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A control freak prone to missteps, mistakes . . . what US officials really thought of our former PM

Scathing attacks on Rudd

■ American envoy’s
blunt assessments
■ Confidential cables
to Washington exposed
SPECIAL REPORT
PHILIP DORLING
FOREIGN Minister Kevin Rudd
is an abrasive, impulsive ‘‘con-
trol freak’’ who presided over a
series of foreign policy blunders
during his time as prime minis-
ter, according to secret United
States diplomatic cables.
The scathing assessment —
detailed in messages sent by the
US embassy in Canberra to Sec-
retaries of State Condoleezza
Rice and Hillary Clinton over
several years — are among hun-
dreds of US State Department
cables relating to Australia
obtained by WikiLeaks and
made available exclusively to
The Age.
‘‘Rudd . . . undoubtedly
believes that with his intellect,
his six years as a diplomat in the
1980s and his five years as
shadow foreign minister, he has
the background and the ability
to direct Australia’s foreign
policy. His performance so far,
however, demonstrates that he
does not have the staff or the
experience to do the job prop-
erly,’’ the embassy bluntly
observed in November 2009.
The cables show how initially
favourable American impres-
sions of Mr Rudd, as ‘‘a safe pair
of hands’’, were quickly replaced
by sharp criticism of his micro-
management and mishandling
of diplomacy as he focused on
photo and media opportunities.
In a December 2008 review
of the first year of the Rudd gov-
ernment, US ambassador
Robert McCallum characterised
its performance as ‘‘generally
competent’’ and noted Mr Rudd
was ‘‘focused on developing
good relations with the incom-
ing US administration [of Presi-
dent Barack Obama], and is
eager to be seen as a major
global player’’.
Despite this, what were des-
cribed as ‘‘Rudd’s foreign policy
mistakes’’ formed the centre-
piece of the ambassador’s evalu-
ation. Mr McCallum thought the
prime minister’s diplomatic
‘‘missteps’’ largely arose from his
propensity to make ‘‘snap
announcements without con-
sulting other countries or within
the Australian government’’.
According to the embassy, the
government’s ‘‘significant blun-
ders’’ began when then foreign
minister Stephen Smith
announced in February 2008
that Australia would not support
strategic dialogue between Aus-
tralia, the US, Japan and India
out of deference to China. ‘‘This
was done without advance con-
sultation and at a joint press
availability with visiting Chinese
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi,’’ Mr
McCallum wrote.
Mr Rudd’s June 2008 speech
announcing that he would push
for the creation of an Asia-Pacific
Community loosely based on the
European Union was cited as a
further example of a major initi-
ative undertaken ‘‘without
advance consultation with either
other countries (including
South-East Asian nations, lead-
ing Singaporean officials to label
the idea dead on arrival) or
Not entirely in step: Kevin Rudd with former US president George Bush on a visit to Washington in March, 2008, months after Mr Rudd became prime minister.
within the Australian govern-
ment (including with his pro-
posed special envoy to promote
the concept, veteran diplomat
Richard Woolcott)’’.
Similarly Mr Rudd’s establish-
ment of an international com-
mission on nuclear disar-
mament and non-proliferation
was ‘‘rolled out . . . during a
photo-op heavy trip to Japan . . .
His Japanese hosts were given
insufficient advance notice and
refused a request for a joint
announcement’’.
The US embassy noted that
Mr Rudd did not consult any of
the five nuclear weapons states
on the United Nations Security
Council and that Russia had
lodged a formal protest. One of
Mr Rudd’s staff gave the US
embassy a few hours’ advance
notice of the announcement
‘‘but without details’’.
The cables also refer to ‘‘con-
trol freak’’ tendencies and ‘‘per-
sistent criticism from senior civil
servants, journalists and parlia-
mentarians that Rudd is a micro-
manager obsessed with man-
aging the media cycle rather
than engaging in collaborative
decision-making’’.
Eleven months later, in
November 2009, the embassy
delivered another sharp assess-
ment that Mr Rudd dominated
foreign policy decision-making,
‘‘leaving his foreign minister to
perform mundane, ceremonial
duties and relegating the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs and
Trade (DFAT) to a backwater’’.
‘‘Other foreign diplomats, in
private conversations with us,
have noted how much DFAT
seemed to be out of the loop,’’
US Charge d’Affaires Dan Clune
reported. ‘‘The Israeli ambas-
sador [Yuval Rotem] told us that
senior DFAT officials are frank in
asking him what PM Rudd is up
to and admit that they are out of
Continued PAGE 2
Gillard condemns leaks PAGE 2
Geoffrey Robertson to defend
Assange PAGE 2
COMMENT & DEBATE
John Garnaut PAGE 17
PICTURE: BLOOMBERG
THE FILES AND THE AGE
Some kinds of
embarrassment do not
The Age has secured access change public perceptions. That
is not likely to be the case here,
to hundreds of WikiLeaks
because the cables mentioning
documents that reveal US Mr Rudd portray the man who
embassy assessments of has closely directed Australian
Australia on a range of foreign policy since 2007 as a
important issues. We person whose judgment is too
begin publishing today. often warped by his own egotism.
EDITORIAL PAGE 16
The day
Kevin stood
up George
By PHILIP DORLING
KEVIN Rudd deeply offended
the US with an aggressive push
to meet then president George
W. Bush in Washington in late
2008, only to abruptly cancel the
meeting two days later.
This was followed by what
Americans saw as Mr Rudd’s
‘‘self-serving and inaccurate
leaking’’ of details of an October
2008 phone call between
Mr Bush and Mr Rudd — some-
thing the US ambassador to
Australia said “cast further
doubt on Rudd’s foreign policy
judgment’’.
A confidential cable details
that, ahead of a September 2008
visit to the US to attend the
annual United Nations summit,
Mr Rudd’s office demanded a
meeting with Mr Bush.
‘‘After making an aggressive,
and ultimately successful, push
for a meeting, the PM’s Office
abruptly cancelled the meeting
two days later, saying that Rudd
could not come to Washington,’’
then US ambassador Robert
McCallum wrote in the cable,
marked for American eyes only.
Mr Rudd ended up going to
New York and delivering a
speech to a near-empty hall of
the UN General Assembly,
where members of his staff were
seen asleep in the audience.
Mr McCallum was also
highly critical of Mr Rudd’s
behaviour after a newspaper
report that detailed a private
conversation the then prime
minister held with Mr Bush. The
article made Mr Bush appear
foolish at the outset of the
global financial crisis, reporting
Mr Rudd was ‘‘stunned to hear
Bush say, ‘What’s the G20?’ ’’.
The depth of US anger
revealed in the cable helps
explain the cold shoulder
Mr Bush gave Mr Rudd during a
November 2008 G20 summit.
Mr Rudd sought to dismiss as
media speculation at the time
that the leaked details about the
phone call had damaged his
relations with the White House.

ASSANGE
ARRESTED Beazley vowed to support Washington in war with China
PAGE 2 By PHILIP DORLING
and RICHARD BAKER
AUSTRALIA’S ambassador to
the US and former opposition
leader, Kim Beazley, assured
American officials that Australia
would always side with the US
in the event of a war with China,
a confidential diplomatic cable
reveals.
Mr Beazley’s remarks, made
in a 2006 meeting with the then
US ambassador Robert McCal-
lum just months before Kevin
Rudd replaced him as Labor
leader, are significant because
no Australian federal political
leader has publicly disclosed
what position they believe the
nation should take if the US and
China came to blows over Tai-
wan — an event that would
present Australia’s greatest for-
eign policy dilemma.
The cable, classified as con-
fidential and not to be disclosed
outside the US government,
gave the following summary of
Mr Beazley’s comments: ‘‘In the
event of a war between the
United States and China, Aus-
tralia would have absolutely no
alternative but to line up mili-
tarily beside the US. Otherwise
the alliance would be effectively
dead and buried, something
that Australia could never afford
to see happen.’’
The cable is one of hundreds
of US State Department docu-
ments relevant to Australia
released by the WikiLeaks web-
site to The Age. Two cables
reveal further insights into Aus-
tralia’s relations with China,
including a 2007 pledge by a
newly elected Mr Rudd to US
officials to ‘‘get inside the
heads’’ of China’s leaders and
the Australian government’s
belief that China had tried to
intimidate it through a series of
actions in 2009, including the
arrest of former Rio Tinto exec-
utive Stern Hu.
Mr Beazley was commenting
on 2004 remarks by the then
Howard government foreign
affairs minister, Alexander
Downer, that a conflict between
America and China over Taiwan
would not necessarily trigger
Australia’s obligations under the
ANZUS treaty with the US. The
ANZUS treaty, which came into
force in 1952, commits Australia
and the US to respond if the
armed forces of the other party
in the Pacific come under
attack.
Mr Downer’s comments —
which he insisted were taken
out of context — caused con-
cern in Washington and promp-
ted the then US ambassador
Tom Schieffer to declare that
America expected Australia’s
support in the event of conflict
over Taiwan.
The then prime minister
John Howard refused to com-
ment publicly on what Australia
would do if hostility broke out
between the US and China,
saying it was a hypothetical
situation.
However, Mr Beazley told
Mr McCallum that Mr Downer
should have ‘‘known better than
to have given Beijing any notion
that Canberra would be able to
sit out a conflict’’, the cable
states.
The publication of Mr Beaz-
ley’s remarks comes at a sensi-
tive time in Australia’s increas-
ingly complex relationship with
China. Earlier this week,
another cable released by
WikiLeaks revealed how
Mr Rudd, now Australia’s For-
eign Affairs Minister, last year
told US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton to be prepared ‘‘to
deploy force’’ if efforts to inte-
grate China into the interna-
tional community failed.
A fresh WikiLeaks cable
released to The Age discloses the
Australian government’s belief
Continued PAGE 2

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 THE AGE
2 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2010
THE AGE TODAY
OPINION
John Garnaut on China’s
foreign policy dilemma
‘China’s leaders recog-
nise that their country’s
assertiveness is caus-
ing anxiety in South
Korea and across the
region.’ PAGE 17
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London police arrest WikiLeaks founder
Sweden issues European warrant
By PAOLA TOTARO
LONDON
JULIAN Assange, the founder of
the WikiLeaks website that leak-
ed thousands of classified US
military and State Department
documents, has been arrested
by London police over rape
allegations made in Sweden.
The Metropolitan Police
extradition unit confirmed at
10.30am London time yesterday
that the 29-year-old Australian
had been arrested “by appoint-
ment” on a European arrest
warrant an hour earlier.
He was expected to appear in
the City of Westminster magis-
trate’s court overnight.
The Swedish warrant cites
one count of unlawful coercion,
two counts of sexual molesta-
tion and one count of rape — all
allegedly committed in August
this year.
As Mr Assange met London
police, human-rights lawyer
Geoffrey Robertson, QC, cut
short his summer holiday in
Sydney to prepare to represent
WikiLeaks founder with another
specialist extradition lawyer
from his Doughty Street Cham-
bers.
London legal sources warned
that the European arrest war-
rant issued over sexual assault
claims in Sweden was difficult
to ‘‘avoid or challenge’’. Mr
Assange and his lawyers plan to
fight the extradition with every
available resource.
There is growing fear that
this case could lead to a han-
dover to US authorities over the
release of the US diplomatic
cables.
The Age believes that Mr
Robertson, whose chambers are
Scathing attacks on Rudd revealed in US diplomatic cables
From PAGE 1
the loop.’’ Mr Clune added that
morale within DFAT had ‘‘plum-
meted, according to our con-
tacts inside as well as outside
the department’’.
The embassy also assigned
blame for DFAT’s decline to the
weakness of Mr Smith, who was
dismissed as being ‘‘on vacation’’.
‘‘Surprised by his appoint-
ment as foreign minister, Smith
has been very tentative in
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THE ARTS
It will be massive
The Dance Massive festival
returns to Melbourne in
March, with a ‘‘drive-in’’ per-
formance at a secret location.
Philippa Hawker reports.
PAGE 19
one of the few with a specialist
in extradition proceedings with
Scandinavian nations, has been
in contact with Mr Assange
about his defence and has met
federal Attorney-General Robert
McClelland about the case.
Mr Assange’s arrest came as
his whistleblower website con-
tinued to battle a seemingly
global effort to block release of
further information led by US
Attorney-General Eric Holder.
Mr Holder said he had author-
ised significant actions aimed at
prosecuting the WikiLeaks
founder but refused to specify
what these might be.
However, a statement from
WikiLeaks after the arrest said
that the actions against Mr
Assange would not affect its
operations and that it would
release more cables overnight as
usual.
Mr Assange, 39, was reported
by The Guardian to be seeking
supporters to put up surety and
bail to stave off attempts to hold
him. He reportedly told friends
he was increasingly convinced
the US was behind Swedish
attempts to extradite him.
He has previously said that
the original allegations were the
product of ‘‘personal issues’’ but
he believed Sweden had
behaved as ‘‘a cipher’’ for the
US.
He is wanted by Swedish
detectives after two women
claimed they were sexually
assaulted by him when he vis-
ited the country last August. The
Swedish Supreme Court upheld
an order to detain him for ques-
tioning after he successfully
appealed against two lower
court rulings.
Mr Assange has said he
asserting himself within the
government,’’ Mr Clune wrote.
‘‘DFAT contacts lamented that
Smith took a very legalistic
approach to making decisions,
demanding very detailed and
time-consuming analysis by the
department and using the quest
for more information to defer
making decisions.’’
David Pearl, a Treasury offi-
cial who served on Mr Smith’s
staff in 2004, told American dip-
lomats that the foreign minister
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FOCUS
Now you’re talking
The people of a remote,
troubled Aboriginal community
have been given hope by a
new police strategy where
officers speak the language.
Russell Skelton reports.
A detail from the Interpol website on December 6 shows the appeal for the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
declined to return to Sweden to
face prosecutors because he
feared he would not receive a
fair trial and that prosecutors
had requested that he be held
in solitary confinement.
But the constant need to be
on the move is taking its toll and
he has conceded he is becoming
exhausted by the battle to keep
defending the allegations in
Sweden while running the care-
fully managed release of the US
cables.
The site’s access to funds is
was ‘‘very smart, but intimid-
ated both by the foreign policy
issues themselves and the
knowledge that PM Rudd is fol-
lowing them so closely’’.
Former DFAT first assistant
secretary for north Asia, Peter
Baxter, lamented to embassy
officers that ‘‘Smith’s desire to
avoid overruling DFAT recom-
mendations meant that he often
delayed decisions to the point
that the PM’s office stepped in
and took over’’.
MONEY
When trust is a must
Anneli Knight finds out what
makes a perfect fit between
financial planner and client.
PAGE 15
also being slowly squeezed as
financial institutions succumb
to US and other diplomatic
pressure.
US political rhetoric and
attacks against WikiLeaks are
also escalating, with former
vice-presidential candidate
Sarah Palin describing Mr
Assange as ‘‘an anti-American
operative with blood on his
hands’’. Veteran Republican
Mike Huckabee said ‘‘anything
less than execution is too kind a
penalty’’.
The US embassy further
recounted that after Israel initi-
ated its military offensive in
Gaza in December 2008, Israeli
Ambassador Yuval Rotem con-
tacted Mr Smith at his home in
Perth to ask for Australia’s public
support. Despite the obvious
diplomatic and political sensit-
ivity of the issue, ‘‘Rotem told
[the embassy] that Smith’s
response was that he was on
vacation, and that the ambas-
sador needed to contact deputy
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NATIONAL TIMES
Machinations past
Shakespearean treachery has
nothing on modern-day
diplomacy, writes Warwick
INSIDE McFadyen in his Wokkapedia
blog at theage.com.au/
nationaltimes
Information theft illegal, says Gillard
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard
could not say yesterday that
Julian Assange had broken any
Australia law but declared the
‘‘foundation stone’’ of the
WikiLeaks affair was ‘‘an illegal
act’’.
In a fresh condemnation of
Mr Assange, she said: ‘‘Informa-
tion was taken and that was
illegal — so let’s not try to put
prime minister Gillard, who was
acting prime minister and for-
eign minister at the time.’’
Paradoxically, Mr Rudd’s
determination to dominate the
foreign policy agenda dimin-
ished the influence of his own
department, with one DFAT
assistant secretary explaining to
the embassy that the foreign
policy staff of the Department
of the Prime Minister and Cab-
inet (PM&C) were ‘‘over-
whelmed supporting Rudd’s
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any glosses on this. Information highlighted a warrant for alleged
would not be on WikiLeaks if sexual assault in Sweden.
there had not been an illegal act Opposition frontbencher
undertaken. The foundation Malcolm Turnbull, who in the
stone is an illegal act that cer- famous Spycatcher case argued
tainly breached the laws of the successfully for a former MI5
United States of America.’’ officer’s right to publish his
She said Australia Federal memoirs, yesterday accused Ms
Police had yet to provide advice Gillard of not knowing what she
about any potential criminal was talking about.
conduct by Mr Assange, and she MICHELLE GRATTAN
foreign policy activities, particu-
larly his travel, which has
reduced its ability to push its
own agenda’’.
In concluding his assess-
ment, Mr Clune suggested that
Mr Rudd’s ‘‘haphazard, overly
secretive decision-making pro-
cess’’ would continue to gener-
ate foreign policy problems.
Seven months later, Mr Rudd
lost the prime ministership, but
he remains very much in charge The former US ambassador to Australia, Robert McCallum, being
of Australia’s diplomacy. farewelled by Mr Rudd last year.
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Beazley
vowed
to back US
From PAGE 1
that China had attempted to
intimidate it during 2009
through aggressive lobbying,
increased public criticism, the
arrest of Mr Hu and the ‘‘time-
worn tactic’’ of cancelling high-
level visits.
The confidential December
2009 cable from the US embassy
in Beijing quotes the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs and
Trade’s first assistant secretary
for north Asia, Graham Fletcher,
as saying Australia had stood up
to the Chinese pressure and
forced its leaders to soften their
approach in the latter part of the
year.
‘‘We learned we can make
them blink,’’ the cable quotes
Mr Fletcher as saying, before
adding his view that it was ‘‘only
round one’’.
Mr Fletcher is recorded
describing how China had gone
to great lengths to pressure Aus-
tralia not to give Uighur leader
Rebiya Kadeer a visa last year,
including ‘‘privately warning a
major Australian bank that
sponsors the National Press
Club to use its influence to
block a Kadeer speech there’’.
He told the US officials of the
federal government’s concern
that cracking down too hard on
Chinese lobbying in Australia
would ‘‘simply drive it
underground’’.
Meanwhile, a previously
unreleased December 2007
cable from the US embassy in
Canberra following a meeting
between Mr Rudd and
Mr McCallum records Mr Rudd
as stating his intention to
engage China and ‘‘get inside
the heads of their senior leader-
ship on their long-term plans’’.
PICTURE: ADAM HOLLINGWORTH
LMCT 9897

