labor national secretary and Rudd government cabinet member Bob McMullen and current backbencher Michael Danby as among those named in the WikiLeaks documents. Others likely to be named are starting to come out of the woodwork, in an effort to pre-empt the fallout. Health Minister Nicola Roxon today volunteered that she is likely to be identified, as she “meets with US diplomats from time to time”. Greens’ leader Bob Brown has foreshadowed similar revelations—though he was at pains to point out that he was always “very careful” in his responses, and spoke with diplomats “from all over the world, from Bangladesh to the US to New Zealand, Taiwan and Beijing”.
The cables will no doubt reveal similar relationships between Washington and senior Australian media personnel. Editors, journalists, and broadcasters are routinely nurtured through the Australia-American Leadership Dialogue, and other such forums.
The excerpted cables also expose the close working relationship between the US government and Australia’s trade unions. The Fairfax press noted that “senior union leaders have privately briefed US officials about how they use their influence over the Labor Party to shape federal government policies”, and cited an August 2009 cable, which stated that the trade unions “continue to play a significant role in the formulation of national policies that can impact the United States”. Discussions between US embassy officials and senior figures in the Australian Workers Union and the National Union of Workers were reported, with one cable declaring that the leaders of the right-wing unions were “dynamic and forward thinking”.
The same cable reportedly described the declining influence of the “left” unions within the Labor Party, a conclusion that was “drawn partly through briefings from CFMEU [Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union] national secretary Dave Noonan and Victorian secretary Bill Oliver”. These two figures—often hailed as great militants by the various middle class pseudo-left outfits—were described by US embassy officials as “capable leaders”.

Not the first Australian govt. the Americans brought down. If I were and Aussie I'd be hopping mad and really now come to Assange's aid!.....it should have happened anyway, but based upon this new information!!.....to not do so is to remain traitors to democracy and self determination and not allowing yourselves to be manipulated by the Beast from D.C.

[Peter Lemkin]

From http://ricefarmer.blogspot.com/2010/12/new...er-10-2010.html

- Intelligence/security/internet --

WikiLeaks Being Used to Justify "Patriot Act" Legislation For Internet

In this article, it starts out, Senator Mitch McConnell called Assange a "high-tech terrorist" on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday and said, "if it‘s found that Assange hasn’t violated the law, then the law should be changed." There is a part of the Constitution against 'bills of attainder' which means no law can post-facto be constructed for a person or group doing something that was not a crime before the construction of said new law. But, it is just an old piece of paper, as W said. Shredded by the unPatriot Act. I think America's march to total lockdown in a police state has now been accelerated by this whole Wikileak affair - but was rather inevitable anyway and well on its way without it. Time to get out in the streets folks...or loose all your rights and even the internet as we know it....by the end of next year, at the latest.

From WikiLeaks to #ukuncut, Twitter gets political

Pro-WikiLeaks cyber army gains strength; thousands join DDoS attacks
*The implications of this are much bigger than WikiLeaks.

.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec...eaks-india

They read like the most extraordinary revelations. Citing the WikiLeaks cables, major Pakistani newspapers this morning carried stories that purported to detail eye-popping American assessments of India's military and civilian leaders.
According to the reports, US diplomats described senior Indian generals as vain, egotistical and genocidal; they said India's government is secretly allied with Hindu fundamentalists; and they claimed Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's tribal belt and Balochistan.
"Enough evidence of Indian involvement in Waziristan, Balochistan," read the front-page story in the News; an almost identical story appeared in the Urdu-language Jang, Pakistan's bestselling daily.
If accurate, the disclosures would confirm the worst fears of Pakistani nationalist hawks and threaten relations between Washington and New Delhi. But they are not accurate.
An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by the Guardian by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations. It suggests this is the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes.

[David Guyatt]

A personal statement:

• In a global world running 24/7/365 with information which is being spun or gamed in real time...[I have already entered an extensive section on PsyOps and MindWar];
  
• on a global discussion board with discussants living in Europe, the US, Australia and elsewhere (and thus subject to and available to the news, more astute about their local news outlets' perspectives and history, and more astute about their sovereign nations' "news management" and propaganda approaches);
  
• on a topic with as much possible portent, potential implication, and sheer weight of information (however valid or invalid it is);
  
• in a situation that has tremendous bearing on the future free flow of information, governmental transparency, or the ability of a group such as ours to even gather and analyze the information;
  
• in a situation that is fast-moving, potentially volatile; and
  
• in a world that is a virtual tinderbox;
  

it is my normal and normative approach to shovel a lot of information into the hopper for further analysis. It serves to illuminate and inform, leaving opinion and analysis to the reader. My early interest and education is in news, not in editorial.

