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Bomb, Bomb Iran: The Top 5 Most Shocking Things About The Wikileaks

Megan Carpentier | November 29, 2010, 8:43AM

Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.

Yesterday, Wikileaks released a selection of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables dating from the mid-sixties to the present day -- widely presumed to have been provided to them by the currently-incarcerated Private Bradley Manning -- accessed through the military's SPIRNET system that was intended to reduce the bureaucratic "siloing" on information deemed partially responsible for the intelligence failures in a pre-9/11 world. Those cables were provided earlier under embargo to five international media outlets: the New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, La Monde and Der Spiegel. For most readers, it made for a dizzying array of information: the cables themselves incorporated both banal gossip and important intelligence, and each media outlet attempted to give as much context to their release (and the reactions to their release) as to the nuggets of information found therein.

But for all the Administration's condemnations and the muted international response to date, there were five astonishing revelations uncovered by the 120 reporters given early access to the documents.

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Topics: Iran, Jordan, Julian Assange, LIbya, North Korea, State Department, US-Iran Relations, United Nations, Wikileaks

Blackwater

Feds: Blackwater Gifted Weapons To King Of Jordan --- Then Lied To Govt. About It

Zachary Roth | April 19, 2010, 2:15PM

King Abdullah II of Jordan and Blackwater troops on the company's compound in Moyock, N.C.

In an effort to win business from the Jordanian government, Blackwater execs gifted Glocks, an M4 rifle, and a shotgun, among other weapons, to the King of Jordan, according to prosecutors. But, say the Feds, the execs then realized they couldn't account for the weapons -- so they falsely told the government that they had bought them as individuals.

In an indictment filed Friday against Blackwater's former president, Gary Jackson, and four other former Blackwater staffers, prosecutors write that in 2005, the company -- now known as Xe Services -- was seeking to gain favor with the government of Jordan, in order to boost its chances of doing business there.