PUBLISHED IN MELBOURNE SINCE 1854
Arbib a secret US source
■ Briefings to embassy exposed
■ ‘Repeated’ meetings with envoys
By PHILIP DORLING
FEDERAL minister and right-
wing Labor powerbroker Mark
Arbib has been revealed as a
confidential contact of the
United States embassy in Can-
berra, providing inside informa-
tion and commentary for
Washington on the workings of
the Australian government and
the Labor Party.
Secret US embassy cables
obtained by WikiLeaks and made
available exclusively to The Age
reveal that Senator Arbib, one of
the architects of Kevin Rudd’s
removal as prime minister, has
been in regular contact with US
embassy officers.
His candid comments have
been incorporated into reports
to Washington with repeated
requests that his identity as a
‘‘protected’’ source be guarded.
Embassy cables reporting on
the Labor Party and national
political developments, fre-
quently classified “No Forn” —
meaning no distribution to non-
US personnel — refer to Senator
Arbib as a strong supporter of
Australia’s alliance with the US.
They identify him as a valu-
able source of information on
Labor politics, including Mr
Rudd’s hopes to forestall an
eventual leadership challenge
from then deputy prime minis-
ter Julia Gillard.
“He understands the import-
ance of supporting a vibrant
relationship with the US while
not being too deferential. We
have found him personable,
confident and articulate,’’ an
embassy profile on Senator
Arbib written in July 2009 says.
“He has met with us repeatedly
throughout his political rise.’’
Other Labor politicians
reported in US embassy cables
as regular contacts include for-
mer federal MP and minister
Bob McMullan and Michael
Danby, the Labor member for
Melbourne Ports.
A former secretary of the
New South Wales branch of the
Labor Party, Senator Arbib was a
key backroom figure in the
Labor ‘‘coup’’ in June that
resulted in Mr Rudd being
replaced by Ms Gillard as PM.
He has been a senator since
In custody, Assange can ponder Swedish law and US anger
Julian Assange arrived in a car — but left in a prison van.
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THE WIKILEAKS FILES: DAY 2
Whatever the
WikiLeaks revelations
ultimately mean for
Kevin Rudd, however,
they also raise more
important questions
about the way Australia
conducts its relations
with the wider world.
EDITORIAL PAGE 20
PAGES 10-11
Labor Left ‘deceived’ on missiles
US tracked Gillard’s progress
FOCUS
Kevin Rudd: The man for the job?
COMMENT & DEBATE
Malcolm Turnbull: Politicial risk in
making a martyr of Assange
Letters, Dyson
July 2008 and was made a par-
liamentary secretary in Febru-
ary 2009. Mr Rudd elevated him
to the ministry in June 2009. He
currently holds the ministerial
portfolios of Sport, Indigenous
Employment, and Social Hous-
ing and Homelessness.
Instructed to find out how
decisions were made in the gov-
ernment, US diplomats were
quick to focus on Senator Arbib
as a “right-wing powerbroker
and political rising star’’ who
had made “a quick transition
from the parliamentary back-
rooms into the ministry’’.
The US embassy noted that
‘‘the New South Wales Labor
party’s kingmaker’’ was integral
in raising numbers for Mr Rudd
to overthrow Kim Beazley as
Labor leader in 2006, and that
Senator Arbib was “a close
adviser to Rudd and is his
key conduit to the ALP factions’’.
PICTURE: AP
16 — 26 MILDURA Shower or two 16 — 27
22
25
24
25
SALE Rain easing
WARRNAMBOOL Showers 12 — 20
WODONGA Rain easing 20 — 28
Details PAGE 27
LABOR, THE UNIONS & GILLARD
“Arbib is an influential fac-
tional operator who has forged
strong political connections
with Rudd,’’ the embassy recor-
ded. “We have been told that
Rudd respects Arbib’s political
expertise, and a contact noted
that Arbib is brought into Rudd’s
inner circle when politically
important decisions are made.
“Arbib is said to be loyal to,
but frank with, Rudd, and is one
of Rudd’s closest advisers. Yet,
publicly, Arbib has denied being
part of Rudd’s inner circle.”
US diplomats also found that
Arbib “is an astute observer and
able conversant on the nuts and
bolts of US politics’’.
Senator Arbib first appears as
a contributor to US embassy
political reporting while he was
NSW Labor state secretary. In
May 2006 he declared to US dip-
lomats that Australia was at risk
of becoming a ‘‘quarry for the
Chinese and a tourist destina-
tion for the Japanese’’.
He warned that it would be “a
tough struggle for the Labor
Party to win the federal elections
in 2007’’. But he thought Kim
Beazley, because he was the
opposite of the volatile Mark
Latham, was ‘‘the right man to
lead the ALP at the present time’’.
However, he also told
embassy officers that, unlike Mr
Beazley, he supported Austra-
lia’s military commitment in
Iraq “as well as the war on ter-
rorism in general’’.
After the Rudd government’s
election in 2007, Senator Arbib
offered reassurance about then
deputy prime minister Gillard’s
political leanings, describing
her as “one of the most prag-
matic politicians in the ALP’’.
He also confirmed Mr Rudd’s
tendencies towards microman-
agement and told the embassy
that “Rudd’s staff would like to
get their boss to spend less time
on foreign policy and delegate
more, but that they recognise
that this is a hopeless task’’.
In October 2009, as Mr
Rudd’s popular support began
to sag, Senator Arbib openly
canvassed emerging leadership
tensions within the govern-
ment, telling US envoys that Mr
Rudd wanted “to ensure that
Continued PAGE 10
By CAROLINE DAVIES
LONDON
WIKILEAKS founder Julian
Assange sits in a London jail,
wanted in Sweden for alleged
sex crimes against two women
— and wanted in the United
States on charges that don’t yet
exist.
But those charges could
range anywhere from espionage
to receiving stolen goods.
Top Obama administration
officials are considering an
extradition request with Sweden
to have Mr Assange face
charges, possibly for espionage.
MELBOURNE DAMS
15 — 25
48.3
52.5%
A YEAR AGO:
AGO: 35.3%
37.9%
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010
Any such proceedings would
set up a test of whether the First
Amendment’s protection for a
free press extends to a website.
‘‘What we’re investigating is a
crime under US law,’’ P. J. Crow-
ley, a top State Department
spokesman, said on Tuesday.
‘‘The provision of 250,000 classi-
fied documents from someone
inside the government to some-
one outside the government is a
crime.’’
His remarks mirrored sharp
words from US Attorney-
General Eric Holder, who said
prosecutors are weighing not
only espionage but other crimes
ODD SPOT
A woman runner who collapsed after this week’s Las Vegas
Rock ’n’ Roll Half-Marathon was revived by Elvis — well, San
Francisco doctor Claudio Palma, who had run dressed as
the king. It wasn’t his only heart-stopping moment: he also
got married at a ‘‘run-thru chapel’’ during the race.
as well against the Australian
citizen, whose release of diplo-
matic cables has embarrassed
the US worldwide.
‘‘We have a very serious
criminal investigation that’s
under way, and we’re looking at
all of the things that we can do
to try to stem the flow of this
information,’’ Mr Holder said.
Mr Holder added that pros-
ecutors are looking beyond just
espionage, and said that ‘‘there
are other statutes, other tools
that we have at our disposal’’.
Among them is charging Mr
Assange with receiving stolen
property.
‘He has met with
us repeatedly
throughout his
political rise.’
Secret US embassy cable
In the meantime an English
judge refused Mr Assange bail at
a hearing seeking extradition to
Sweden, saying he might flee
before facing court again. The
controversial figure was then
driven away in a white prison
van.
A host of celebrities provided
bail, but the judge was not per-
suaded, saying Mr Assange’s
‘‘weak community ties’’ in Bri-
tain, and his ‘‘means and ability’’
to abscond, were ‘‘substantial
grounds’’ for refusing bail. He
was remanded until next Mon-
day, when the case can be
reviewed at the same court. His
INDEX
ARTS PAGES 22,
CLASSIFIEDS
COMMENT & DEBATE
EDITORIALS, LETTERS
LAW LIST
PAGE
PAGE
PAGE
PAGE
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with late sunny
breaks.
16-26
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INC
Unions’
power
closely
watched
By PHILIP DORLING
and NICK McKENZIE
AUSTRALIAN union bosses hold
‘‘powerful sway’’ over ministers
and have ‘‘disproportionate
influence’’ over the federal gov-
ernment via backroom deals,
according to confidential
United States cables.
The cables reveal that senior
union leaders have privately
briefed US officials about how
they use their influence over the
Labor Party to shape federal
government policies, including
those on climate change.
The cables, sent to Washing-
ton from US diplomatic posts in
Canberra and Melbourne and
released to The Age by
WikiLeaks, also reveal the close
watch American officials keep
on the union movement.
The cables state that:
■ Right-wing unions ‘‘wield con-
siderable influence’’ among
senior ministers and cultivate ‘‘a
robust stable’’ of MPs.
■ Health Services Union national
secretary Kathy Jackson claimed
that ‘‘she and other union secre-
taries wield at least as much
influence as junior state minis-
ters . . . by controlling who is
elected to Parliament’’.
■ Labor parliamentary secretary
Richard Marles told a US envoy
about his ‘‘close relationship’’
with unions and that ‘‘the ACTU
uses his office in Canberra when
Parliament is sitting’’.
The cables, which draw
mostly on briefings from union
leaders in Victoria in 2009,
examine the backroom power of
various unions aligned to the
Labor Right faction.
‘‘Victorian right-of-centre
unions maintain a powerful
sway over federal and state min-
isters by engaging in backroom
diplomacy, funding political
campaigns and grooming future
Mark Arbib MPs,’’ one cable, dated August
PICTURE: ANDREW SHEARGOLD 2009, states. It says unions ‘‘con-
tinue to play a significant role in
the formulation of national
policies that can impact the
United States’’.
Australian Workers Union
Victorian boss Cesar Melhem is
legal team said he would again quoted saying the AWU used a
apply for bail at that hearing. ‘‘well-researched and backroom
The extradition relates to policy’’ to influence the govern-
alleged sex crimes against two ment’s handling of the Carbon
women in Sweden — crimes he Pollution Reduction Scheme.
denies. Both alleged victims met Mr Melhem is also recorded
Mr Assange through his work. telling how the ‘‘the AWU works
The allegation against him in diligently to place its own mem-
relation to one woman is sex bers in parliamentary positions,
using unlawful coercion and both at state and federal levels.
sexual molestation without This includes Bill Shorten.’’
using contraception. The US officials who wrote
The case concerning the the cables repeatedly refer to
other woman is more serious. the manner in which Labor MPs
Mr Assange is accused of having are nominated and promoted
sex with her while she was due to their union ties and
asleep, again without using con- factional standing.
traception. GUARDIAN Continued PAGE 10
ISSN 0312-6307
23 MINDGAMES PAGE 26
16
21
20
24
TRIBUTES
SHARES
TELEVISION
WORLD
PAGE 18
BUSINESSDAY 9-11
PAGE 27
PAGES 14-16
9 770312 630042
B C D
METAGE A001
 THE AGE
10 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010
THE LEAKS TO THE AGE
Embassy forecast
Gillard’s ascent
US diplomats followed ‘rising star’s’ career closely
By PHILIP DORLING
US DIPLOMATS closely fol-
lowed the rise of Prime Minister
Julia Gillard, applauded her
shedding of Labor Left allegi-
ances and confidently predicted
she would be the next prime
minister more than eight
months before she deposed
Kevin Rudd.
Secret United States embassy
cables obtained by WikiLeaks
and provided to The Age reveal
US diplomats in Canberra paid
close attention to Ms Gillard,
identifying her at an early stage
as the ‘‘rising star’’ of the Rudd
Labor government, rapidly out-
shining Treasurer Wayne Swan.
Although an early report by
ambassador Robert McCallum
noted Ms Gillard was ‘‘a loyal
and competent deputy’’ to Mr
Rudd, US diplomats had no
doubt about the full extent of
her political ambitions and as
early as June 2008 declared her
the ‘‘front-runner’’ to replace Mr
Rudd as Labor leader, a goal she
would achieve two years later.
In this context, the diplomats
were anxious to establish her
attitudes towards Australia’s alli-
ance with the US and other key
foreign policy questions, espe-
cially in regard to Israel.
Numerous Labor figures
were drawn by US diplomats
into conversation concerning
Ms Gillard’s personality and
political positions with ‘‘many
Labor Left ‘deceived’ on missile shield
By PHILIP DORLING
and RICHARD BAKER
FEDERAL Labor’s Left faction
was deliberately ‘‘deceived’’ by
the language in last year’s
defence white paper to describe
Australia’s position on missile
defence co-operation with the
United States, a secret US
embassy cable reveals.
The cable, obtained by the
WikiLeaks website and released
to The Age, quotes the
then Defence Department
deputy secretary and white
paper co-ordinator Mike Pez-
zullo as telling US embassy offi-
cials how the language in the
missile defence section had
been ‘‘governed by (former
defence minister Joel) Fitzgib-
bon’s desire to avoid party divi-
sions at the ALP’s national
conference’’.
The Labor Left has long
ensured the party’s national
Unions’ power watched
From PAGE 1
A 2007 cable describes how
Kevin Rudd dealt with the elec-
tion to Parliament of union
leaders Greg Combet and Bill
Shorten. ‘‘Rudd has done only
what he had to do, giving the
parliamentary secretary posi-
tions in recognition of their for-
mer positions,’’ the cable states,
referring to expectations they
might get more senior roles.
Mr Marles, a former ACTU
assistant secretary who is
reviewed warmly in the cable, is
quoted saying he suspected his
role in mending a rift within his
Victorian ALP faction played a
role in his promotion to parlia-
mentary secretary.
The National Union of Work-
ers tells US officials that the key
to gaining influence ‘‘is the abil-
ity to effectively marshal union
membership to support ALP
candidates’’.
The cable also refers to the
BE PREPARED
FOR FLOODS
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Prepare a home emergency plan
Listen to your emergency broadcasters: ABC Local Radio, commercial radio
and designated community radio stations or SKY NEWS Television
METAGE A010
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’’.
New South Wales Right
powerbroker Mark Arbib
described Ms Gillard as ‘‘one of
the most pragmatic politicians
in the ALP’’. When US embassy
officers reminded Paul Howes,
head of the right-wing Austra-
lian Workers Union, that ‘‘ALP
politicians from the Left, no
matter how capable, do not
become party leader, he said
immediately: ‘But she votes with
the Right.’ ’’
The US embassy privately
expressed pleasure at Ms
Gillard’s preparedness to affirm
her support for the US alliance.
But there was some lingering
doubt about her commitment.
‘‘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 impor-
tance,’’ the embassy reported to
Washington in mid-2008.
‘‘[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.
‘‘At our request, she agreed to
meet a visiting member of the
[US] National Labor Relations
platform opposes US plans for a
missile defence shield. But Mr
Pezzullo is reported as telling US
officials the language had been
crafted to appeal to Labor’s Left
‘‘but in reality will allow the
GOA (government of Australia)
to continue its missile defence
research and development co-
operation with the US’’.
‘‘He [Pezzullo] described the
ALP left wing as still wedded to
the ‘1980s anti-Star-Wars mis-
sile defence’ concept and said
that the first paragraph in the
missile defence section of the
paper was a nod to this powerful
faction of the party,’’ the June 4,
2009, cable, classified secret and
not to be disclosed outside the
US government, noted.
‘‘He [Pezzullo] noted that if
the ALP Left perceives it has
been deceived by the Defence
white paper’s MD language,
it could raise a storm at the
party’s annual national confer-
declining power of left-leaning
unions over Labor, an observa-
tion drawn partly through brief-
ings from CFMEU national
secretary Dave Noonan and Vic-
torian secretary Bill Oliver, both
described as ‘‘capable leaders’’.
The CFMEU complained
that it had ‘‘no access’’ to the
then Victorian cabinet, ‘‘includ-
ing the state minister specific-
ally designated to interface with
labor unions’’.
‘‘The CFMEU utilizes a much
more public and antagonistic
form of lobbying. This charac-
teristic has led . . . Julia Gillard
and other ALP officials to pub-
licly distance themselves from
the CFMEU,’’ the cable says.
In contrast, Right union lead-
ers are described as ‘‘dynamic
and forward thinking . . . Union-
ized workers represent almost
20 per cent of the Australian
work force yet hold dispropor-
tionate political influence in
federal and Victorian politics’’.
THE WIKILEAKS FILES
Board, after prior entreaties by
the board members’ Australian
hosts had been rebuffed.
‘‘Although warm and engag-
ing in her dealings with Amer-
ican 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,’’ the embassy reported
to the State Department.
‘‘It is likely a combination of
the two. Labor Party officials
have told us that one lesson
Gillard took from the 2004
elections was that Australians
will not elect a PM who is per-
ceived to be anti-American.’’
More broadly, the embassy
noted that Labor factional dif-
ferences over foreign policy had
largely disappeared and that the
US alliance enjoyed broad sup-
port in the Labor government.
In a further report, the
embassy recorded that Vic-
torian senator David Feeney
had told embassy officers that
‘‘there is no major policy issue
on which he, a Right factional
leader, differs from Gillard’’.
Senator Feeney was a key fig-
ure behind Ms Gillard’s election
as Labor leader in June.
The embassy also applauded
what it described as Ms Gillard’s
‘‘pro-Israel’’ stance, reporting in
October 2009 that she had
‘‘thrown off the baggage’’ of
being from the ‘‘notoriously
anti-Israel faction’’ of the ALP.
ence this August,’’ the cable
continues.
The first paragraph in the
white paper’s missile defence
section states that: ‘‘The govern-
ment is opposed to the develop-
ment of a unilateral national
missile defence system by any
nation because such a system
would be at odds with the main-
tenance of global nuclear
deterrence.’’
But US embassy officials
were told that then prime minis-
ter Kevin Rudd’s thinking on
missile defence was very differ-
ent to that of Labor’s Left.
The white paper’s language
‘‘leaves the door open for con-
tinued co-operation’’, the cable
noted.
Mr Pezzullo said Australia
was keen to continue working
with the US on missile defence
programs under a 2004 memor-
andum of understanding signed
by the Howard government.
Arbib a
US source
From PAGE 1
there are viable alternatives to
Gillard within the Labor Party to
forestall a challenge’’.
Senator Arbib added that Mr
Rudd still appreciated Ms Gil-
lard’s strengths, while an
another unidentified adviser to
the Labor prime minister told
US diplomats that “while the
PM respects Gillard, his reluct-
ance to share power will eventu-
ally lead to a falling-out, while
Gillard will not want to acqui-
esce in creating potential rivals’’.
In June this year, Senator
Arbib and other Labor Right fig-
ures moved to depose Mr Rudd
from the leadership, precipitat-
ing the events that led to Ms Gil-
lard’s becoming Prime Minister.
Senator Arbib last night
declined to comment on the
WikiLeaks disclosures.
FLOOD & STORM INFO LINE
1300 VIC S E S
1300 842 737
www.ses.vic.gov.au
THE CIRCUMSTANCES, THE LAW
Julian Assange street art in Melbourne: ‘‘[I have] never, whether in Sweden or in any other country, had sex with anyone in a way that is not founded on mutual consent.’’
Dinner, sex, speech, lunch, sex – then trouble
By RICHARD EDWARDS
THE two alleged victims of Julian
Assange met the WikiLeaks
founder in Sweden during the
northern summer through his
work on the website.
Asked to speak at a confer-
ence about war and the role of
the media, he flew to Stockholm
in August. Before travelling to
Scandinavia, the 39-year-old
Australian had arranged to stay
at the flat of Miss A, who was
linked to the organisation
arranging the conference.
The night before he was due
to speak, the pair reportedly
went out to dinner before going
back to her flat in Stockholm
where they had sexual inter-
course. Mr Assange has insisted
the intercourse was consensual.
City of Westminster Magistrates
Court heard yesterday that he
allegedly did not use a condom.
IN CARLTON
Leaks began in terrace house
By REID SEXTON
IT HARDLY looks like the home
of a man who would soon make
world leaders grovel and spark
one of the biggest diplomatic
storms in decades.
But WikiLeaks founder and
accused rapist Julian Assange
rented this small terrace house
in Grattan Street, Carlton, from
2004 until last year after initially
moving in for $275 a week.
Mr Assange reluctantly
revealed his association with the
house after a London judge
pressed him for a home address
during his committal hearing.
Nestled on a tree-lined street
near student accommodation
and a busy pub and cafes, it is
directly opposite Melbourne
University, where Mr Assange
studied physics and pure math-
ematics without graduating.
Mr Assange’s former real
estate agent told The Age he was
the only tenant listed on the
lease in the five years or so that
he lived there.
‘‘He was quiet, fairly reserved,
a little mysterious — it all makes
sense now, doesn’t it,’’ said
Arthur Korf, general manager of
real estate agent Rrent. ‘‘He was
clean — we never had any trou-
DAY TWO
In relation to Miss A, he is
accused of unlawful coercion,
sexual molestation without
using contraception and delib-
erate molestation between
August 14 and August 18.
The second alleged incident
was said to have taken place on
August 17, also in Stockholm.
Miss W attended the conference
and is reported to have had
lunch with Mr Assange and sev-
eral others after his speech,
before he accompanied her to
her home. The pair had sexual
intercourse and, again, Mr
Assange has insisted the act was
consensual.
But the court heard that he
had intercourse with Miss W
while she was asleep, again
using no contraception. In rela-
tion to this incident, he is
accused of rape.
Mr Assange has denied all
allegations, saying he has
The house rented by Julian Assange until last year.
ble with him. He was always
ahead on his rent, no problems
at all.’’
A Julian Assange of Balwyn
wrote a letter to The Australian
in 2006 about how he was forced
to send his ‘‘bright’’ 14-year-old
son to Melbourne University
because the traditional system
was failing him.
But Mr Korf said mainten-
ance reports show he lived at the
Carlton property throughout the
five years.
It followed a letter to The Age
in 2003 from a Julian Assange in
Fitzroy that said Kim Beazley
should not challenge for the
Safe
Flood preparation is everyone’s
responsibility so it is important
warnings and prepare early.
‘‘never, whether in Sweden or in
any other country, had sex with
anyone in a way that is not
founded on mutual consent’’.
Swedish laws protecting
women in their sexual encoun-
ters include wide-ranging defin-
itions of sexual assault and rape.
‘could
Lawyers fear Sweden
hand Mr Assange
over to US authorities.
’
The number of reported
rapes in Sweden is by far the
highest in the European Union,
according to the European
Sourcebook of Crime and Crim-
inal Justice Statistics, which
cites 53 offences per 100,000
inhabitants.
Britain has the next highest
rate, at 24 per 100,000.
This is most probably not a
PICTURE: WAYNE TAYLOR
Labor leadership because he ‘‘is
captured by intelligence and
defence interests’’.
Mr Korf said that when Mr
Assange left the house last year,
he transferred the tenancy to
two young women from Mel-
bourne University.
He believed they were friends
of Mr Assange.
The women are believed to
be among the three who left the
house yesterday morning as a
media scrum waited outside.
They did not answer ques-
tions, but a man accompanying
them covered his face and said
he was ‘‘not a public person’’.
‘BikePaths & RailTrails’
The perfect gift for passionate cyclists
result of more sexual violence that he may have engaged in
taking place in Sweden, legal this last category, which is pun-
experts said, but a result of more ishable by as much as four years
crimes being reported. in prison.
Swedish rape laws are more His fight against extradition
nuanced, by differentiating to Sweden could drag on for
among three categories of rape months. Lawyers for the
and, unusually, invoking the WikiLeaks founder have
concept of ‘‘unlawful coercion’’.
There is a category identified
suggested they will contest the
legal proceedings on human
as ‘‘severe rape’’, which involves
a high degree of violence and
which carries a maximum sen-
rights grounds and because Mr
Assange has not been formally
charged with rape.
tence of 10 years in prison for
the perpetrator; another known
as ‘‘regular rape’’, which may
They will highlight fears that
Swedish authorities could hand
him over to America, where
involve some violence and calls some politicians have called for
for a maximum sentence of six his execution.
years; and a third called ‘‘less When asked at court yester-
severe rape’’, which may not day if he was willing to return to
involve violence but still Sweden, Mr Assange said: ‘‘I do
includes the imposition of not consent.’’ His lawyers are
sexual intercourse on a person likely to argue that in Sweden he
against their will. will be vulnerable to extradition
The prosecutors seeking Mr requests from other countries,
Assange’s extradition suspect including the US. AGENCIES
IN LIBYA
Lockerbie reprisal fear
THE British government’s deep treats’’ was offered by Libya to
fears that Libya would take the Scottish government if it let
‘‘harsh and immediate’’ action him go, though the cable says
against UK interests if the con- they were turned down.
victed Lockerbie bomber died in London charge d’affaires,
a Scottish prison are revealed in Richard LeBaron, wrote in a
secret US embassy cables that
show London backed Abdel-
cable to Washington in October
2008 that Britain was ‘‘in an
baset al-Megrahi’s release.
Muammar Gaddafi, the
Libyan leader, made explicit and
awkward position’’.
The Megrahi cables may do
much to explain why he was
‘‘thuggish’’ threats to halt all released in August 2009, sup-
trade deals with Britain and har- posedly because he was on the
ass embassy staff if Megrahi brink of death from prostate
stayed in jail, the cables show. cancer. More than a year later
At the same time ‘‘a parade of Megrahi is still alive. GUARDIAN
IN SAUDI ARABIA
Booze, girls at royal party
IN WIKILEAKS cables US wealthy prince from the large
diplomats describe a world of Al-Thunayan family.
sex, drugs and rock’n’roll behind ‘‘Alcohol, though strictly pro-
the official pieties of Saudi hibited by Saudi law and cus-
Arabian royalty. tom, was plentiful at the party’s
Jeddah consulate officials well-stocked bar,’’ the cable
described an underground Hal- said.
loween party, thrown last year The dispatch from the US
by a member of the royal family, partygoers, signed by the consul
that broke all the country’s in Jeddah, Martin Quinn, added:
Islamic prohibitions. Liquor and ‘‘Though not witnessed directly
prostitutes were in abundance, at this event, cocaine and hash-
according to leaked dispatches. ish use is common in these
The party was thrown by a social circles.’’
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 THE WIKILEAKS FILES: DAY 3
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Afghanistan: our secret fears