To weed out prematurely, to suggest that certain views are anathema or disallowed, is to defeat the purpose of why we are here doing what we do.

It's almost 50 years later and people are still debating and arguing Dealey Plaza. It's almost a decade since 9/11. Both topics continue to see a lot of information that is pumped into its equation. Knowledgeable veterans of the Dealey Plaza event can discern quickly because much work has been done and much time has passed. 9/11 isn't quite yet at that level despite the presence of the Internet and its higher speeds for information circulation. Analysis must proceed within a global conversation because of the necessary expertise being separated by time and space. The question of some prior or ongoing assessment for validity of source has already been suggested here and elsewhere by me, as have leads to sources of information about critical thinking.

I appreciate and have said that I am a relative newcomer to this business of deep political reading, research and analysis. I have a great degree of respect for many people here, like David Guyatt and others, and if he has dismantled a post, then so be it. That is, as has already been said, the nature of the process. My hat is off to him. No skin off my teeth. No wounded ego. Delete it. As a single individual who is currently also dealing with other matters, I do not have the luxury of snap judgments or universalized knowledge or expertise. What is left standing after extensive analysis by many is at least a magnitude closer to understanding; time will allow even more analysis.

But one cannot drink from a fire hose. Wikileaks is an ongoing event. JFK has been buried, but comparably on the Wikileaks story, it is only 1964. FOIA videos and photos from 9/11 continue to emerge, but comparably on the Wikileaks story, it is only November 30th, 2001.

Premature analysis and conclusion is more dangerous that any lack of discernment in entering information or theory, particularly in an environment that is arguably on the edge of both information black-out and nuclear war.

Ed, I for one am delighted that you do post the various posts you do. I realize you are doing so to increase the forum's knowledge of what is being printed around the world. I also know that you do not personally attach your name to such posts. They are what they are. Information. And that is the life blood of the forum.

And to that Assange post in particular, I have not the least hesitation in saying that I'm very glad you posted it. I would hate to see the forum to become self-censoring. I would loathe any member having second thoughts about posting freely.

And if you ever do begin doing anything like this, I'll reach out a cyber finger and strike you down. And then cease the flow of free cyber bitter ale to your deceased cyber body. No happy presence here, No free sustenance old lad.

It's a simple as that.

Geddit? :wavey:

[David Guyatt]

[B]The US told Uganda to let it know when the army was going to commit war crimes using American intelligence – but did not try to dissuade it from doing so, the US embassy cables suggest.

Why would the US try to stop Uganda? It uses it's own intelligence to commit war crimes.

The word "symbiosis" seems to be the appropriate one here.

[David Guyatt]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec...eaks-india

They read like the most extraordinary revelations. Citing the WikiLeaks cables, major Pakistani newspapers this morning carried stories that purported to detail eye-popping American assessments of India's military and civilian leaders.
According to the reports, US diplomats described senior Indian generals as vain, egotistical and genocidal; they said India's government is secretly allied with Hindu fundamentalists; and they claimed Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's tribal belt and Balochistan.
"Enough evidence of Indian involvement in Waziristan, Balochistan," read the front-page story in the News; an almost identical story appeared in the Urdu-language Jang, Pakistan's bestselling daily.
If accurate, the disclosures would confirm the worst fears of Pakistani nationalist hawks and threaten relations between Washington and New Delhi. But they are not accurate.
An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by the Guardian by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations. It suggests this is the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/88268/pakist...published/

