WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website that has embarrassed both the Obama and Bush administrations twice before, is about to drop another bomb, and this time several U.S. allies may also suffer from the fallout.

 

WikiLeaks is preparing to release classified State Department cables that might reveal American officials accusing foreign leaders of corruption, as well as emails, cables and other documents that include unflattering opinions of world leaders.

 

Reportedly, State Department officials have been scrambling to warn various governments about what might be in the documents, with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton personally contacting some leaders. Officials in China, Russia, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Norway, Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan have all been briefed by U.S. ambassadors or other diplomats.

 

Al-Hayat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, claims that the documents will reveal that Turkey supported al-Qaeda in Iraq and that the United States supported the PKK, a Kurdish rebel group in Turkey that the U.S. branded a terrorist organization in 1979,

 

The pending release of materials is expected to be mammoth—seven times larger than the 400,000 files Wikileaks made available in October about the Iraq war. Before that, the website in July exposed more than 70,000 U.S. military reports on the Afghanistan war.

 

WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 by Australian Julian Assange.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

U.S. Embassies Warn Allies of Possible Fallout from New Wikileaks Disclosure (by Glenn Kessler, Washington Post)

Corruption Charges to Feature in Wikileaks Release (by Mark Hosenball, Reuters)

US Warns of Harm from Wikileaks Release (by Robert Burns, Associated Press)