■ Rudd: war ‘scares hell out of me’
■ Ex-PM mocked Germans, French
By PHILIP DORLING
and NICK McKENZIE
AUSTRALIA is deeply pessim-
istic about its engagement in
Afghanistan, and senior officials
have described as hopeless the
key task of training the Afghan
national police.
Despite repeated public
assurances by the federal gov-
ernment that gains are being
made and that long-term suc-
cess is possible, secret United
States embassy cables reveal
that some of our top diplomats
and officials hold grave con-
cerns about the nine-year war
that has claimed the lives
of 21 Australian soldiers.
The cables, obtained
by WikiLeaks and made
available exclusively to
The Age, also include
more embarrassing rev-
elations about the con-
duct of Foreign Minister
Kevin Rudd.
Mr Rudd derides the
contribution of France
and Germany to the fight
against the Taliban as
‘‘organising folk dancing
festivals’’ and confides
that the outlook in Afghanistan
‘‘scares the hell’’ out of him.
Another cable sent to Wash-
ington last November by the US
embassy in Canberra records
Australia’s special representative
on Afghanistan and Pakistan,
Ric Smith — a former secretary
of the Defence Department —
delivering a bleak assessment of
the international community’s
Afghan strategy.
“Smith had just returned from
a visit to Oruzgan and described
the . . . mission in Afghanistan
and Afghan government pres-
ence as a ‘wobbly three-legged
stool’,” the cable says.
Referring to Australia’s plan
to increase funds for training
Afghan police — a task currently
undertaken by more than two
dozen AFP officers — Mr Smith
warned it might involve “putting
good money into a bad situ-
ation”.
Another cable, from Decem-
ber last year, says ‘‘Smith ques-
tioned what the AFP would be
able to accomplish given the
WIKILEAKS &
BOB BROWN
PAGE 9
‘train wreck’ that they had to be
given to work with in the Afghan
National Police”.
The cables give a stark
insight into the private views of
Australian and American offi-
cials on the war, including frus-
tration about Canberra stalling
on promises to boost Australia’s
civilian contribution beyond the
1550 troops deployed.
An October 2008 cable,
which records what Mr Rudd
told a group of visiting US con-
gressmen, says he ‘‘concluded
by noting that the national
security establishment in Aus-
tralia was very pessimistic about
the long-term prognosis for
Afghanistan”.
Mr Rudd also told US politi-
cians that “he supported the
Afghan war ‘from day one’ but
confided that ‘Afghanistan
scares the hell out of me’.”
Mr Rudd is also critical of
Australia’s European allies,
accusing them of having “no
common strategy for winning
the war or winning the peace”.
“In the south-east, the US,
Canada, British, Australia and
Dutch were doing the ‘hard
stuff ’, while in the relatively
peaceful north-west, the Ger-
mans and French were organ-
ising folk dancing festivals,’’ Mr
Rudd was reported as saying.
That same month, Mr Rudd
publicly praised France and Ger-
many for boosting their military
commitment to Afghanistan.
Other cables detail repeated
criticism from officials about
Australia’s plan to boost its non-
military contribution in Afghani-
stan by sending federal police to
train Afghan police and by
WikiLeaks grows stronger as supporters fight back
By JOBY WARRICK
and ROB PEGORARO
WASHINGTON
THE WikiLeaks website has
been deactivated, its PayPal
account has been frozen, credit
card companies have aban-
doned it, all thanks to US gov-
ernment pressure — yet the
group is now stronger than ever.
Blocked from using one
internet host, WikiLeaks simply
jumped to another. Meanwhile,
the number of ‘‘mirror’’ websites
— effectively clones of
WikiLeaks’ main contents pages
— has grown from a few dozen
last week to more than 1000.
At the same time, WikiLeaks
providing greater aid assistance.
The civilian boost was
announced by Mr Rudd in late
2009, around the time US Presi-
dent Barrack Obama released
his revised Afghan strategy.
A December 2009 cable says:
“Rudd, who is loath to increase
troop levels, had hoped to offer
the increased civilian effort to
the United States as a substitute.
The Australians began preparing
for the president’s announce-
ment months in advance and the
lack of progress is surprising.
“Coupled with [Ric] Smith’s
increasingly pessimistic attitude,
this may be a sign of friction
within the government
over the proper role for
civilians in Afghanistan.”
Another cable des-
cribes how the internal
government debate over
the civilian strategy had
“dragged on much longer
than anyone predicted”.
The cables reveal that
the head of the AFP’s
International Deployment
Group, Assistant Commis-
sioner Frank Prendergast,
had also raised concerns
about what federal police
officers could feasibly achieve in
Afghanistan. “Even Prendergast,
who was generally optimistic
about AFP efforts in Afghani-
stan, noted that the odds were
stacked against success,’’ it says.
‘‘Current training programs
are hampered by illiteracy, cor-
ruption, drug addiction and
insurgent penetration within the
pool of trainees ... He believes
that a successful police training
program will take 20 years to be
effective in Afghanistan.”
Prime Minister Julia Gillard
said last month that Australia’s
Afghan efforts may last for a
decade.
Other Australian officials
who briefed the US embassy
expressed frustration “at the
slow pace” of the civilian boost
and “hinted” at clashes between
bureaucrats and ministers over
its “apparent lack of progress”.
The cables also detail ten-
sions between Holland and Aus-
tralia over their respective roles
in Afghanistan’s south before
the Dutch withdrew this year.
supporters have apparently
gone on the offensive, staging
retaliatory attacks against
companies that have cut ties.
On Wednesday, hackers
briefly shut down access to the
MasterCard website, which
announced it had stopped
processing donations to the
group. Visa has done likewise —
and its website was taken down
yesterday.
PostFinance, a Swiss post
office bank which closed its
account, has itself been under
cyber attack.
Coincidentally , or perhaps
not, WikiLeaks cables reveal
that the US government lobbied
Russia on behalf of the credit
Before Kevin Rudd visited Australian troops in Afghanistan last year, he was privately fearful of the mission’s fate, US cables reveal.
card giants. Russia had set up a
state-controlled system for pro-
cessing credit card payments,
denying the companies billions
of dollars.
In the US, Senator Joseph
Lieberman this week denied
demanding that companies
sever WikiLeaks links.
Online retailer Amazon has
now said it cancelled its web
hosting services with WikiLeaks
after receiving a call of concern
from Senator Lieberman’s office.
His website was attacked this
week — as was that of Sarah
Palin, who has labelled
WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange a terrorist.
In Paris, a PayPal executive
said its decision to freeze
WikiLeaks’ account was based
in part on the US State Depart-
ment’s declaration that the
group had acted illegally in
publishing classified docu-
ments.
‘‘The State Department told
us these were illegal activities. It
was straightforward,’’ PayPal’s
Osama Bedier said.
That explanation proved not
so straightforward — PayPal has
varied it several times since.
Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer
for the two Swedish women Mr
Assange is accused of molesting,
had his website hacked and
closed down on Monday.
WikiLeaks has had a win in
Australia. Australia Post yester-
day reversed a decision made
last week to close the University
of Melbourne post office, also
home to a postbox for secret
submissions to Mr Assange’s
organisation.
WikiLeaks’ long-term sur-
vival depends on a number of
unknowns, including the fate of
Mr Assange, who is being held
in Britain while awaiting pos-
sible extradition to Sweden.
But the website’s resilience in
the face of repeated attacks has
underscored a lesson already
absorbed by more repressive
governments that have tried to
control the internet: it is nearly
impossible to do.
PICTURE: GARY RAMAGE
WikiLeaks’ seeming invul-
nerability to attacks stems from
it being an organisation without
a country — it has supporters
worldwide, but no central head-
quarters that would be vulner-
able to legal and political
pressure.
The isolation of WikiLeaks
has prompted complaints of
censorship and government
interference.
‘‘I can use my credit card to
send money to the Ku Klux Klan
. . . but I can’t use it to send
money to WikiLeaks,’’ said Jeff
Jarvis, from the University of
New York’s Graduate School of
Journalism.
WASHINGTON POST, with DANIEL FLITTON
China’s
fury at
defence
paper
By PHILIP DORLING
and RICHARD BAKER
THE Australian government
publicly played down reports of
a hostile Chinese reaction to last
year’s defence white paper,
while secretly briefing the
United States that Beijing had
threatened Australia would
‘‘suffer the consequences’’ if
references to China were not
watered down.
The revelations of China’s
true reaction to the May 2009
white paper, which proposed a
substantial boost in Australia’s
air and naval power in response
to China’s increasing military
presence in the region, are
revealed in a series of secret US
government cables written in
May last year.
The paper declared China
would be Asia’s strongest mili-
tary power ‘‘by a considerable
margin’’ and warned the pace
and scope of its growth had the
potential to give its neighbours
cause for concern if not prop-
erly explained.
In the cables, obtained by
WikiLeaks and released to The
Age, US officials contrast the
public comments of Australian
Defence Force chief Air Chief
Marshal Angus Houston — say-
ing China had no problems with
the Australian defence white
paper — with a private briefing
given to them on China’s real
reaction by the Defence Depart-
ment’s then deputy secretary
and white paper co-ordinator,
Mike Pezzullo.
‘‘Although Australian Defence
Force chief Air Chief Marshal
Angus Houston told the media
that the Chinese did not express
concern over the paper when
briefed ahead of the paper’s
release, press reports and other
reporting indicate Beijing
reacted very negatively to the
implication it could pose a
threat,’’ a cable dated May 13,
2009, stated.
On May 7 last year, Air Chief
Marshal Houston was reported
as saying that Chinese officials
had raised ‘‘no particular con-
cerns’’ about the white paper
and that they appreciated being
briefed by an Australian defence
official before its release.
On May 4, then-defence min-
ister Joel Fitzgibbon said media
reports suggesting Chinese offi-
cials reacted negatively to Mr
Pezzullo’s briefing were wrong.
‘‘I’ve spoken with Mike Pezzullo,
who participated in the meeting,
and that’s not the feedback I get
from those meetings,’’ he said.
Mr Pezzullo, gave a different
account of China’s impressions
on the white paper during a dis-
cussion with American diplo-
mats after the paper’s release on
May 2 last year, according to a
Continued PAGE 9