Pakistani media: Fake WikiLeaks cables attacking India published

The Express Tribune, among some sections of the press, published the report.
In the December 9 edition of The Express Tribune, a report was published on page 8 under the caption “WikiLeaks: What US officials think about the Indian Army”. It now transpires that the story, which was run by a news agency, Online, was not authentic.
The Express Tribune deeply regrets publishing this story without due verification and apologises profusely for any inconvenience caused to our valued readers.
UK-based newspaper Guardian published a report on this issue, which is being printed for our readers.
The Guardian story
Citing the WikiLeaks cables, major Pakistani newspapers this morning carried stories that purported to detail eye-popping American assessments of India’s military and civilian leaders.
According to the reports, US diplomats described senior Indian generals as vain, egotistical and genocidal; they said India’s government is secretly allied with Hindu fundamentalists; and they claimed Indian spies are covertly supporting militants in Pakistan’s tribal belt and Balochistan.
“Enough evidence of Indian involvement in Waziristan, Balochistan,” read the front-page story in The News; an almost identical story appeared in the Urdu-language Jang.
If accurate, the disclosures would confirm the worst fears of Pakistani nationalist hawks and threaten relations between Washington and New Delhi. But they are not accurate.
An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by the Guardian by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations. It suggests this is the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes.
The controversial claims, published in four Pakistani national papers, were credited to the Online Agency, an Islamabad-based news service that has frequently run pro-army stories in the past. No journalist is bylined.
Shaheen Sehbai, group editor at The News, described the story as “agencies’ copy” and said he would investigate its origins.
The incident fits in with the wider Pakistani reaction to WikiLeaks since the first cables emerged.
In the West, reports have focused on US worries for the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile, or the army’s support for Islamist militants such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the Mumbai attack.
But Pakistan’s media has given a wide berth to stories casting the military in a negative light, focusing instead on the foibles of the country’s notoriously weak politicians.
Editors have pushed stories that focus on president Asif Ali Zardari’s preoccupation with his death, prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s secret support for CIA drone strikes and tales of a bearded religious firebrand cosying up to the US ambassador.
Among ordinary citizens, the coverage has hardened perceptions that Pakistani leaders are in thrall to American power.
Pakistan has become “the world’s biggest banana republic”, wrote retired diplomat Asif Ezdi last week.
Military and political leaders, portrayed as dangerously divided in the cables, have banded together to downplay the assessment. “Don’t trust WikiLeaks,” Gilani told reporters in Kabul last weekend. Beside him president Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, also tarred in the dispatches, nodded solemnly.
On Saturday the army, having stayed silent all week, denied claims that army chief General Ashfaq Kayani “distrusted” the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. Kayani “holds all political leaders in esteem”, a spokesman said.
Meanwhile conspiracy theorists, including some journalists, insist Washington secretly leaked the cables in an effort to discredit the Muslim world; the Saudi ambassador described them as propaganda.
But senior judges favour their publication. Dismissing an attempt to block WikiLeaks last week, justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed said the cables “may cause trouble for some personalities” but would be “good for the progress of the nation in the long run”.
The lopsided media coverage highlights the strong influence of Pakistan’s army over an otherwise vigorous free press.
This morning’s stories disparaging Indian generals – one is said to be “rather a geek”, another to be responsible for “genocide” and compared to Slobodan Milosevic – is counterbalanced by accounts of gushing American praise for Pakistan’s top generals.
The actual WikiLeaks cables carry a more nuanced portraits of a close, if often uneasy, relationship between the US and Pakistan’s military.
But the real cables do contain allegations of Indian support for Baloch separatists, largely sourced to British intelligence assessments. Pakistan’s press is generally cautious in reporting about its own army. But some internet commentators said the latest WikiLeaks story was a bridge too far.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2010.

[David Guyatt]

WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer 'used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout'

WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer 'used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout'
Cables say drug giant hired investigators to find evidence of corruption on Nigerian attorney general to persuade him to drop legal action

Sarah Boseley, health editor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 December 2010 21.33 GMT


Kano, in northern Nigeria, saw a meningitis epidemic of unprecedented scale in 1996.

The world's biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis, according to a leaked US embassy cable.

Pfizer was sued by the Nigerian state and federal authorities, who claimed that children were harmed by a new antibiotic, Trovan, during the trial, which took place in the middle of a meningitis epidemic of unprecedented scale in Kano in the north of Nigeria in 1996.

Last year, the company came to a tentative settlement with the Kano state government which was to cost it $75m.

But the cable suggests that the US drug giant did not want to pay out to settle the two cases – one civil and one criminal – brought by the Nigerian federal government.

The cable reports a meeting between Pfizer's country manager, Enrico Liggeri, and US officials at the Abuja embassy on 9 April 2009. It states: "According to Liggeri, Pfizer had hired investigators to uncover corruption links to federal attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to expose him and put pressure on him to drop the federal cases. He said Pfizer's investigators were passing this information to local media."

The cable, classified confidential by economic counsellor Robert Tansey, continues: "A series of damaging articles detailing Aondoakaa's 'alleged' corruption ties were published in February and March. Liggeri contended that Pfizer had much more damaging information on Aondoakaa and that Aondoakaa's cronies were pressuring him to drop the suit for fear of further negative articles."