WEATHER MELBOURNE DAMS ODD SPOT INDEX ISSN 0312-6307

MELBOURNE Few showers 14 — 20 MILDURA Partly cloudy 13 — 22 A record number of Britons changed their name by ARTS PAGES 20, 21 MINDGAMES PAGE 22
BALLARAT Shower or two 9 — 15
BENDIGO Partly cloudy 12 — 19
GEELONG Shower or two 11 — 19
HORSHAM Partly cloudy 10 — 20
SALE Shower or two 13 — 22
WARRNAMBOOL Showers 10 — 17
WODONGA Mostly sunny 16 — 23
Details PAGE 23
48.3
52.7%
A YEAR AGO:
AGO: 35.3%
37.9%
deed poll this year — some to bizarre ones including
Her Majesty The Queen, Willy Wonka and Miss Jelly
St Tots. More than 90,000 people swapped their
name in 2010, the Legal Deed Poll Service said.
CLASSIFIEDS
COMMENT & DEBATE
EDITORIALS, LETTERS
FOCUS
PAGE
PAGE
PAGE
PAGE
16
19
18
17
TRIBUTES
SHARES
TELEVISION
WORLD
PAGE 16
BUSINESSDAY 9-11
PAGE 23
PAGES 12-14
9 770312 630059
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THE GREENS
Brown made up with US after election of Obama
By PHILIP DORLING
AUSTRALIAN Greens leader Bob
Brown was quick to kiss and
make up with the United States
following the election of Presi-
dent Barack Obama, according
to a confidential United States
diplomatic cable.
The US embassy cable
provided to The Age by the
WikiLeaks website reveals that
Senator Brown, a strident critic
of former US president George
Bush, told US charge d’affaires
Dan Clune in March last year he
‘‘looked forward to a good rela-
tionship with the United States
POLITICAL FALLOUT
US refused
cable access
to Canberra
I often chat, says ‘protected’ Arbib
By MICHELLE GRATTAN
POLITICAL EDITOR
THE US government refused
repeated recent requests from
the Gillard government to be
given the WikiLeaks cables
relating to Australia ahead of
their publication, so it would be
better prepared to deal with
their impact.
All the Americans would
provide was a general briefing
on some 1400 documents that
mention Australia.
The US refusal has caused
some annoyance in Australian
circles. This is on top of the
sharp Australian criticism of US
incompetence in which a junior
soldier was able to obtain
250,000 documents.
As the government was
embarrassed yesterday by the
cables’ revelation of the exten-
sive confidential contacts
between the US embassy and
Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib,
Senator Arbib said he was known
as a strong supporter of Austra-
lia’s relationship with the US.
‘‘I, 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,’’ he said, noting he
was a member of the Australia-
American leadership dialogue.
Asked about the reporting of
the Arbib conversations, Wayne
Swan, who is acting prime min-
ister while Julia Gillard holidays,
said no one could assume that
just because something was in a
cable it was accurate.
The cables described Arbib
as a ‘‘protected’’ source, not to
be identified.
Independent Andrew Wilkie
yesterday strongly attacked Ms
Gillard over her handling of the
WikiLeaks affair, declaring he
was disgusted that she had
‘‘abandoned key principles of
democracy’’ in her pursuit of
website founder Julian Assange.
He accused her of showing
‘‘contempt for the rule of law,
WAR NEGOTIATIONS
The sound of silence as
Dutch offload Oruzgan
By PHILIP DORLING
and NICK McKENZIE
THIRTY seconds passed. And
then a minute. And still Austra-
lian defence minister John
Faulkner and his Dutch coun-
terpart, Eimert van Middelkoop,
said nothing. They just sat
there, looking grim.
The two were at a meeting
called to discuss a critical
aspect of the Afghanistan war —
the handover of Dutch military
control in the country’s south.
According to the cable,
provided to The Age by
WikiLeaks, the awkward stand-
off arose after Mr van Middel-
koop ‘‘bluntly’’ stated that the
Netherlands was relinquishing
the lead role in Oruzgan
province, where most of Austra-
lia’s 1550 troops operate.
‘‘Faulkner responded in
equally blunt fashion that Aus-
tralia was not going to assume
that role,’’ the US State Depart-
ment cable states. ‘‘Having
stated their positions unequi-
vocally in their opening salvos,
the two sat in a lengthening and
increasingly uncomfortable
silence for some time.’’
When the chief of the Austra-
THE WIKILEAKS FILES
now that Barack Obama was
President’’.
Senator Brown yesterday
welcomed the publication in
The Age of US embassy reports
that identified Labor senator
Mark Arbib as a ‘‘protected’’
source of information on the
Australian government and
Labor Party politics.
‘‘Mark [Arbib] can speak for
himself,’’ Senator Brown said.
‘‘It’s good it’s seeing the light of
day. We all have to answer as
elected members of Parliament
for information we’re giving to
foreign embassies. It’s a very big
test.’’
sovereignty and freedom of
speech’’.
‘‘In talking about ‘illegal acts’,
the Prime Minister had ignored
Mr Assange’s presumption of
innocence,’’ Mr Wilkie said.
This potentially comprom-
ised a fair trial, if in fact he was
even charged with anything.
‘‘Moreover, Julia Gillard has
shown contempt for Australia’s
sovereignty by defaulting to the
interests of the United States of
America above the interests of
an Australian citizen,’’ he said.
‘‘She has also trashed the
principle of freedom of speech
because, although we might not
agree with Julian Assange’s
actions, we must always respect
the right to speak out so long as
lives and national security are
not placed at risk.’’
Country independent Rob
Oakeshott said he shared Mr
Wilkie’s view that all Australians
deserved the presumption of
innocence.
Mr Oakeshott also said he
expected that Parliament would
have ‘‘some work to do in 2011
going through the 250,000
cables when fully released and,
more importantly, working on
their implications’’.
The activist group GetUp! is
collecting signatures for adver-
tisements in The Washington
Times and The New York Times
directed to President Obama
and US Attorney-General Eric
Holder, condemning calls for
violence against Mr Assange.
‘‘We are writing as Australi-
ans to say what our government
should have said: that all Austra-
lian citizens deserve to be free
from persecution, threats of
violence and detention without
charge, especially from our
friend and ally, the United
States,’’ the ad says.
More than 18,000 Australians
signed a letter to Barack Obama
supporting Mr Assange within
hours of GetUp! declaring its
plans and had reportedly
donated just under $70,000.
With KIRSTY NEEDHAM
Faulkner, van Middelkoop
lian Defence Force, Angus Hou-
ston, finally decided to break
the ice with a question, a full
two minutes had elapsed.
So painful was the June 2009
meeting that a US official in
Canberra deemed it worthy of
special mention in a State
Department cable sent to Wash-
ington.
The cable gives a rare insight
into the tensions between the
countries responsible for
attempting what some say is an
impossible task — bringing
peace and order to unruly
Afghanistan.
It is also a reminder that
behind the facade of unity, the
nations that line up to fight
alongside each other are any-
thing but friends as they juggle
their competing domestic polit-
ical agendas.
Senator Brown said he regu-
larly spoke to ambassadors and
diplomats from many countries.
‘‘I’m always very careful
about that because you know
that that information is going
back to the home capital,
whether it’s Beijing or Washing-
ton or Wellington or wherever,’’
he said. ‘‘The WikiLeaks
releases, which have informed
the world about what goes on
behind closed doors in interna-
tional diplomacy, is something
we wouldn’t have heard about
and won’t hear about in the
future if we don’t have guaran-
tees of freedom of information.’’
Julian Assange has been stencilled on to this Toorak wall.
LEGAL RESPONSE
Lawyers demand protection for Assange
By NICK McKENZIE
and PAUL MILLAR
THE Australian lawyer for
WikiLeaks’ founder Julian
Assange has written to Attorney-
General Robert McClelland ask-
ing him to take formal action
against prominent North Amer-
ican figures calling for Mr
Assange to be harmed.
Melbourne criminal lawyer
Robert Stary has described as
‘‘woefully inadequate’’ Mr
McClelland’s efforts to protect
Mr Assange’s rights as an Austra-
lian citizen.
Mr Stary has requested the
Attorney-General order the
investigation of those who may
have broken a law that prohibits
a person, here or overseas, to
deliberately or recklessly cause
physical or mental harm.
‘‘There has been serious
threats made against Julian
Assange and it is incumbent on
the federal government to take
action to protect him. In fact,
they have a legislative obligation
to do so under Australian law,’’
Mr Stary said.
Veteran US politician Mike
Huckabee, a former Republican
who has tried to run for presi-
China’s fury at defence paper
From PAGE 1
May 13 2009 cable, classified as
secret and not to be disclosed
outside the US government.
The cable quoted Mr Pez-
zullo telling American diplo-
mats about how he was ‘‘dressed
down’’ by the deputy director of
foreign affairs in China’s defence
ministry, Major-General Jia
Xiaoning.
According to the cable,
Major-General Jia ‘‘demanded
Australia make changes to the
paper or suffer the con-
sequences’’. Mr Pezzullo’s initial
meetings with other Chinese
foreign affairs and People’s Lib-
eration Army officials were also
‘‘frosty’’, the cable noted.
Another secret cable written
on May 19 reported Mr Pezzullo
describing Major-General Jia as
a ‘‘bruiser’’ who had a ‘‘look of
cold fury’’ wash across his face
at China’s repeated mentions in
the white paper.
Major-General Jia and other
Chinese officials were particu-
larly annoyed by the white
paper’s reference to China’s mil-
itary build-up being beyond the
The US embassy cable classi-
fied ‘‘Confidential’’ and intend-
ed for American eyes only noted
Senator Brown was ‘‘a vehement
opponent of the Iraq War and
‘lightIt’sofgoodday.it’s’ seeing the
SENATOR BOB BROWN
Guantanamo and was ejected
from the Australian Parliament
when he heckled President
George W. Bush during a speech
in 2003’’.
However, the Greens leader
Truth a casualty of Afghanistan war, as ever
AUSTRALIA’S leaders have not
been fair dinkum with the Austra-
lian people about the war in
Afghanistan, to parrot a bit of
slang loved by Kevin Rudd. That
much is now plain.
The government will claim the
war has moved on since the
assessments details in these
leaked cables. This is true. But why
should we believe the conflict is
moving in the right direction?
Afghanistan ‘‘scares the hell’’ out
of him, Rudd told the Americans in
private. To the Australian people he
dent, said that Mr Assange was
guilty of treason and that ‘‘any-
thing less than execution is too
kind a penalty’’. Presidential
hopeful Sarah Palin has said Mr
Assange should be hunted like a
terrorist.
‘‘The Australian government
should be clear to their Amer-
ican counterparts that threats
against Mr Assange’s life will be
taken seriously by this country,’’
Mr Stary said.
For his part, Attorney-
scope required for any conflict
over Taiwan, the cable noted.
‘‘During each of the brief-
ings, the Chinese asked Pezzullo
to revise the description of the
regional security environment,’’
the cable noted. ‘‘Pezzullo said
he responded firmly that the
white paper would not be
changed, and that he had not
come to negotiate it.’’
The lobbying over language
continued even as Mr Pezzullo
walked to board his outbound
flight, with a Chinese military
colonel appealing to the Austra-
lian’s ‘‘intellect and sophistica-
tion’’, according to the cable.
After Mr Pezzullo’s briefing,
the Chinese denied an Austra-
lian request to host some Peo-
ple’s Liberation Army officers on
board Australian vessels near
Hong Kong, the cable noted.
Another cable to Washington
reveals then-foreign affairs min-
ister Stephen Smith was lobbied
by officials in Beijing in April last
year to ensure China was not
singled out as the focus of
Australia’s ‘‘strategic defence
reorientation’’.
Mr Pezzullo said the Chinese
DAY THREE
told the embassy that President
Obama’s election ‘‘raises the
hopes of the world for a fairer,
securer, more ecologically
sound future’’.
The embassy paid particular
attention to Senator Brown’s
remarks concerning then prime
minister Kevin Rudd’s carbon
emissions trading scheme, and
that ‘‘the Greens could not in
good conscience support the
Government’s targets of a 5-15%
carbon emission reduction
when the global warming
situation was so dire’’.
Senator Brown told the
embassy that the Labor govern-
ANALYSIS
DANIEL FLITTON
insisted that progress was being
made.
He praised troops from France
and Germany in public, but
dismissed their efforts behind
closed doors.
No wonder the Australian public
was left confused over the long-
term plan in the conflict. And
remains so.
General McClelland simply
repeated loose claims that Mr
Assange might have committed
an offence.
He said that obtaining and
distributing information that
put national security at risk was
likely to be an offence in the US.
‘‘Certainly to release that sort
of information by an officer of
the Commonwealth, if it were
Australian material, would in
my view certainly involve
criminality,’’ he said.
had tempered their initial reac-
tion at a second round of brief-
ings and appeared to appreciate
Australia’s efforts to brief them
in advance of the white paper’s
public release.
The cable also referred to
Japan’s reaction to its briefing
on the white paper, with the
country’s vice minister of
defence reportedly ‘‘shocked’’
by Australia’s intentions to
double the size of its submarine
force to 12 submarines, as well
as the fiscal implications of the
commitment.
‘‘The Defence Vice Minister
did a ‘double take’ and noted
that Japan had only 16 submar-
ines,’’ the cable stated.
Indonesia was reported as
reacting to the white paper,
including the objective to attain
long-range, land-attack missiles,
by saying they believed it con-
sistent with Australia’s policy
over the past 30 to 60 years.
‘‘Pezzullo, however, noted
that their body language sug-
gested they questioned Austra-
lia’s intentions behind its far-
reaching expansion,’’ the cable
concluded.
ment had ‘‘lost its way’’ on com-
bating climate change.
‘‘Australia had the biggest
coal industry in the world and
Climate Change Minister Penny
Wong had met with every coal
and logging company in the
country. Brown maintained that
if Australia stopped logging that
alone would cut carbon emis-
sions by 15-20%.’’
When US embassy officers
expressed the hope that with a
new government in Washington,
relations with the Greens could
improve, Senator Brown replied
that he had ‘‘great affection for
the US and the Greens wanted a
What emerges from these cables
is deep and enduring pessimism
about the idea that a foreign force
can impose peace in Afghanistan.
Nothing has happened to change
that assessment since.
Rudd sent more Australian
troops to Afghanistan in April
2009, despite his misgivings.
But if the extra deployment was
an effort to win brownie points
from the Americans, whatever
bonus was short-lived.
By December, the US saw Rudd
as ‘‘loath to increase troop levels’’.
Last night Mr Stary convened
a meeting of lawyers, human
rights activists and criminal law
advocates in Melbourne to dis-
cuss the legal issues surround-
ing Mr Assange and his arrest —
and particularly relating to the
presumption of innocence.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard
has suggested more than once
that WikiLeaks had acted illeg-
ally by releasing thousands of
diplomatic cables.
The meeting condemned
IN NIGERIA
We know everything,
Shell executive boasted
By DAVID SMITH
LAGOS
AUSTRALIA’S top-ranking exec-
utive at oil giant Shell claimed it
had inserted staff into all the
main ministries of the Nigerian
government, giving it access to
politicians’ every move in the
oil-rich Niger Delta, according
to a leaked US diplomatic cable.
Ann Pickard, then Shell’s top
executive in Nigeria, told US
diplomats in October 2009 that
Shell knew ‘‘everything that was
being done in those ministries’’.
She boasted the Nigerian
government had ‘‘forgotten’’
about the extent of Shell’s infilt-
ration and were unaware of how
much the company knew about
its deliberations.
Earlier this year, Ms Pickard
became Shell’s top-ranking dir-
ector in Australia. Forbes
magazine last year named her in
its list of the world’s most
powerful businesswomen.
The cache of secret dis-
good relationship’’. ‘‘The Greens
disliked the Bush Administra-
tion’s policies, not the United
States. President Obama was the
world’s great hope.’’
On other international
issues, Senator Brown said
China’s treatment of Tibet was
wrong ‘‘but Australia would not
‘look China in the eye’ on the
issue because the Government
felt the trade relationship was
too important’’.
Asked yesterday whether he
expected to be the subject of
any leaked US cables disclosed
by WikiLeaks, Senator Brown
said: ‘‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’’
PICTURE: JUSTIN McMANUS
any future call for Mr Assange’s
extradition to the US ‘‘because
he cannot receive a fair trial’’.
The forum believed any
criminalisation of WikiLeaks
was a direct attack on the media
and freedom of speech.
Liberty Victoria president
Peter Gordon, a former colleague
of the Prime Minister at his legal
practice, said it appeared war
was being waged by big govern-
ments and big corporations to
suppress information.
A small group of protesters
outside the offices of the Law
Institute, where the forum was
held, called for the federal gov-
ernment to guarantee Mr
Assange ‘‘the same basic rights
as all other Australians’’.
It also called on the federal
government to oppose the cam-
paign to censor WikiLeaks and
to protect ‘‘Mr Assange from
threats made against his life by
US politicians’’.
The Construction, Forestry,
Mining and Energy Union’s
Dave Noonan, the subject of a
leaked US cable that cited him
as an example of the declining
left, said WikiLeaks was
‘‘healthy and Assange should
not be persecuted’’.
patches from Washington’s
embassies in Africa also
revealed that the Anglo-Dutch
oil firm swapped intelligence
with the US, in one case provid-
ing US diplomats with the
names of Nigerian politicians it
suspected of supporting milit-
ant activity.
Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil
producer, accounting for 8 per
cent of US oil imports — and
70 per cent of its people live
below the poverty line.
Ms Pickard met US ambas-
sador Robin Renee Sanders in
October 2009, and told how the
company had obtained a letter
showing that the Nigerian gov-
ernment had invited bids for oil
concessions from China.
Activist Celestine AkpoBari,
from Social Action Nigeria, said
Shell ‘‘have people on the pay-
roll in every community . . .
They are more powerful than
the Nigerian government.’’
The government has denied
the claims. GUARDIAN
THE AGE
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2010 9
THE SEX CASE
Barrister
denies
any
political
pressure
By AMELIA GENTLEMAN
STOCKHOLM
CLAES Borgstrom, the lawyer
for the two women whose com-
plaints of sexual assault trig-
gered Julian Assange’s arrest,
said his clients had been assaul-
ted twice: first physically, and
then in a malevolent online
attack.
The women were having ‘‘a
very tough time’’, he said,
because of online assaults on
their reputation.
Mr Borgstrom, a Swedish
lawyer with 30 years of experi-
ence, denied any political
motive. ‘‘It has nothing whatso-
ever to do with WikiLeaks or the
CIA and I regret very much that
Julian Assange does not publicly
say that himself. There are no
political ingredients in this at
all, but I quite understand that
there are rumours.’’
An acquaintance who met
Mr Assange and both women in
Stockholm around the time of
the alleged assaults said he had
warned Mr Assange that his
activities with women would get
him into trouble.
‘‘A lot of women invited him
to their beds and he took that
opportunity too much . . . all the
time. I spoke to him about this.
His weakness was — is —
women. I warned him it would
cause him trouble,’’ he said.
The unusual circumstances
of the initial handling of the
alleged assaults have been used
by his online supporters to fan
suspicions. Why was an invest-
igation launched, dropped and
then revived?
Mr Borgstrom said there was
nothing unusual about different
prosecutors coming to different
conclusions about whether a
crime had occurred.
‘‘These two women were
molested by Mr Julian Assange
at two differ-
ent times,
independ-
ently of each
other,’’
said. One of
he
the women,
who met Mr
Assange at a
lecture he
gave in Stock-
holm in Mr Borgstrom
August, had
wanted to contact him after the
alleged assault because she
wanted him to take a test for
sexually transmitted infections.
She contacted the second
woman, who had helped organ-
ise the lecture, to see if she
could help her find him. ‘‘When
they spoke to each other, they
realised they had been through
something very similar so they
went to the police [together].
That’s not odd,’’ Mr Borgstrom
said.
‘‘They were not sure whether
they should make a police com-
plaint, they wanted to have
some advice. But when they told
the police officer, she realised
that what they were telling her
was a crime and she reported
that to the public prosecutor,
who decided to arrest Assange.’’
Two days later a second pros-
ecutor, who conducted a pre-
liminary investigation, came to
a different conclusion, judging
the evidence to be insufficient.
‘‘She made another judg-
ment, saying, ‘No, it’s not. It’s
very close, but not quite,’ ’’ he
said.
‘‘So she cancelled the arrest
order and he was still suspected
of molestation without sexual
motives. When I read that deci-
sion, my own conclusion was
and still is that it was a rape, so I
asked for a reopening of the
case, and then the investigation
was reopened.’’
There was nothing suspi-
cious about this closing and
reopening of the case, Mr Borg-
strom said.
In Sweden, rape is divided
into three subsections: severe,
standard, and less severe. Mr
Assange is charged with the
lesser charge, but still faces a
maximum sentence of four
years’ imprisonment.
Whether he will be pros-
ecuted in Sweden on the four
charges of rape, sexual molesta-
tion and coercion depends on
whether Swedish director of
prosecutions Marianne Ny finds
enough evidence to be confident
that the case will stand up in
court. Before she does that, she
needs to question Mr Assange
further, and may also need to
question the women again.
The probability of the pros-
ecution going ahead was about
50-50, Mr Borgstrom said.
GUARDIAN
METAGE A009
 SUZANNE CARBONE MY NIGHT WITH OPRAH NEWS EXCLUSIVE
WEEKEND
JILL BEST WINNERS WEATHER
TODAY

DUPLEIX PICTURES & LOSERS Afternoon

showers,
storm.

50+ OF THE
2010
13-22
TOMORROW Shower or two
12-22

RECIPES YEAR MONDAY Partly cloudy

TUESDAY Sunny
WEDNESDAY A little rain
THURSDAY Partly cloudy
12-23
12-29
19-25
13-23
$3 READER OFFER PAGE 2 FREE WITH A2 GOOD WEEKEND Details PAGE 19

INC
PUBLISHED IN MELBOURNE SINCE 1854 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2010 $2.50 GST

THE WIKILEAKS FILES: DAY 4

CHINA AND THE BIG MINERS

How BHP sank $21bn Rio deal

Mining giant’s intense lobbying
led to collapse of Chinalco bid
By PHILIP DORLING
and RICHARD BAKER
MINING giant BHP Billiton lob-
bied intensively behind the
scenes to wreck a $21 billion
investment deal between rival
Rio Tinto and Chinese
government-owned Chinalco,
leaked US government cables
reveal.
According to a confidential
US embassy cable obtained by
the Wikileaks website and
released to The Age, federal
Treasurer Wayne Swan’s chief of
staff told American embassy
officials that BHP had out-
manoeuvred its rival to orches-
trate the collapse of the
Chinalco deal.
The revelation is embarrass-
ing for BHP Billiton, which has
consistently refused to be drawn
on suggestions it had engaged
in a campaign to persuade fed-
eral government ministers not
to approve Chinalco’s push to
double its stake in Rio Tinto.
On June 5 last year, the
Chinese bid to lift its investment
in Rio Tinto to 18 per cent col-
lapsed and Rio Tinto immedi-
ately announced a joint venture
with BHP Billiton to combine
their West Australian iron ore
operations.
“Treasurer Wayne Swan’s
chief of staff has told us on sev-
eral occasions that BHP has
played its cards with consum-
mate skill, in part due to the
increasing marginalisation of
Legal fury over speech PAGE 5
INSIGHT
Gathering secrets in the new age
Editorial
Shaun Carney, Peter Gordon
BHP CEO Marius Kloppers as
BHP chairman Don Argus has
taken the lead in lobbying the
GOA (government of Australia)
with the able assistance of BHP’s
well-connected VP for govern-
ment relations, Bernie Delaney,’’
the June 7 cable said.
The cable confirms an
account by Treasury’s top for-
mer China economist, Stephen
Joske, who last year said Mr
Argus and other BHP Billiton
executives targeted then prime
minister Kevin Rudd, Mr Swan,
Resources Minister Martin Fer-
guson and their advisers over
Chinalco’s bid to invest more in
Rio Tinto.
‘‘Emails from BHP were cir-
culating at the highest levels,
copied in to ministers’ offices,
about all the ‘China Inc’ stuff,’’
A mystery,
a mansion,
Mr Joske told The Age last year
after leaving Treasury in July.
and a man
The US government cable
said Rio Tinto’s decision to reject
what would have been China’s
biggest foreign investment
of mettle
“spared” the Australian govern-
ment from having to make a
tough decision on whether to
approve the proposal.
But US embassy officials in
Canberra noted it left Mr Rudd PHILIP
having to deal with “an unhappy DORLING
China’’.
‘‘We noticed a very glum GETTING to WikiLeaks’ secret
Chinese ambassador Zhang headquarters took quite some
Junsai waiting outside Rudd’s time and was not without
office with the Chinalco CEO complication.
Xiong Weiping on the afternoon Earlier this year, a careful
of June 5,’’ the cable said. reading of statements by
In an early assessment, the WikiLeaks founder and editor-
Canberra embassy warned in-chief Julian Assange led me
Washington that the proposed to conclude his small organisa-
Chinalco deal ‘‘could lead to tion had landed what could be
a wave of strategic mining the biggest ever leak of classified
investments from China which government information — a
could lead to closer resources vast trove of American diplo-
and energy trade and invest- matic documents that, among
ment ties between China and other things, would provide
Australia.’’ deep insight into the realities of
The embassy also reported Australia’s relationship with our
that Chinese-based resource most important ally, the United
analysts had ‘‘assessed that the States.
proposed deal would give As a journalist, I thought this
Chinalco a strong degree of was a story worth going for.
influence over Rio’s copper, iron Curiously few, if any others,
ore and aluminum operations, thought likewise.
if not outright control, via the Consistent with the old
joint strategic alliances that journalistic maxim that ‘‘Noah is
would be formed to manage a better story than flood con-
those assets’’. trol’’ most media interest was
The American officials focused on Assange himself,
Continued PAGE 4 admittedly an elusive and
intensely interesting figure,
rather than what he might be

Stern Hu: Rio’s secret role about to release through the

By PHILIP DORLING
and RICHARD BAKER
RIO Tinto privately gave
Chinese security authorities
incriminating evidence relating
to jailed former staff, including
senior executive Stern Hu, while
the company was publicly fight-
ing their prosecution on corrup-
tion charges last year.
The company informed the
authorities that it had found
$4400 in cash in the room of one
of the four employees who had
been arrested and were later
convicted of taking bribes and
stealing commercial secrets.
The revelation is contained
in a confidential cable from US
government representatives in
Taiwan obtained by the Wiki-
leaks website and released
exclusively to The Age.
The cable, sent on Septem-
ber 16 last year, reports Rio
Tinto iron ore sales chief Ian
Bauert telling the US repre-
sentatives the company’s
internal investigators had found
that one of its Shanghai-based
employees had received $20,000
in “dividends’’ from private
Chinese steel mills, while the
$4400 was found in the room of
another worker almost two
months after it was searched
and sealed by Chinese authori-
ties.
‘‘Rio’s internal investigations
have uncovered no evidence of
employees stealing secrets but
have found two employees
holding relatively small
amounts of money from sources
they cannot verify,” the cable
noted.
ARTWORK: MICHAEL WHITEHEAD
Continued PAGE 4
WikiLeaks website.
Six months of emails,
clandestine meetings and
confidential exchanges followed
before arrangements for a visit
to Britain were locked in.
WikiLeaks takes security very
seriously, and they are right to
do so.
Consequently, I flew out
from Australia last month with-
out a specific destination in
Britain — only an instruction on
Tall, lean and travelling as light as a fugitive, he’s a 21st century cyber cowboy. arrival at Heathrow Airport to
proceed to a certain railway
Clint Eastwood with a laptop and a data stick. station, taking precautions to
see whether I was followed.
ANDREW RULE on the enigmatic Julian Assange INSIGHT There, using a public
Continued PAGE 4

WEATHER ODD SPOT INDEX ISSN 0312-6307

MELBOURNE DAMS
MELBOURNE Late showers 13 — 22 MILDURA Mostly sunny 11 — 23 Life-sized cutouts of female police officers in mini- ARTS PAGE 20 MINDGAMES A2 42, 43
BALLARAT Shower or two 8 — 16
BENDIGO Shower or two 10 — 20
GEELONG Possible storms 11 — 22
HORSHAM Shower or two 10 — 21
SALE Sunny 11 — 24
WARRNAMBOOL Storms 12 — 18
WODONGA Partly cloudy 11 — 22
Details PAGE 19
48.3
52.8%
AAYEAR
YEARAGO:
AGO:35.3%
38%
skirts placed alongside roads have managed to slow
down speeding Czech drivers. Mrakotin mayor Miro-
slav Pozar, denies this is because the drivers want to
look at the officer’s legs, rather than her uniform.
CLASSIFIEDS BUSINESSDAY 12-15
COMMENT & DEBATE INSIGHT 7
EDITORIALS, LETTERS INSIGHT 6
LOTTERIES PAGE 12
SHARES
TELEVISION
TRIBUTES
WORLD
BUSINESSDAY 7, 8
A2 46, 47
BUSINESSDAY 10
PAGES 15-18
9 770312 630066
B C D

METAGE A001
 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2010
4 News theage.com.au

THE WIKILEAKS FILES DAY FOUR

A mystery,
a mansion,
and a man
of mettle
From PAGE 1
telephone, I was to call a number that
had been provided earlier through a
secure channel. A voice on the other
end of the line gave a single word
reply to my call — the name of a rail-
way station outside London.
Some hours later, I arrived on a
windswept railway platform some-
where in rural England. Only a cou-
ple of other passengers got off at this
bleak location and the platform was
quickly deserted. I wondered what
the next step would be.
After a moment, a figure emerged
from the shadows, with a cap pulled
down over his head and coat collar
turned up. There was a quick greet-
ing, and then a long drive through the
countryside to WikiLeaks’ temporary
headquarters, made available by a
generous and hospitable benefactor.
At the door I was greeted by
Assange himself, unassuming in
T-shirt, tracksuit pants and socks
with holes in them. We got straight
down to business, which was the
imminent release, in conjunction
with some of the world’s leading
newspapers, of a torrent of highly
sensitive US diplomatic secrets.
Without going into too many
details, the setting was utterly incon-
gruous. The residence was a marvel-
lous example of Georgian elegance, a
relic of the pre-industrial age care-
fully preserved by its owner but
demonstrating the challenges of
maintaining buildings that are close
to 300 years old. This nuclear-proof bunker in Stockholm is home to a data centre holding 8000 servers — two of which belong to WikiLeaks. The servers — two slim, black, plastic boxes surrounded by wires — are kept in a locked white cabinet. PICTURE: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND, AFP
On the walls of the drawing room,
effectively the WikiLeaks operations Air Force would rattle the windows, to journalism and media liaison. pered and good humoured, ready to A frequent theme is the need to me through the years. WikiLeaks was He is a strategic thinker with a
room, paintings of long-dead prompting jokes about a possible air- It’s a truly multinational enter- discuss issues and carefully consider cut through the hypocrisy and cant created around these core values.’’ commitment to his cause that tran-
defenders of the British Empire, most strike. prise with accents from around the advice. that fills so much of political dis- Through his own efforts, Assange scends his own interests. He has
in scarlet uniforms, looked down on For a tiny organisation working globe heard across the breakfast He’s certainly a strategic thinker course by affording citizens the has well and truly kicked the hornets given much thought to the question
an impressive tangle of computer under immense pressure, the atmo- table. Not that everyone appears at with a fair amount of political and opportunity to see and hear directly nest. He’s now sitting in an English of how WikiLeaks might defend itself
laptops, printers, wires, power cables sphere in temporary WikiLeaks HQ breakfast. WikiLeaks runs on a 24 media nous that has turned his small what their political leaders think and prison cell awaiting the outcome of from the most serious and sustained
and other equipment. was remarkably calm and relaxed. hour/7 days a week basis, so a good organisation into a global phe- say in private. extradition proceedings that could attacks, and indeed how the group
It is said that the security- On the eve of its biggest docu- proportion of the key personnel are nomenon. In an article published at the see him taken to Sweden to be ques- might function without him, its foun-
conscious Assange changes mobile ments release, the main work area essentially nocturnal. Having entered into discussions beginning of this week, he referred to tioned in regard to sexual miscon- der and principal organiser and
phones as often as most people was often silent, apart from the As for Assange himself, he is an on the basis of confidentiality, I’m some of his formative political exper- duct allegations, but which could spokesman. Consequently, although
change shirts. This is an understate- sound of typing on laptops as docu- impressive figure. Highly intelligent, not going to repeat his observations, iences. also open the door for him to be sent small, it is an organisation with con-
ment. Tables were covered with ments were formatted and last articulate and indeed charismatic in but I found him a highly engaging, ‘‘I grew up in a Queensland coun- across the Atlantic to face the wrath siderable resilience.
mobile phones and SIM cards strewn minute communications made with a quiet sort of way, he is deeply com- thoughtful conversationalist, try town, where people spoke their of the US Government. The global frenzy about WikiLeaks
around like confetti. Resting in one the newspapers partnered in the mitted to his cause. And he certainly whether across the dinner table or minds bluntly,’’ he wrote. ‘‘They dis- It is reported that he is in good is likely to continue for a long time to
corner was Assange’s backpack, release. isn’t in it for the money. while trekking around a muddy field trusted big government as something spirits, and as a highly self-contained come. There will be many twists and
literally carrying all his worldly Although WikiLeaks enjoys the For someone working in circum- in the deepening gloom of an English that could be corrupted if not person he probably has the inner turns in the story. But one way or
goods. support of a large pool of volunteers, stances of immense pressure, both winter evening. watched carefully. The dark days of resources to cope well with his cur- another, it looks like WikiLeaks is
In the morning, the neighbouring the inner core is a small, highly com- professional and personal, he was He certainly pays very close atten- corruption in the Queensland gov- rent difficult circumstances. here to stay and governments around
countryside reverberated to the mitted group of people, all working remarkably calm, focused and meas- tion to political developments in Aus- ernment before the Fitzgerald But whatever the outcome of the world will just have to get used to
sounds of gunfire as the English on an expenses reimbursed-only ured. Contrary to reports that he is an tralia and has a keen sense of the Inquiry are testimony to what hap- these legal proceedings, one thing that.
upper class indulged its passion for basis, with a remarkably diverse set eccentric egomaniac, running his importance of encouraging greater pens when the politicians gag the was clear from my visit to the
shooting defenceless birds. Occa- of skills ranging from computer pro- small ship like Captain Bligh, he gave openness and transparency in his media from reporting the truth.’’ WikiLeaks headquarters and my dis- Philip Dorling is a senior Fairfax investigative
sionally low-flying jets of the Royal gramming and language translation every appearance of being well tem- home country. ‘‘These things have stayed with cussions with Assange. journalist.

Company role in China staff prosecutions
From PAGE 1
‘‘Rio reported this finding to the
Public Security Bureau.’’
It is unclear whether either
of the Rio Tinto employees
found to be in possession of the
money was Australian citizen
Stern Hu, who was sentenced to
10 years’ jail in March for
accepting bribes and stealing
state secrets. Hu’s three Chinese
colleagues were also jailed.
The prosecution appeared to
produce substantial evidence to
sustain the bribery charges
against the four. However,
the proceedings that led to
Hu’s conviction for stealing
state secrets remain a mystery
as Australian officials were
locked out of that part of the
trial.
At the time Rio investigators
discovered the money in
September last year, Chinese
authorities had recently
changed the charges against the
Rio Tinto four from paying
bribes to accepting bribes. This
was significant for Rio Tinto as it
effectively meant the company
was no longer suspected of
sponsoring bribes through its
Shanghai office.
In July 2009, Rio Tinto’s iron
ore chief executive, Sam Walsh,
said the allegations against the
four were ‘‘wholly without
foundation’’ and the company
was ‘‘fully supportive of our
detained employees’’.
After their convictions in
March this year, Mr Walsh
sacked the men for ‘‘deplorable’’
conduct in accepting bribes.
The September 2009 US
diplomatic cable records Mr
Bauert telling American officials
that Rio Tinto’s investigations
had found no evidence that the
four men had gathered informa-
tion illegally or were in posses-
sion of Chinese commercial
secrets.
The cable noted Mr Bauert
saying he visited Hu on August
31 last year and found him to be
in good physical shape but
deteriorating emotionally.
‘‘Hu complained that his
arrest was politically motivated,
inspired by the failed Rio-
Chinalco deal, iron ore price
negotiations and a recently
announced BHP-Rio joint pro-
duction deal,’’ the cable attrib-
uted Mr Bauert as saying.
Another confidential US gov-
ernment cable from its
consulate-general in Hong Kong
in July last year, Australia’s
ambassador in Beijing, Geoff
Raby, said the arrest of Hu and
his colleagues had taken him by
surprise and was a ‘‘complete
mess’’.
‘‘Ambassador Raby stressed
that he had seen no evidence
thus far to suggest that Hu was
involved in any activities that
could be considered other than
normal for commercial negoti-
ations,’’ the cable reported.
It noted Mr Raby describing
how it was common for com-
panies such as Rio Tinto to
share information with the Aus-
tralian government, including
material related to commercial
negotiations.
‘‘Raby asserted, however,
that following a careful review
of the record, it appeared that all
the negotiation-related materi-
als Hu had obtained were in the
public record,’’ the cable said.
‘‘He noted that the most
sensitive piece of information
Rio had obtained was the fact
that the China Iron & Steel Asso-
ciation was aiming to negotiate
a 47 per cent price reduction
with the major iron ore suppli-
ers, rather than the 33 per cent
reduction agreed to by Japanese
and Korean steel mills.
‘‘Raby indicated that as a
result of CISA’s tendency to
negotiate in public, this inform-
ation was widely reported in the
press and well known to anyone
involved in the negotiations.’’
The American diplomats
concluded that Hu’s arrest had
‘‘spooked a few multinational
corporations in China’’.
‘‘The malleable definition of
what constitutes a state secret
has a potentially chilling effect
on those doing business in
China,’’ the cable said.
Meanwhile, a further US gov-
ernment cable quoted the
French ambassador to China
saying Beijing’s hands were ‘‘not
clean’’ because of its attempts to
obtain information on iron ore
price negotiations with Austra-
lian companies.
How BHP sank Rio deal
From PAGE 1
attributed the collapse of the
Chinalco-Rio Tinto deal to
backroom lobbying by BHP Bil-
liton, which led to the Rudd gov-
ernment delaying its decision
on whether to approve the bid.
During this time, global com-
modity prices improved to the
extent that Rio Tinto no longer
needed Chinalco’s cash injec-
tion to stave off debt incurred by
fighting off an earlier takeover
attempt by BHP Billiton.
‘‘Having worked hard to tor-
pedo the Rio-Chinalco deal,
BHP believes that it has scored a
major victory by preventing a
state-owned Chinese firm from
influencing iron ore pricing
negotiations from the producer
side,’’ the cable reported.
‘‘BHP has been lobbying
extensively to block the deal,
highlighting concerns about
Chinese investment and the
possibility that seats on the Rio
board would give the Chinese
representatives important
insights into the producer side
of the annual iron ore price
negotiations.
‘‘Chinalco has made clear
that it considers the Rudd gov-
ernment’s reluctance to approve
the deal (as) one of the major
reasons for its collapse.’’
In March this year, the
Chinese government released a
post-mortem on the collapse of
the Chinalco-Rio Tinto deal
which cleared the Australian
government and the mining
company of any role in killing
the proposal.
But the Chinese report sin-
gled out BHP Billiton for waging
a behind-the-scenes campaign
against Chinalco which helped
fuel an Australian backlash and
influence the Rudd government.
The US government cables
make it clear BHP knew the
Chinese were angered by its role
in frustrating Chinalco’s bid,
with BHP executive Mr Delaney
telling American diplomats his
company needed ‘‘damage con-
trol’’ with the Chinese Govern-
ment to contain the fallout from
the collapsed Rio Tinto deal.
In a separate cable, US offi-
cials quoted West Australian
Premier Colin Barnett saying his
visit to China — which took
place in the wake of Rio Tinto’s
rebuff of Chinalco — was
‘‘tough’’ with terms like ‘‘treach-
ery’’ being used in initial meet-
ings with Chinese officials.
US officials concluded that
the BHP Billiton joint venture
with Rio Tinto ‘‘will greatly con-
cern global steel producers who
already believed those two com-
panies had too much power to
set iron ore prices’’.

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NATAGE A004
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INC

THE WIKILEAKS FILES: DAY 6

ISRAEL, IRAN & THE MIDDLE EAST

Nuclear war: our fear of Iran

Risk Australia, US may
be involved in conflict
By PHILIP DORLING
AUSTRALIAN intelligence agen-
cies fear that Israel may launch
military strikes against Iran and
Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear cap-
abilities could draw the US and
Australia into a potential
nuclear war in the Middle East.
Australia’s peak intelligence
agency has also privately under-
cut the hardline stance towards
Tehran of the US, Israeli and
Australian governments, saying
its nuclear program is intended
to deter attack and it is a
mistake to regard Iran as a rogue
state.
The warnings about the
dangers of nuclear conflict in
the Middle East are given in a
secret US embassy cable
In the long sweep of history
Assange will be seen more
as hero than as villain.
PAUL BARRATT,
former Defence secretary
COMMENT &&DEBATE
COMMENT DEBATEPAGE 1313
PAGE
obtained by WikiLeaks and
provided exclusively to The Age.
They reflect views obtained by
US intelligence liaison officers
in Canberra from Australian
intelligence agencies.
‘‘The AIC’s [Australian intelli-
gence community’s] leading
concerns with respect to Iran’s
nuclear ambitions centre on
understanding the time frame
of a possible weapons capabil-
ity, and working with the United
States to prevent Israel from
independently launching unco-
ordinated military strikes
against Iran,’’ the US embassy in
Canberra reported to Washing-
ton in March last year.
‘‘They are immediately con-
cerned that Iran’s pursuit of
nuclear capabilities would lead
to a conventional war — or even
nuclear exchange — in the
Middle East involving the
United States that would draw
Australia into a conflict.’’
Australian concerns about a
possible Israeli military strike
against Iran are also recorded in
another US embassy cable, sent
to Washington in December
2008, reporting on discussions
between Peter Varghese, then
chief of Australia’s peak intelli-
gence agency, the Office of
National Assessments (ONA),
and the then head of the US
State Department’s Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR),
assistant secretary of state
Randall Fort.
The embassy’s report of the
meeting says that ‘‘ONA seniors
and analysts were particularly
interested in A/S Fort and INR’s
assessments on Israeli ‘red lines’
on Iran’s nuclear program and
the likelihood of an Israeli
strike against Iranian nuclear
facilities’’.
An earlier cable, sent in July
2008, records that former prime
minister Kevin Rudd was
‘‘deeply worried’’ that Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadine-
jad’s intransigence concerning
Tehran’s nuclear program meant
that the window for a diplo-
matic solution was closing and
that ‘‘Israel may feel forced to
use ‘non-diplomatic’ means’’.
Last week Mr Rudd called on
Israel to sign the nuclear non-
proliferation treaty as part of a
broader effort to establish the
Middle East as a nuclear-
weapon-free zone.
The US embassy’s March
2009 report told Washington
that the Australian government
was ‘‘more broadly concerned
about the potential for renewed
nuclear proliferation in the Mid-
dle East, driving south-east
Asian states to abandon the
[nuclear non-proliferation
treaty] and pursue their own
nuclear capabilities, which
could introduce a direct threat
to the Australian homeland’’.
Australian intelligence views
on Iran were solicited by US offi-
cials in response to a request
from Washington to ascertain
reactions to the possibility that
the US might seek to discuss
regional security issues with
Tehran.
The US embassy cables con-
firm the presence in Canberra of
Continued PAGE 4
Rudd derided
Ahmadinejad as
‘loathsome’ man
By PHILIP DORLING
ISRAEL’S ambassador to Austra-
lia found Kevin Rudd to be ‘‘very
pro-Israel’’ and senior Austra-
lian diplomats warned the for-
mer prime minister that his
condemnation of Iranian Presi-
dent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
risked retaliation against Aus-
tralia’s embassy in Tehran,
according to leaked US diplo-
matic cables.
Classified US cables
obtained by WikiLeaks and
provided exclusively to The Age
reveal that Israeli ambassador
Yuval Rotem was greatly pleased
with Mr Rudd’s ‘‘very support-
ive’’ attitude towards Israel’s
position in the Middle East
peace process and his strident
attacks on the Iranian President.
The revelation of ambas-
sador Rotem’s 2009 description
of Mr Rudd comes as the For-
eign Minister wraps up a visit to
Cairo where he expressed con-
cern that ‘‘no real progress’’ had
been made in the US-brokered
Middle East peace process.
After a weekend meeting
with Egyptian Foreign Minister
Ahmed Abul Gheit, Mr Rudd
said Israeli settlements on
Palestinian land were ‘‘destroy-
ing’’ the chances of peace. He
said he would visit Israel later
this week and would reiterate
his position, but added Israel
had security fears that needed
to be taken into account.
The leaked US embassy
cables reveal that Israeli diplo-
mats saw Mr Rudd as an impor-
tant diplomatic ally, strongly
supportive of Israel’s security
interests.
A highly experienced Israeli
diplomat, ambassador Rotem
told US officials in July 2008 that
during his first meeting with Mr
Rudd after Australia’s 2007 fed-
eral election, the newly elected
prime minister had described
Iranian President Ahmadinejad
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: His intransigence on Tehran’s nuclear program ‘‘deeply worried’’ Kevin Rudd. PICTURE: REUTERS as a ‘‘loathsome individual on
every level’’ and said that the
Kevin Rudd and Israeli
ambassador Yuval Rotem.
Iranian leader’s anti-Semitism
‘‘turns my stomach’’.
The US embassy noted that
while opposition leader, Mr
Rudd had taken a ‘‘very strong
stance’’ on Iran, including call-
ing for Mr Ahmadinejad to be
prosecuted by the International
Criminal Court for his calls for
the destruction of Israel.
‘‘The Israeli ambassador
believes PM Rudd is very con-
cerned about the Iranian nuc-
lear program and firm in his
desire to do whatever possible
to signal Australia’s opposition
to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions,’’
the embassy reported. ‘‘The
Israelis believe Rudd is very firm
in his overall support for Israel.’’
Asked by the US embassy
about whether Mr Rudd’s views
on Iran had elicited any
response, Mr Rotem said the
Iranian government had reacted
to the prime minister’s state-
ments by taking ‘‘retaliatory
measures’’ against the Austra-
lian embassy in Tehran.
‘‘These measures make it
harder for the embassy to con-
duct its day-to-day business,’’
Mr Rotem observed.
The Israeli ambassador
added that the Secretary of the
Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade, Michael l’Estrange,
and Office of National Assess-
ments director-general Peter
Varghese had ‘‘met several times
to convince the PM to think
Continued PAGE 4