The release of the Pfizer cable came as:

• The American ambassador to London denounced the leak of classified US embassy cables from around the world. In tomorrow'sGuardian Louis Susman writes: "This is not whistleblowing. There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people. There is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends."

• It emerged that Julian Assange had been transferred to the segregation unit in Wandsworth prison and had distanced WikiLeaks from cyber attacks on MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and other organisations.

• Other newly released cables revealed that China is losing patience with the failure of the Burmese regime to reform, and disclosed US fears that Europe will cave in to Serbian pressure to partition Kosovo.

While many thousands fell ill during the Kano epidemic, Pfizer's doctors treated 200 children, half with Trovan and half with the best meningitis drug used in the US at the time, ceftriaxone. Five children died on Trovan and six on ceftriaxone, which for the company was a good result. But later it was claimed Pfizer did not have proper consent from parents to use an experimental drug on their children and there were questions over the documentation of the trial. Trovan was licensed for adults in Europe, but later withdrawn because of fears of liver toxicity.

The cable claims that Liggeri said Pfizer, which maintains the trial was well-conducted and any deaths were the direct result of the meningitis itself, was not happy about settling the Kano state cases, "but had come to the conclusion that the $75m figure was reasonable because the suits had been ongoing for many years costing Pfizer more than $15m a year in legal and investigative fees".

In an earlier meeting on 2 April between two Pfizer lawyers, Joe Petrosinelli and Atiba Adams, Liggeri, the US ambassador and the economic section, it had been suggested that Pfizer owed the favourable outcome of the federal cases to former Nigerian head of state Yakubu Gowon.

He had interceded on Pfizer's behalf with the Kano state governor, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau – who directed that the state's settlement demand should be reduced from $150m to $75m – and with the Nigerian president. "Adams reported that Gowon met with President Yar'Adua and convinced him to drop the two federal high court cases against Pfizer," the cable says.

But five days later Liggeri, without the lawyers present, enlarged on the covert operation against Aondoakaa.

The cable says Liggeri went on to suggest that the lawsuits against Pfizer "were wholly political in nature".

He alleged that Médecins sans Frontières, which was in the same hospital in Kano, "administered Trovan to other children during the 1996 meningitis epidemic and the Nigerian government has taken no action".

MSF – which was the first to raise concerns about the trial – vehemently denies this. Jean-Hervé Bradol, former president of MSF France, said: "We have never worked with this family of antibiotic. We don't use it for meningitis. That is the reason why we were shocked to see this trial in the hospital."

There is no suggestion that the attorney general was swayed by the pressure. However, the dropping of the federal cases provoked suspicion in Nigeria. Last month, the Nigerian newspaper Next ran a story headlined, "Aondoakaa's secret deal with Pfizer".

The terms of the agreement that led to the withdrawal of the $6bn federal suit in October 2009 against Pfizer "remain unknown because of the nature of [the] deal brokered by … Mike Aondoakaa", it said. Pfizer and the Nigerian authorities had signed a confidentiality agreement. "The withdrawal of the case, as well as the terms of settlement, is a highly guarded secret by the parties involved in the negotiation," the article said.

Aondoakaa expressed astonishment at the claims in the US cable when approached by the Guardian. "I'm very surprised to see I became a subject, which is very shocking to me," he said. "I was not aware of Pfizer looking into my past. For them to have done that is a very serious thing. I became a target of a multinational: you are supposed to have sympathy with me … If it is true, maybe I will take legal action."

In a statement to the Guardian, Pfizer said: "The Trovan cases brought by both the federal government of Nigeria and Kano state were resolved in 2009 by mutual agreement. Pfizer negotiated the settlement with the federal government of Nigeria in good faith and its conduct in reaching that agreement was proper. Although Pfizer has not seen any documents from the US embassy in Nigeria regarding the federal government cases, the statements purportedly contained in such documents are completely false.

"As previously disclosed in Pfizer's 10-Q filing in November 2009, per the agreement with the federal government, Nigeria dismissed its civil and criminal actions against the company. Pfizer denied any wrongdoing or liability in connection with the 1996 study. The company agreed to pay the legal fees and expenses incurred by the federal government associated with the Trovan litigation. Pursuant to the settlement, payment was made to the federal government's counsel of record in the case, and there was no payment made to the federal government of Nigeria itself. As is common practice, the agreement was covered by a standard confidentiality clause agreed to by both parties."

So nice to see ethical business at work...