Defusing Tehran not as simple as cutting off a snake’s head

WARNIE, HURLEY
THE whispering campaign to
get Shane Warne back into
the Australian Test team as
captain has hit a hurdle — a
purported affair with married
British actress Liz Hurley.
SPORT
THIS stunning insight into key
intelligence judgments about
Iran’s nuclear ambitions
illustrates just how difficult and
dangerous a problem the world
confronts.
Imagine if this type of
information had been made
public before the 2003 invasion
of Iraq, showing people the
assumptions, guesswork and
gaps in knowledge when trying
to assess the weapons program
of another country. Might the
war have been averted?
This is not to diminish Aus-
DANIEL
FLITTON
ANALYSIS
tralia’s intelligence assessments
about Iran, but rather to high-
light the challenges analysts
face when trying to discern facts
in one of the most fiercely
debated issues in global affairs.
A mistaken assumption
either way could result in
another devastating war.
The key point is this: Austra-
lia fears Iran is on the path to
developing a nuclear bomb —
despite the vehement denials of
the regime.
But Australia’s analysts also
dismiss other rhetoric from
Iran, hard words interpreted by
some as a Messianic drive to
dominate the region — and
from Israel’s perspective, to
wipe that country off the map.
Australia sees Iran as a
rational actor caught in its own
security dilemma; a massive US
army to the west in Iraq, another
to the east in Afghanistan, and
implacable hatred of two
nuclear-armed enemies, the US
and Israel.
The solution, as Tehran sees
it, is to obtain a nuclear
deterrence to ensure its survival,
or at least have the material and
technology ready to assemble a
weapon in short time.
This is the question at the
heart of the Iran problem: can
the country be trusted with the
bomb? Only political leaders
can answer that, not intelli-
gence analysts.
But Australia’s best minds
from the intelligence world
believe emotive terms such as
‘‘rogue state’’ are of little help.
There is little wonder the US
sought Australia’s views on Iran.
Australia has an embassy in
Tehran while the US has been
officially locked out of the
country for decades.
But it’s important to
acknowledge that much has
changed in the 20 months or so
since these judgments were
drawn up — and as new facts
arise, opinions may have varied.
The protests in Tehran after
disputed presidential elections
last year may have hardened the
resolve of the regime to build
the bomb.
There was also the surprise
disclosure of an unknown
nuclear facility at Qom, south-
west of the capital, which may
have changed assessments over
how quickly Iran could develop
a nuclear weapon.
Harsh international sanc-
tions under the United Nations
and boycotts by individual
countries have taken a heavy
toll on Iran’s economy, perhaps
changing the regime’s calculus
on the nuclear question.
But we now have a much
better understanding of the
problem. The leaked cables
demonstrate how difficult it is to
assess Iran’s intentions.
Saudi Arabia’s king might
urge the US to ‘‘cut off the head
of the snake’’ in talks about Iran
— but is this an informed view,
or is it driven by sectarian and
ethnic rivalry?
Daniel Flitton is diplomatic editor.

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MELBOURNE Sunny later 12 — 24 MILDURA Sunny 11 — 26 A thief went into a London jewellers and asked to try ARTS PAGES 14, 15 TRIBUTES PAGE 17
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COMMENT & DEBATE
EDITORIALS, LETTERS
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PAGE 13
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METAGE A001
 THE AGE
4 MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2010

THE WIKILEAKS FILES DAY SIX

Frontline Diggers reject Rudd comments and slam WikiLeaks US and NZ
By DAN OAKES alliance
kept secret
MUSAZAI

SOLDIERS on the frontline in Afghanistan have

disputed comments by former prime minister
Kevin Rudd about the progress of the war in WELLINGTON
Afghanistan and criticised WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange for making public secret documents THE United States and New
relating to the war. Zealand ended a near 25-year
Shortly before heading out for an eight-hour break in intelligence collabora-
patrol into hostile territory in the southern tion last year but kept the news
province of Oruzgan, the Diggers said the coalition secret, according to a leaked
effort in Afghanistan was reaping tangible benefits cable published on Sunday.
on the ground, and that it was difficult to gain the The cable from the US
full picture from back in Australia. embassy in Wellington was
‘‘It’s the difference in perspective. With so many included in a package of secret
nations rethinking their commitment here, it can documents released by website
seem like a morass of wicked problems, as opposed WikiLeaks and printed in the
to our perception from the Sunday Star-Times.
ground, where you have tangible Washington imposed strict
outcomes as a result of the work restrictions on the supply of
we’re doing,’’ said Captain Jim intelligence to Wellington in the
Wallace (left). mid-1980s in response to New
Cables published by Zealand’s nuclear-free policy.
WikiLeaks show Kevin Rudd, as But according to a cable sent
prime minister, confirmed to US from the US embassy to US Sec-
congressmen that the Australian retary of State Hillary Clinton in
security establishment was January this year, collaboration
pessimistic about the war, which, he confessed, was ‘‘fully restored’’ in August
‘‘scared the hell’’ out of him. 2009.
Captain Richard Trembath, commander of Mrs Clinton was also warned
Patrol Base Musazai, said the Defence Force, the the news ‘‘should not be
Australian Federal Police and other government acknowledged in public’’.
agencies were doing their best to improve the over- According to the cables, US
all security situation. and New Zealand officials doub-
‘‘It’ll be difficult, for a while yet, but we have to ted that there was public sup-
temper our expectations as Western nations in an port for the closer ties between
eastern nation. But if we’re safer and Afghan people the two countries and preferred
are safer when we leave, that’s a measure of to keep them secret.
success,’’ Captain Trembath said. Of political personalities,
The soldiers were also disgusted by WikiLeaks Prime Minister John Key is
releasing secret cables concerning the wars in described as having a ‘‘strongly
Afghanistan and Iraq, saying there was no doubt personal pro-American out-
they put the lives of Australian soldiers at risk. look’’ while former leader Helen
‘‘The thing I feel strongest about is the safety of Clark was seen as a ‘‘very con-
my soldiers, and if through these leaks even one of trolling manager’’.
them . . . ends up dead because an internet general One leaked cable shows that
back in Australia is releasing this information it former Australian foreign minis-
disgusts me,’’ said Captain Trembath. ter Alexander Downer thought
A man is searched at an Australian and Afghan National Army checkpoint near the patrol base in Musazai in Oruzgan province. PICTURE: ANGELA WYLIE See more pictures from Afghanistan at theage.com.au that New Zealand was a nation
World of small victories PAGE 10 of ‘‘bleeding hearts’’. AFP

Nuclear war: Australia’s Iran fear PM derided ‘loathsome’ Ahmadinejad

From PAGE 1
representatives of all US
national intelligence agencies:
the CIA, the National Security
Agency, the National Reconnais-
sance Office, the National Geo-
spatial Agency, the Defence
Intelligence Agency and the FBI.
US intelligence liaison
officers engaged all their Austra-
lian counterpart agencies on the
Iran question including ONA,
the office of the National Secur-
ity Adviser, the Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade, the
Australian Secret Intelligence
Service, the Defence Intelli-
gence Organisation, the
Defence Signals Directorate, the
Defence Imagery and Geo-
substantively as a significant US
partner on Iran’’.
US diplomats expressed
‘‘high confidence’’ that the Aus-
tralian government would have
no objections to US efforts to
engage Iran, noting that while
Australian troops remain
stationed in Afghanistan ‘‘the
Australians will look to
increased US engagement with
Iran to improve upon creating a
realistic framework for an accel-
‘ ONA urged a view of
Tehran as a sophisticated
diplomatic player rather
than a ‘‘rogue state’’.
’
exchange in Iran reported ONA
director-general Varghese’s view
that possible conflict between
Israel and Iran ‘‘clearly repre-
sented the greatest challenge to
[Middle East] stability’’.
ONA analysts said the
Iranian government appeared
determined to acquire nuclear
weapons, though this was prob-
ably driven by the desire to
deter Israel and the US rather
than an intention to strike
against other Middle East states.
‘‘ONA viewed Tehran’s nuc-
lear program within the
paradigm of ‘the laws of
deterrence,’ noting that Iran’s
ability to produce a weapon
may be ‘enough’ to meet its
security objectives,’’ the US
alone in this assessment, assert-
ing that ‘‘while China and Russia
remain opposed to it, they view
Iran’s acquisition of nuclear
weapons as inevitable’’.
However, ONA urged a bal-
anced view of Tehran as a soph-
isticated diplomatic player
rather than a ‘‘rogue state’’ liable
to behave impulsively or irra-
tionally.
Mr Varghese said ONA was
telling the Australian govern-
ment: ‘‘It’s a mistake to think of
Iran as a ‘rogue state’.’’
The embassy cable reported:
‘‘ONA analysts assessed that
Tehran ‘knows’ about its lack of
certain capabilities, but plays
‘beyond its hand’ very skilfully
. . . ONA judged that Iran’s activ-
From PAGE 1
through the consequences of his
rhetoric on Iran’’.
The Australian government
has never acknowledged pub-
licly any Iranian response to Mr
Rudd’s public criticism of Iran
and its president.
Ambassador Rotem went on
to tell the US embassy that Israel
saw Australia ‘‘as playing an
important role in the ‘global PR
battle’ on Iran because PM Rudd
is viewed favourably by the
‘European left’, many of whom
are sceptical about taking a
tough line towards Tehran.’’
‘‘Rotem said
embassies in Europe have
Israeli
have been concerned at the
prospect of an Australian Labor
government: ‘‘However, this was
not the case because Rudd had
long gone out of his way to
stress his strong commitment to
Israel and appreciation for its
security concerns. Rotem said
that he has had excellent access
to Rudd and noted that the PM
has taken a strong interest in
even minor issues involving
Israel.
‘‘Commenting that DFAT
officials are very frank in
expressing their annoyance with
the PM’s micromanaging of
foreign policy issues, Rotem
Gillard, who has taken the lead
in co-ordinating the [Australian
government] public and private
response to the Gaza fighting.
Rotem said that Gillard and
[National Security Adviser
Duncan] Lewis have been very
understanding of Israel’s mili-
tary action, while stressing the
need to minimise civilian casu-
alties and address humanitarian
concerns.’’
Mr Rotem added that Ms Gil-
‘ Ambassador Rotem added
that he would be ‘‘playing
senior Labor Party contacts had
told him privately that Rudd had
been ‘‘a bit jealous of the atten-
tion garnered by Gillard’’ and
that this led him to speak to the
Gaza issue later in January 2009.
Ambassador Rotem added that
he would be ‘‘playing to Rudd’s
vanity’’ to encourage him to pay
an early visit to Israel and con-
tinue to speak out in support of
a hard line against Iran’s nuclear
ambitions.
In other leaked US cables,
Australian diplomats are repor-
ted as telling their US counter-
parts that the Australian
government was ‘‘completely

reported that Rudd’s policies are

spatial Organisation, the
Defence Science and Techno-
logy Organisation, and the Aus-
tralian Security Intelligence
Organisation.
In its July 2009 report to
Washington, the embassy noted
that the Australian intelligence
community had ‘‘increased its
collection and analytic efforts
on Iran over the past decade,
demonstrating Australia’s stra-
tegic commitment to engage
erated reduction and eventual
cessation of Iranian support to
the Taliban, al-Qaeda and
related groups, and Hezbollah.
Simultaneously, Australia will
look for increased US-Iranian
engagement to lead to a more
stable governance environment
for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq,
and the Levant.’’
The US embassy’s cable on
the December 2008 intelligence
embassy reported.
‘‘Nevertheless, Australian
intelligence viewed Tehran’s
pursuit of full self-sufficiency in
the nuclear fuel cycle, long-
standing covert weapons pro-
gram, and continued work on
delivery systems as strong indic-
ators that Tehran’s preferred end
state included a nuclear
arsenal.’’
ONA analysts told their US
counterparts they were not
ities in Iraq — both overt and
covert — represented an
extreme manifestation of Ira-
nian strategic calculus, designed
to ‘outflank’ the US in the
region.’’
However the Australian intel-
ligence analysts ‘‘asserted that
. . . the most effective means by
which Tehran could ensure its
national security would be a
strategic relationship with the
US via some ‘grand bargain’.’’
receiving a surprising amount
of attention, particularly
because of his withdrawal of
Australian troops from Iraq,’’ the
embassy reported to Washing-
ton. ‘‘The Israelis hope that
Rudd’s position on Iran may
help persuade sceptical Euro-
peans, as well as help reinforce
the need for a tough line on Iran
by other countries.’’
The ambassador added that
Israeli officials would normally
laughingly said that ‘while I
understand their point of view,
how can I complain about hav-
ing that kind of attention from
the PM’.’’
The Israeli ambassador’s
enthusiasm for the Labor gov-
ernment extended to deputy
prime minister Julia Gillard,
with the US embassy reporting
in January 2009 that Mr Rotem
was ‘‘very satisfied’’ with the
Australian response to Israel’s
military offensive in Gaza.
‘‘Rotem said he had been
impressed with Acting PM Julia
to Rudd’s vanity’’.
’
lard’s statements surprised
many Israeli embassy contacts
as being ‘‘far more supportive
than they had expected’’.
‘‘Israeli officials were
impressed with Gillard’s per-
formance during a January 2 call
with [Israeli] PM Ehud Olmert,
he said, commenting that this
was a relief because it had been
very difficult to persuade
Olmert to make the call.’’
Ambassador Rotem told his
US counterparts that several
aligned’’ with the United States
in regard to Iran.
In a meeting with US diplo-
mats in October 2009, First
Assistant Secretary Patrick Suck-
ling and then assistant secret-
ary, now Australian ambassador
to Israel, Andrea Faulkner, said
Australia ‘‘fully supports US
efforts to engage with Iran’’ but
expressed ‘‘deep official scepti-
cism’’ about the prospects for
diplomatic progress. Mr Suck-
ling said: ‘‘Australia wants the
most robust, intrusive and
debilitating sanctions possible.’’

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THE WESTFIELD RETAIL TRUST OFFER
The Westfield Retail Trust Offer closed on
Monday, 6 December 2010. The total value
of the stapled units allocated under the Offer
was $2.05 billion at the Offer Price of $2.75
per stapled unit (comprising approximately
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METAGE A004

PUBLISHED IN MELBOURNE SINCE 1854
Defence costings dodgy: US
Doubts on Australian
military plan exposed
By PHILIP DORLING
and RICHARD BAKER
AMERICA has expressed doubts
about Australia’s ability to pay
for its biggest military build-up
since World War II, after one of
Canberra’s most senior defence
officials was unable to explain
how costings in the defence
white paper were made.
A confidential cable from the
United States embassy in Can-
berra suggests Australia may
have to sell Defence real estate
and delay purchasing new mili-
tary equipment to meet the
budgetary requirements of the
May 2009 white paper.
The policy document called
for 12 new long-range submar-
ines, eight new frigates and up
to 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters
as items required to ensure sta-
bility in the Asia-Pacific region
and contain China’s growing
influence.
The cable, sent in August last
year, also reveals US diplomats
believe Australia should stop
awarding contracts to domestic
defence companies — an act
that may lead to their collapse
and big job losses — and pro-
cure more equipment from
American companies to achieve
greater value for money.
Under the heading ‘‘fuzzy
math on costs’’, the US embassy
described a discussion between
the chief of Australia’s Defence
Materiel Organisation, Stephen
Gumley, and a US Navy admiral
after the release of the white
paper. ‘‘Gumley was unable to
explain how the costing for the
equipment of the white paper
came about,’’ noted the cable,
which was obtained by the
Schizophrenic man’s remand a ‘sad and depressing case’
EXCLUSIVE
By STEVE BUTCHER
A JUDGE has described detain-
ing a violent, mentally ill man
for the past 10 months in virtual
solitary confinement in Victor-
ia’s maximum security remand
centre as one of the ‘‘saddest
and most depressing cases’’ she
has seen.
Judge Frances Hogan was so
concerned about Lee Johnson’s
conditions in a ‘‘punishment
facility’’ she recently left the
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WASHINGTON & THE WHITE PAPER
WikiLeaks website and released
exclusively to The Age.
The US doubts on costings
are likely to prompt renewed
criticism from the opposition,
which last year accused the gov-
ernment of having no idea how
to pay for the ambitions identi-
fied in the white paper. ‘‘This is a
massive increase in expenditure
and yet in 140 pages we only
have this 11⁄3 pages, back-of-the-
envelope calculations on how it
is going to be paid,’’ then opposi-
tion leader Malcolm Turnbull
said in May last year.
The government has main-
tained all spending require-
ments identified in the paper
are fully funded. It has allocated
a 3 per cent annual increase in
the defence budget, now about
$22 billion, until 2017-18 and a
2.2 per cent increase from then
until 2030 to meet the costs.
However, US diplomats
reported to Washington their
belief that the Australian military
is beset with ‘‘ingrained prob-
lems’’ involving ‘‘poor budgeting,
cost overruns and delays in
delivering new equipment
exacerbated by efforts to prop up
local defence industries’’.
‘‘To address any financial
constraints, they appear pre-
pared to sell defence real estate
and to push back the timeline
for acquisitions,’’ the cable said.
‘‘While the defence white
paper presents a bold force
upgrade, funding is uncer-
tain . . . if Defence can find the
political will to reform ineffi-
cient budgeting and program-
ming, particularly by procuring
from the US rather than
domestically, it will be able to
achieve the needed savings to
pursue its ambitious plans.’’
The cable quoted a unnamed
senior Treasury official saying
the Defence’s ‘‘budgeting and
execution is the worst in the fed-
eral government’’.
‘‘The departments of Treas-
ury, Finance and Prime Minister
and Cabinet exercise no over-
sight on formulating the budget
or reviewing effectiveness,’’ the
Continued PAGE 6
COMMENT & DEBATE
Malcolm Fraser PAGE 11
bench in the County Court to
view them at the Melbourne
Assessment Centre.
She yesterday made strong
comments that since February
Johnson, 27, had been isolated,
regularly handcuffed and with-
out the stimulation of an exer-
cise or education regime.
‘‘I am talking about a human
being who is in solitary confine-
ment,’’ she said. ‘‘This is one of
the saddest and most depress-
ing cases I’ve had to deal with
and it’s deeply troubling.’’
Judge Hogan said Johnson
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Details PAGE 17
THE WIKILEAKS FILES: DAY 7
Former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon and Stephen Smith, then foreign minister, with their US counterparts Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates in Washington last year.
Fitzgibbon’s fall declared a blessing in disguise
By PHILIP DORLING
and NICK McKENZIE
THE resignation of defence
minister Joel Fitzgibbon last
year was ‘‘a blessing in disguise’’
for the federal government,
according to US embassy cables
that savage his performance.
Leaked diplomatic cables
reveal American diplomats in
Canberra sharply critiqued Mr
Fitzgibbon’s stint as defence
minister, including his inatten-
tion to detail, ‘‘weak parliament-
ary performance’’ and ‘‘inability
to obtain information’’ from the
Defence Department.
The cables describe Mr Fitz-
gibbon, who is now chief gov-
was confined to his concrete cell
for 18 hours each day, had
access to a small exercise yard
— which she called a ‘‘glorified
porch’’ — received no natural
sunlight, had become over-
weight and pale and had lost
motivation.
She accepted that Johnson,
an aggressive and violent
offender who has twice seri-
ously injured prison officers,
presented a difficult manage-
ment problem for authorities.
But she deemed his environ-
ment in the Exford management
MELBOURNE DAMS
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38%
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2010
ernment whip, as a poor choice
as defence minister.
Throughout 2009, the US
embassy sent several warnings
to Washington about Mr Fitzgib-
bon’s increasingly fragile grasp
on his portfolio.
Mr Fitzgibbon resigned as
defence minister in June 2009
after conceding he had failed to
properly manage a conflict of
interest involving his brother’s
health company.
Before he resigned, Mr Fitz-
gibbon was the subject of reports
in The Age about his links to
Chinese businesswoman and
political benefactor Helen Liu,
including security concerns
about the pair’s relationship.
unit as of ‘‘great austerity and
considerable deprivation’’ and
quoted a psychiatrist who
warned that the ‘‘onerous’’ condi-
tions could contribute to a deteri-
oration in his mental health.
Prosecutor Ella Piper had
told the court that Johnson, a
man with paranoid schizo-
phrenia, had been on parole 16
days after serving a sentence for
stabbing an officer at Barwon
Prison when he assaulted and
falsely imprisoned a service
station attendant at Mount Eliza
on November 24 last year.
ODD SPOT
An Italian hospital director faces disciplinary action
after sending a memo to doctors and nurses asking
them not to snort cocaine while on duty. A social
services chief said it was not appropriate to deal with
cocaine use by hospital staff through a memo.
The Americans were
immediately on to
Joel Fitzgibbon’s
qualification
— or, rather, his
lack of it — to be
defence minister.
MICHELLE GRATTAN PAGE 6
Ms Liu is well connected to
Chinese security and govern-
ment officials and The Age repor-
ted in 2009 that Defence sources
had serious concerns about her
relationship with the minister.
The US embassy’s misgivings
about Mr Fitzgibbon were
Ms Piper said after his arrest
Johnson was held in St Paul’s, a
psycho-social unit at Port Phil-
lip Prison, where he repeatedly
attacked and seriously injured
an officer with a cricket bat on
December 12.
Defence barrister Kellie Blair
urged Judge Hogan to take into
account Johnson’s custody
conditions in sentencing him.
When the case resumed yes-
terday, the director of Justice
Health, Michele Gardner,
revealed that for three days after
his move to St Paul’s, including
expressed as early as November
2007, when it reported that he
had been awarded the prized
Defence portfolio ‘‘perhaps [in]
gratitude for helping deliver
[Kevin] Rudd New South Wales
support in his leadership coup’’.
US officials again questioned
his suitability for the complex
and sensitive role in March 2009,
saying it was ‘‘widely assumed
that Fitzgibbon, a former auto
repair shop owner with only a
brief stint as shadow defence
minister before assuming his
present role, got his job because
he was one of Rudd’s early sup-
porters in the ALP leadership
contest with Kim Beazley’’.
‘‘While he has proven himself
the day of the offence, Johnson
was receiving far less than the
correct dose of his anti-
psychotic medication due to an
‘‘oversight’’ by staff.
Questioned by Judge Hogan,
Ms Gardner agreed Justice
Health knew Johnson had been
in effective solitary confinement
for 10 months — and conceded
that ‘‘we have to do better’’.
Assistant commissioner for
offender management services
at Corrections Victoria, Brendan
Money, said Johnson’s case was
challenging and complex.
INDEX
ARTS PAGES 12, 13
CLASSIFIEDS
COMMENT & DEBATE
BUSINESSDAY 15
EDITORIALS, LETTERS
FOCUS
PAGE 11
PAGE 10
PAGE 9
PLUS MOUTH
WATERING
CANAPES
EPICURE
PICTURE: AFP
able to master the external ele-
ments of the job, he appears to
have little appetite for detail and
he may be somewhat out of his
depth in this job.’’
The document highlights Mr
Fitzgibbon’s ‘‘combative, partisan
political style’’ and reported that
his ‘‘frequent criticism of previous
administration’s conduct of
defence matters have rankled the
[Defence] establishment.’’
’’Another problem for Fitzgib-
bon may be the inexperience of
his ministerial staff,’’ the cable
said, noting that he appointed a
30-year-old with no defence
experience as chief of staff.
Several cables describe the
Continued PAGE 6
When Judge Hogan asked
how Johnson could ‘‘improve’’
when kept socially isolated,
apart from visits from a worker
with the Brosnan Centre, and
without stimulation, Mr Money
said it was a ‘‘double-edged
sword’’ between assessing his
risk, providing support and
ensuring he, staff and other
prisoners were safe.
Johnson, formerly of Bruns-
wick, who has pleaded guilty to
charges that include intention-
ally causing serious injury, will
be sentenced today.
MINDGAMES PAGE 16
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BUSINESSDAY 10, 11
PAGE 17
PAGES 7, 8
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INC
Police in
crime
assets
victory
EXCLUSIVE
By NICK McKENZIE
and BEN BUTLER
THE last piece of an alleged
$50 million asset portfolio built
by one of Victoria’s biggest crim-
inal syndicates has been seized
by the state.
The Age can reveal that on
Friday the syndicate’s alleged
money-man ditched his legal
battle to pocket $1.5 million
from the sale of a champion
racehorse.
The failure by Tom Karas to
claim the proceeds of the sale in
2007 of Pillar of Hercules marks
the end of a decade-long battle
by Victoria’s organised crime
Purana taskforce.
Since 2001, Purana has used
the civil court system, rather
than the criminal system, to sys-
tematically dismantle and seize
assets bought from the alleged
sale of drugs by the large crime
syndicate.
Assets seized and later sold
have included a multimillion-
dollar share portfolio, luxury
cars and several expensive Mel-
bourne homes.
The assets are all linked to a
criminal syndicate whose key
figures can’t be named for legal
reasons.
Using proceeds of crime
legislation, detectives from
Purana have worked closely
with the Office of Public Pros-
ecutions, the Australian Crime
Commission and the Tax Office
to seize and sell off the assets,
earning millions in revenue for
the state’s coffers.
The latest development is
likely to spark fresh debate
about whether Victoria Police
should be able to use crime pro-
ceeds it seizes to finance fresh
organised crime probes — as
occurs in some other states—
rather than simply give the
money to the state government.
In seizing assets from the
alleged criminal syndicate with-
out relying on criminal charges,
Purana is among the first state
policing taskforces in Australia
to thoroughly and successfully
employ criminal proceeds legis-
lation.
The most high-profile of the
seizures involved Pillar of Her-
cules, which was allegedly
bought on behalf of the syndi-
cate in 2006 by one of Australia’s
leading thoroughbred trainers,
Peter Moody.
When it was purchased, Pil-
lar was registered in the name of
Mr Moody’s wife and Mr Karas’s
wife, Irene Meletsis.
Proceeds from the sale of the
horse were frozen after police
alleged in 2007 that it was
bought as part of a ‘‘large scale
money laundering operation’’
linked to Mr Karas and the
organised crime syndicate to
whom he lent money.
Mr Karas denied the claims
and had sought to have the
money from the sale of the
horse returned to him on the
basis that he was owed it
because the original owner — a
crime figure who can’t be
named — had given it to him as
Continued PAGE 2
ISSN 0312-6307
9 770312 630028
B C D
METAGE A001
 THE AGE
6 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2010
TAR’S Irish leaders ‘knew of bank heist’
ET S
J CKING New claims emerge on lawyer’s murder
A
R
C LE
By NICHOLAS WATT
and OWEN BOWCOTT
SA
SINN FEIN leaders Gerry Adams and
Martin McGuinness held lengthy
negotiations with the then Irish prime
minister Bertie Ahern to save the
Northern Ireland peace process,
knowing that the IRA was planning
the biggest bank robbery in its history,
according to leaked US cables.
Mr Ahern, who was instrumental
in drawing up the 1998 Good Friday
peace agreement, was convinced the
two men were aware of plans for the
£26.5 million Northern Bank robbery
in 2004 because they were members
of the ‘‘IRA military command’’ with a
DOMESTIC FARES deep knowledge of its operations.
The US cables passed to WikiLeaks
also reveal that:
■ The Irish government believed
$39 * Britain had a ‘‘valuable source of
ADELAIDE information’’ at a senior level in the
Irish republican movement.
■ Mr Adams argued the IRA would
$39
have to be ‘‘taken out of the equation’’
LAUNCESTON
‡
during negotiations that led the
HOBART $49 ‡
A tribute to 6 million lost and one man’s stand
NEWCASTLE $59 *
GOLD COAST $59 *
BRISBANE $69 *
$79 * From PAGE 1
SUNSHINE COAST
$89
#
DARWIN
$89
*
TOWNSVILLE
CAIRNS $99 * reporting . . . [but] other aspects of
HAMILTON ISLAND $109 * born Helen Liu aka Liu Haiyan
Kevin Rudd lays a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, where Aboriginal activist William Cooper was later honoured for protesting against the Nazis.
By JASON KOUTSOUKIS
JERUSALEM
FOREIGN Minister Kevin Rudd used
a visit to the Holocaust memorial in
Israel to remind Australians of their
obligation to show compassion for all
people fleeing persecution.
Referring to Australia’s refusal to
Criminal conspiracist seeks spunky siren
By ADAM CAREY
IT’S a cocky online mating call by a
man who appears to have great con-
fidence in his appeal to women.
Calling himself Harry Harrison,
after the cult sci-fi novelist, the ques-
tion is: was the profile on dating site
OkCupid created by Julian Assange?
It features photos of the WikiLeaks
co-founder, smiling devilishly in one,
INTERNATIONAL FARES
brooding intensely in others. A pitch
to interested women kicks off with a
warning: ‘‘Want a regular, down to
earth guy? Keep moving. I am not the
$139 ~ droid you’re looking for. Save us both
AUCKLAND while you still can.
‘‘Passionate, and often pig headed
activist intellectual seeks siren for
$139 ~
love affair, children and occasional
QUEENSTOWN
criminal conspiracy.’’
ONE WAY JETSAVER LIGHT^ FARES WITH CARRY-ON BAGGAGE ONLY. JETSAVER FARES
Defence costings dodgy: US
WITH 20KG CHECKED BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE CAN BE BOOKED FOR $10-$15 MORE PER
PASSENGER, PER DOMESTIC FLIGHT SECTOR AND $20 MORE PER PASSENGER, PER From PAGE 1
INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT SECTOR.
ON SALE UNTIL MIDNIGHT (23:59 AEDT) TUESDAY 14 DECEMBER 2010, UNLESS SOLD OUT official was quoted as saying. But the
PRIOR. SALE MAY BE EXTENDED. SELECTED TRAVEL DATES IN 2011, SEE BELOW FOR official was also quoted telling the US
DETAILS. NOT AVAILABLE ON ALL FLIGHTS OR DAYS. CONDITIONS APPLY. FOR MORE embassy that the government
DETAILS AND TO BOOK VISIT JETSTAR.COM
believed it could successfully hold
Defence’s ‘‘feet to the fire’’ to bring
about budget reforms and achieve
the white paper’s goal of $20 billion
in savings by 2030.
The cable also reported the views
of Australian Strategic Policy Institute
analyst Mark Thomson, who it said
For all card payments an additional $3.50 per passenger, per domestic flight sector and suggested Defence may have under-
$5 per passenger, per international flight sector will apply, unless you pay with a Jetstar
estimated the future costs of acquir-
MasterCard or Jetstar Platinum MasterCard. Flights depart Melbourne Tullamarine
airport. *For travel from 18 January to 6 April 2011. ‡For travel from 15 February to 6 April
ing and servicing new equipment.
2011. #For travel from 18 January to 30 March 2011. ~For travel from 1 February to 6 April ‘‘Thomson also suggested that
2011. Fares are web only, one-way and non-refundable. Limited changes are permitted, Defence may have underestimated
charges apply. Availability is limited (not available on all flights or days). ^Carry-on future personnel costs, which con-
baggage limits, including size restrictions, will be strictly applied. Passengers with more sumes the largest slice of its budget.’’
than the applicable carry-on baggage allowance will need to check in baggage, and US diplomats said the white paper
charges will apply. See jetstar.com for more details. Before you book your international was ‘‘as much a political and diplo-
flight, and before you travel, check current Australian Government travel advisories on matic document’’ as it was a strategic
www.smartraveller.gov.au. Jetstar Airways Pty Ltd ABN 33 069 720 243. JET4234/M55 and force structure planning docu-
METAGE A006
THE WIKILEAKS FILES
organisation to declare a formal end
to its armed campaign in 2005.
The revelations come as Mr Adams
seeks to broaden Sinn Fein’s electoral
appeal. The Sinn Fein president is
abandoning his seat in the British Par-
liament to stand in the forthcoming
Irish election, hoping to capitalise on
voter anger against mainstream polit-
ical parties after Ireland was forced to
apply to the European Union and
International Monetary Fund for a
financial bailout.
Mr Ahern’s concerns about Sinn
Fein and the IRA are highlighted in
cables that describe a challenging
period in the peace process as Lon-
don and Dublin sought to restore the
power-sharing executive in Northern
Ireland. Unionist suspicions about the
intentions of the republican move-
ment were fuelled when the IRA
robbed the headquarters of Northern
Bank in Belfast in December 2004.
In a cable on February 4, 2005, two
months after the robbery, the US
ambassador to Dublin, James Kenny,
reported that a senior Irish official
accept Jewish refugees fleeing the
horrors of the Nazi regime at the 1938
Evian Conference, Mr Rudd said Aus-
tralia had closed its heart.
‘‘What we did then as a nation was
wrong,’’ he said.
After a wreath-laying in memory
of the 6 million Jews murdered by the
Nazis, Mr Rudd joined Israel’s Educa-
Four faces of ‘‘Harry Harrison’’ — or is it really Julian Assange?
The author describes himself as
36, straight and single, 1.82 metres
tall, a social drinker who does not
smoke or take drugs, and an atheist.
He lists his home city as Melbourne,
Australia, but clearly isn’t seeking
girl-next-door types.
He writes: ‘‘I like women from
countries that have sustained polit-
ical turmoil. Western culture seems
ment. ‘‘To a domestic audience that
traditionally views the left-leaning
Labor Party as weaker on defence,
Rudd wants to look tough on secur-
ity,’’ the cable said. To the US, Austra-
lia wanted to signal that it was
‘‘pulling its weight in the alliance’’.
‘‘PM Rudd has made clear that it
was also a signal to China and to the
region that Australia is committed to
doing what it can to maintain the
strategic balance in East Asia.’’
The government has already been
embarrassed by other WikiLeaks
cables on the defence white paper,
including one revealing how China’s
negative reaction to it was hidden
from the Australian public.
Another cable showed how
Labor’s Left faction was deliberately
deceived by the language used to
describe Australia’s position on
missile defence co-operation with
the US in the white paper.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness
told the embassy of the prime minis-
ter’s concerns about Mr Adams and
Mr McGuinness.
The cable claimed the official in
the department of justice told the
ambassador ‘‘that the GOI [govern-
ment of Ireland] does have ‘rock solid
evidence’ that Gerry Adams and Mar-
tin McGuinness are members of the
IRA military command and for that
reason, the [prime minister] is certain
they would have known in advance of
the robbery’’.
In another cable on June 1, 2005, six
months after the robbery, Mr Kenny
reported that Mr Ahern had raised his
tion Minister Gideon Sa’ar to honour
Aboriginal activist William Cooper.
When news of the 1938 Kristallnacht
attacks against Jews in Germany
reached Australia, the then 77-year-
old Mr Cooper led a protest march
from Footscray to the German consu-
late in South Melbourne.
Mr Rudd described Mr Cooper’s
to forge women that are valueless
and inane. OK. Not only women!’’
On a typical Friday night the
author is: ‘‘Working, or in wilderness,
which I retain an undying love for.
Parties with good friends are glue,
otherwise entertainment is less
entertaining than working!’’
The most private thing he is will-
ing to admit to: he has ‘‘Asian teengirl
The stuff of inside information
THE Americans were immediately on
to Joel Fitzgibbon’s qualification —
or, rather, his lack of it — to be
defence minister. As soon as he was
appointed, the US embassy reported
he had got the job perhaps because
he had helped deliver Kevin Rudd
‘‘support in his leadership coup’’.
Exactly right. The embassy con-
tinued to view him through the prism
of a political operator and was
unimpressed with his ability to deal
with the complex Defence area.
Once again, we see how the Amer-
icans tap into the public service for
information and assessments,
referring to deputy secretary Steve
Merchant’s strong rejection of reports
that Defence officials spied on
Fitzgibbon over his relationship with
a Chinese-born businesswoman and
benefactor.
Given the embassy had doubted
DAY 7
concerns with the US envoy to Ireland,
Mitchell Reiss. The cable says: ‘‘The
[prime minister] . . . believes Sinn Fein
leaders were aware of plans to rob the
Northern Bank even as they negotiated
with him last fall.’’
In what was then the largest cash
robbery ever carried out in Britain, a
group of armed men held the families
of two bank officials hostage while the
officials were forced to hand over sacks
filled with millions of pounds in cash
to terrorists at the bank.
Mr Adams has denied being an IRA
member. Mr McGuinness has admit-
ted being a member in the 1970s.
A Sinn Fein spokesman said:
‘‘There is not a shred of evidence that
has ever linked the IRA to the North-
ern Bank robbery. The theories put
forward by the British at the time
regarding republican involvement
were disproved in court.’’
Meanwhile, the British govern-
ment is facing fresh demands to hold
a public inquiry into one of the most
high-profile murders in Northern Ire-
land, carried out by loyalist gunmen
working with members of the secur-
ity forces, after cables revealed that
British security agency MI5 offered to
hand over sensitive files on the case.
protest as ‘‘an extraordinary story of
courage and of hope’’. Mr Cooper has
been honoured with the inaugura-
tion of a chair ‘‘for the study of resist-
ance during the Holocaust’’ at the
Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
COMMENT & DEBATE
Thomas Friedman PAGE 11
stalkers’’. He concludes with a lofty
challenge to any girl who still thinks
she might be interested: ‘‘You are a
spirited, erotic, non-conformist (sic).
Non-conformity is not the adoption
of some pre-existing alternative sub-
culture. I seek innate perceptiveness
and spunk.
‘‘Do not write to me if you are
timid. I am too busy. Write to me if
you are brave.’’
Whether the profile truly belongs
to Assange is not certain. Either way,
‘‘HarryHarrison’’ has long since
started looking elsewhere for the
female company he reportedly loves.
The account has been dormant since
January 1, 2007.
LINK
okcupid.com/profile/HarryHarrison
MICHELLE
GRATTAN
ANALYSIS
Fitzgibbon was up to the job, it wasn’t
surprised by his fall, reporting
beforehand that a minister
‘‘constantly at war with his depart-
ment’’ could not be effective. It was
much more impressed with
successor John Faulkner.
The cable traffic dealing with how
Australia would pay for the military
spending associated with the 2009
Defence white paper shows Treasury
happy to bag Defence’s financial
incompetence. A senior Treasury offi-
cial is quoted as saying Defence’s
‘‘budgeting and execution is the
worst in the federal government’’,
Relatives and supporters of well-
known civil rights and defence lawyer
Pat Finucane, who was murdered in
front of his wife and three young chil-
dren in Belfast in 1989, welcomed
MI5’s offer as ‘‘highly significant’’ and
said it strengthened their demands
for an independent inquiry.
The Northern Ireland secretary,
Owen Paterson, has told the widow
of the murdered lawyer that he will
decide early next year whether to
hold an inquiry into collusion
between Ulster Freedom Fighters
gunmen and members of the security
forces. A refusal to hold such a hear-
ing, which Mr Paterson has ques-
tioned in the past, would prevent an
examination of the MI5 files.
The leaked US cables show that:
■ The head of MI5 reportedly prom-
ised in 2005 to hand over potentially
significant material on the 1989
shooting.
■ Mr Ahern, the Irish prime minister
between 1997 and 2008, told US dip-
lomats that ‘‘everyone knows the UK
was involved’’ in the murder.
■ US diplomats feared that ‘‘elements
of the security-legal establishments’’
in Britain beyond MI5 were fighting
hard to resist an inquiry. GUARDIAN
Minister’s
fall seen
as blessing
in disguise
strident reaction of Defence Depart-
ment deputy secretary Steve Mer-
chant to reports that defence officials
spied on Mr Fitzgibbon in connec-
tion to his relationship with Ms Liu,
saying internal investigations pro-
duced no evidence for the claims.
Mr Merchant also criticised Fair-
fax journalists. ‘‘Mr Merchant was
deliberate and emphatic in stressing
the history of sensational media
the press articles pertaining to the
16-year relationship between Fitzgib-
bon and Australian based, Chinese
remain noteworthy.’’
Another cable says Mr Rudd’s
decision to give Mr Fitzgibbon added
responsibility for defence acquisition
‘‘opens up new opportunities for
Fitzgibbon to make a costly, high-
profile mistake that may again call
into question his fitness for the job’’.
A US official predicted Mr Fitzgib-
bon’s demise a month before he quit.
‘‘A minister cannot be effective if he is
constantly at war with his depart-
ment, and there are several talented
alternatives waiting in the wings,’’ the
embassy reported to Washington.
Several cables also reference the
SAS pay debacle, in which the pay-
ment of allowances to special forces
personnel was bungled. The cables
describe the minister’s parliamentary
handling of the scandal as weak and
ineffective. ‘‘Fitzgibbon looked
uncomfortable and defensive, spend-
ing most of his time criticising his
own department for failing to
respond to his requests.’’
The assessment of his replace-
ment, John Faulkner, is far kinder.
‘‘[Faulkner] has better political
instincts, superior knowledge of the
process of government . . . and com-
mands more respect.
‘‘Faulkner’s commitment to prob-
ity will lessen the likelihood that he
will become embroiled in the contro-
versies that plagued Fitzgibbon’s ten-
ure.’’ The embassy also praised Greg
Combet, who served as parliamentary
secretary for defence procurement
and, after Mr Fitzgibbon’s departure,
became minister for Defence Person-
nel, Materiel and Science.
Fairfax, publisher of The Age, is
contesting legal action by Ms Liu
aimed at revealing the sources for
stories about her. Mr Fitzgibbon, who
has denied any wrongdoing in his
relationship with Ms Liu, has
launched defamation proceedings
against Fairfax, claiming stories about
his conduct were false and damaged
his reputation.
although the officer said the govern-
ment thought it could hold the
department’s ‘‘feet to the fire’’ to get
promised savings.
Meanwhile, on the political front,
Kevin Rudd has given Julia Gillard an
‘‘out’’ from the impression she left
that Julian Assange had broken the
law, in her ambiguous comment that
the placement of the leaked material
had been an illegal act. Rudd —
whom some in the government see as
freelancing in other respects on
Assange — told The Australian he
had looked carefully at Gillard’s
statements and it was clear she
‘‘was expressing concerns about the
illegality of actions which in my view
refer to stuff in the United States’’.
Mind you, ‘‘stuff’’ isn’t exactly precise.
Let’s face it, the government doesn’t
know what to say about Assange,
except that it doesn’t approve of him.
 2010
PUBLISHED IN MELBOURNE SINCE 1854
Backflip
defuses
equal
pay row
EXCLUSIVE
By KIRSTY NEEDHAM
SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT
THE federal government has
bowed to union and community
sector anger and signed back on
to support equal pay for women.
A letter by Workplace Minis-
ter Chris Evans has changed a
government submission to the
equal pay test case being heard
by Fair Work Australia.
A dispute erupted in the final
sitting week of Parliament as
unions and the Australian Coun-
cil of Social Services accused the
government of abandoning a
deal to support the case covering
153,000, mostly female,
community-sector workers.
The commonwealth provides
half the sector’s funding, and its
original submission had said
any pay rise awarded by the
tribunal would lead to cuts to
other government services,
because it needed to bring the
budget back to surplus.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard
took personal offence at the
ensuing backlash and ordered
the problem be fixed.
The letter by Mr Evans states:
‘‘The submission does not assert
that Fair Work Australia should
not award or discount equal
remuneration because of the
potential impact on the com-
monwealth.’’
The letter to the Australian
Services Union, signed on Mon-
day, can be tabled as evidence. It
changes five issues that had
upset the sector, including:
■ Recognising salary sacrifice
deals, commonly used by chari-
ties that run homelessness, dis-
ability, family and crisis centres,
do little to help low-paid women.
■ Rejecting an argument pushed
by the Australian Industry Group
that sector wages should be lifted
through workplace bargaining,
not a gender case.
‘‘The government submission
does not argue that collective
bargaining and productivity
improvements are the solution to
low wages. We recognise that
collective bargaining is not
always a means to rectifying
entrenched pay equity differen-
tials,’’ the letter says.
Community sector workers in
Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and
Tasmania will march today in
support of the case.
Unions say the letter was cru-
cial to stop the government’s ori-
ginal submission being used to
undermine the case.
ASU Victorian branch assist-
ant secretary Lisa Darmanin said
the letter met the spirit of a
heads-of-agreement Ms Gillard
signed last year.
‘‘We think this letter provides
the follow-through and the sup-
port that we need,’’ she said.
Community workers will
march on State Parliament today
to seek assurances from Premier
Ted Baillieu that the state govern-
ment would also meet the full
cost of the equal pay case
E-POLL
Should the government back equal
pay even if it endangers the budget
surplus? Vote theage.com.au
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OUR TOP STUDENTS
Terror groups ‘broken’
A soldier conducts a search while on patrol this week in Oruzgan Province, southern Afghanistan, where Australian troops are working with soldiers of the Afghan National Army.
Upbeat report to US
says al-Qaeda has failed
By PHILIP DORLING
A SECRET Australian intelli-
gence assessment has declared
the al-Qaeda terrorist network a
failure and claims its regional
offshoot, Jemaah Islamiyah, has
been broken in Indonesia.
The head of Australia’s top
intelligence agency, the Office
of National Assessments, told
American diplomats in October
2008 that al-Qaeda “ultimately
has failed to achieve the stra-
tegic leadership role it sought
within the Islamic world’’.
The assessment undercuts a
key argument of the Gillard gov-
ernment to justify Australia’s
continued commitment to the
Philippines a ‘basket case’ and Timor a ‘burden’
By PHILIP DORLING
AUSTRALIA’S top diplomats
consider our neighbourhood
deeply troubled. They describe
China’s leadership as ‘‘nervous,
paranoid and uncertain’’ but
“running rings’’ around Japan.
Thailand is unstable, the Philip-
pines a “basket case” and East
Timor a “burden”.
The candid judgments of
some of Australia’s most senior
and experienced diplomats are
contained in the United States’
record of the secret Australia-
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THE WIKILEAKS FILES: DAY 8
TERRORISM & THE REGION
war in Afghanistan — that al-
Qaeda could return to use the
country as a terrorist training
ground.
Australian intelligence officers
instead blamed Taliban success
in Afghanistan on the failings of
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s
government and on the murky
involvement of Pakistan’s intelli-
gence and security services.
Pressed by the US diplomats
for an overall assessment of
Islamist terrorist threats, then
Office of National Assessments
director-general Peter Varghese
gave a strongly up-beat view. He
told the visiting head of the US
State Department’s Bureau of
Intelligence and Research,
US political-military talks held
between senior officials of both
countries in Canberra in Octo-
ber 2008.
Foreign Affairs Department
deputy secretary David Richie
warned that Australia faced a
‘‘troubled neighbourhood . . .
including an increase in illegal
immigration from Indonesia . . .
continuing political instability
in Thailand; the ‘basket case’ of
the Philippines; the continuing
‘burden’ of providing security
and development assistance to
East Timor; problems of bad
MELBOURNE DAMS
20 — 29
15 — 31
17 — 31
48.3
53%%
AAYEAR
YEARAGO:
AGO:35.3%
38%
WHO GOT THE
BEST MARKS IN
EVERY SUBJECT
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2010
As events unfold in the
years ahead, these cables
will provide crucial back-
ground that people will
return to and judge what
political leaders have to say.
DANIEL FLITTON PAGE 17
Defence can do better: Smith PAGE 6
COMMENT & DEBATE
Cameron Forbes PAGE 17
Randall Fort, that terrorism was ambivalent on the issues of
“a good news story that is get- counter-terrorism and counter-
ting better, with the violent insurgency, reiterating that
Islamist threat receding’’. India remains the core mission
The US embassy in Canberra and priority of the Pakistan
reported Mr Varghese “com- defence and intelligence estab-
mented that in personal meet- lishment.
ings and intelligence exchanges “ONA assesses that Pakistan’s
with ONA and other Australian military and security elite view
services, Pakistani [defence this as ‘an American war’, which,
chief ] General [Ashfaq] Kayani combined with a very hard
continually comes across as sense of anti-Americanism,
governance in many of the the reins to one of his hand-
Pacific Island states’’. picked successors,’’ Mr Fletcher
The US record of the secret forecast. “While China might
discussions, chaired by Mr Ric- look impressive externally, its
hie and US assistant secretary of internal politics were character-
state Mark Kimmitt, has been ised by nervousness, paranoia
provided exclusively to The Age and uncertainty. Nonetheless,
by WikiLeaks. there were no major challenges
During the exchange, the to the ruling elite in the near
department’s first assistant sec- term.’’
retary for north Asia, Graham A senior US defence official
Fletcher, gave a broad political for east Asia, David Sedney, said
overview of China. that the US analysis matched
“The elite, led by Hu Jintao, Australia’s view that there was
likely would retain control until no threat to China’s rulers.
2012, when Hu would turn over “[Sedney] noted that the
ODD SPOT
James Byron Birkhead of Owensboro, Kentucky, has
pleaded guilty to making bombs, but claims he only did so
because he feared the end of the world after watching the
movie 2012. He said he was only making them to protect
his family when government failed and food riots occurred.
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combines into a very dangerous
cocktail,’’ Mr Varghese was
reported to have told his Amer-
ican colleagues.
Mr Varghese said develop-
ments were especially positive
in Australia’s region, where “the
growth of Islamic extremism-
based movements is con-
strained, thanks in part to ongo-
ing successes in combined
counter-terrorism efforts, but
more because of societal factors
in south-east Asia that reject the
Middle Eastern jihadist model.’’
But the secret US embassy
cable, leaked to WikiLeaks and
provided exclusively to The Age,
warned that the southern Phil-
ippines was emerging as a new
terrorist haven.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard
told Parliament on October 19,
during the debate on Australia’s
military deployment, that it was
a vital “to make sure that
Afghanistan never again
Chinese leadership was
absorbed with domestic stabil-
ity, and, while China had
achieved success in achieving
economic and political stability,
there were cracks in the facade.’’
The department’s then
senior official for south-east
Asia, Peter Woolcott, described
the political situation in many
countries in Australia’s neigh-
bourhood as ‘‘messy’’, and cited
“significant problems in the
Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia,
Vietnam and Burma’’.
“The situation in Indonesia
INDEX
ARTS PAGES 18, 19
CLASSIFIEDS BUSINESSDAY 13-15
COMMENT & DEBATE
EDITORIALS, LETTERS
FOCUS
PAGE 17
PAGE 16
PAGE 15
The terms ‘Zip’ and
‘HydroTap’ are trade marks.
PICTURE: ANGELA WYLIE
becomes a safe haven for al-
Qaeda’’ and that Osama bin
Laden’s group remained “a resi-
lient and persistent network’’.
Ms Gillard also warned of
past links between al-Qaeda and
extremists in Indonesia.
But the US record of the
high-level intelligence exchange
states: “Varghese and his ana-
lysts assessed that Indonesia
Islam was ‘returning to its main
course following a detour’
driven by personal linkages to
the global jihad that were
formed in Afghanistan in the
1980s.’’
“ONA analysts assess ‘the
tide has turned’ on Jemaah Isla-
miyah (JI) in Indonesia, noting
that its leadership has been dev-
astated — with most seniors
killed, captured, or on the run-
and that it has lost its local sup-
port networks and funding,’’ the
US embassy reported to
Continued PAGE 6
— Australia’s most important
regional partner — was ‘as good
as it gets’,’’ Mr Woolcott said.
“[President] Yudhoyono . . .
whom Australia wanted to see
re-elected, had provided first
class co-operation on counter-
terrorism.’’
Mr Woolcott described
China’s diplomatic efforts in
south-east Asia as ‘‘impressive’’,
adding that “while most coun-
tries wanted a US presence as a
hedge, they were comfortable
with China’s approach’’.
Continued PAGE 6
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BUSINESSDAY 10-12
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INC
Property
chiefs
warn of
units glut
By MARIKA DOBBIN
THOUSANDS of off-the-plan
apartment buyers could face
losses as a glut forces many Mel-
bourne projects into limbo.
Two major property players
have broken industry ranks to
warn buyers about an oversup-
ply of poorly located apartments
in the development pipeline
aimed at property investors.
Rob Pradolin, general man-
ager of developer Australand,
which has $400 million in pro-
jects under way in Victoria, pre-
dicted that 30 to 40 per cent of
apartment projects currently
advertised for Melbourne would
not go ahead.
‘‘All those people who have
paid deposits are locked in and
can’t pull their money out until
the sunset clause in the contract
expires in three, four and some-
times five years’ time,’’ he said.
Mr Pradolin predicted banks
would control the market by
confining lending for construc-
tion work to less risky develop-
ments in prime locations.
His comments come less
than a fortnight after Melbourne
property stalwart Max Beck,
who founded Becton Property
Group, warned in The Austra-
lian Financial Review of a
potential slump in apartment
values if the banks funded all
the ‘‘mega-projects’’ proposed.
Proposals for 33,451 new
apartments in 293 Melbourne
buildings are now being advert-
ised to buyers. The figure has
leapt from 18,585 apartments in
June 2008, according to research
by property agency Oliver Hume.
The surge is a boon for the
more than 500 real estate agents
spruiking apartment develop-
ments to local, interstate and
international property investors.
However, just 13 per cent of pro-
jects launched in the past two
years have started construction,
a report by Oliver Hume
showed.
Competition between pro-
jects for buyers, combined with
stricter laws for foreign property
investors, a slow-down in
migration levels and the
strength of the Australian dollar
have resulted in disappointing
off-the-plan sales for many of
the developments.
Freehills property partner
David Sinn said major banks
were worried about a potential
oversupply in Melbourne and
looking to reduce their expos-
ures by taking a hard line on
lending to start construction.
Banks were shying away
from projects where developers
had little equity to put in or
where off-the-plan sales had
been largely to overseas buyers.
‘‘The sheer volume of pro-
jects trying to get up at the
moment is amazing and there is
only a certain pool of money
available,’’ he said. ‘‘The pool is
insufficient to service all those
projects.’’
Mr Sinn said most banks were
now refusing to lend to indi-
vidual buyers for inner-city
apartments. Buyers who had
paid deposits could do nothing
but wait their contracts out.
Continued PAGE 2
ISSN 0312-6307
9 770312 630035
B C D
ZIPHT1208/381x70
METAGE A001
 THE AGE
6 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2010
US grand jury ‘pursuing Assange’
Mother critical of PM’s response
By PAOLA TOTARO
LONDON
WIKILEAKS founder Julian
Assange arrived in Westminster
magistrates court in a prison
van five hours before he was due
to appear yesterday to plea for
bail.
Mr Assange was greeted by
50-metre queues of media and
supporters who waited for
hours outside the court in freez-
ing temperatures.
His mother Christine arrived
from Australia to support her
son at his court appearance and
visited him in his jail cell at
Wandsworth.
‘‘I told him how people all
over the world in all sorts of
countries are standing up with
Assange’s mother Christine.
placards and screaming out for
his freedom and justice and he
was very heartened by that,’’ she
said.
Earlier, she blasted the Gil-
lard government. ‘‘There’s Julia
Gillard opening for Oprah and
my Julian is sitting here in
prison. Is it more important to
suck up to the Yanks than to
look after your own people?’’
Mr Assange, 39, was to try to
win bail against extradition pro-
ceedings by Sweden relating to
sex crime charges.
Mark Stephens, the lawyer
for Mr Assange in his first
appearance last week, said his
client would offer to wear the
electronic device to reassure
authorities he was not a flight
risk.
The tactic emerged as Mr
Stephens told broadcaster al-
Jazeera that a secret US grand
jury has been set up in Virginia
Terror groups broken, Canberra tells Washington
From PAGE 1
Washington. “ONA judged JI
was shifting near-term goals to
its local, vice global/anti-
western interests while other-
wise ‘creeping back to the shad-
ows’ and focusing on survival.’’
Australian intelligence ana-
lysts proffered the view that JI
could “endure and regenerate
over the long term’’, but that it
would be “a more localised ter-
rorist threat’’, one cable said.
Philippines a ‘basket case’ and Timor a ‘burden’
From PAGE 1
‘‘Japan’s presence, by contrast,
hardly registered, in part
because it declined to invest
political resources, such as visits
by senior officials,’’ Mr Woolcott
said. At this point Mr Fletcher
interjected, saying the Chinese
were ‘‘running rings around
Japan’’ in south-east Asia.
Mr Ritchie suggested that
Japan was hampered by the leg-
acy of World War II.
METAGE A006
in the United States to work on
charges that could be filed
against Mr Assange.
Citing unnamed Swedish
authorities, he said there had
been a secretly empanelled
grand jury in Alexandria, Vir-
ginia, just outside Washington.
Mr Stephens appealed for
fairness, stressing that Mr
Assange’s second hearing was
not about WikiLeaks and the
publications of sensitive US dip-
lomatic cables but about a bail
hearing.
‘‘This is the curious case of
WikiLeaks, and it clearly has a
bearing on the way in which
cases are dealt with,’’ he said.
‘‘But I hope the British judi-
ciary have the spine to deal with
him independently.’’
Mr Assange turned himself
in to police last week after Swed-
ish prosecutors issued a warrant
on one count of unlawful coer-
cion, two of sexual molestation
and one count of rape allegedly
committed in August.
He was denied bail then but
the magistrate, Howard Riddle,
signalled that the case was a
complex one and he wanted to
see further information and
evidence on the Swedish case.
Mr Stephens said the
chances of Mr Assange running
away were rare, given that he
was ‘‘the most recognisable
person on the planet’’ at the
moment.
He said he was hoping his
client would be granted bail but
appeared to suggest that fight-
ing the extradition might be
more difficult.
The extradition battle, to be
fought through all levels of the
British courts, will be led by Aus-
tralian QC Geoffrey Robertson.
In the meantime, Mr Ste-
phens said Mr Assange had not
been given any of his mail since
he was jailed, and even his legal
letters failed to reach him.
He was on 231⁄2-hours-a-day
‘‘lock-down’’ at Wandsworth in
south-west London, taking his
meals in his cell.
He was kept under surveil-
lance on infrared video. With PA
This latest disclosure comes
after former JI leader Abu Bakar
Bashir was yesterday committed
for trial in Indonesia on terror-
ism charges
Bashir, convicted of conspir-
acy in the 2002 Bali bombing
but acquitted on appeal, has
been charged as the alleged
inspiration of, and fund-raiser
for, an Islamic militant training
camp in Aceh that was broken
up in February.
The leaked US cables also
Australian Defence Depart-
ment deputy secretary Stephen
Merchant agreed, observing
that ‘‘Japan lacked the capacity
to deliver, despite having some
forward-leaning senior offi-
cials’’.
Dissatisfaction with Japan’s
performance also featured in
discussions between US under-
secretary of state Bill Burns and
Department of Foreign Affairs
secretary Michael L’Estrange in
Canberra in April 2009.
THE WIKILEAKS FILES
Julian Assange arrives in the back of a police vehicle at a London magistrates court for his second bail hearing.
reveal that ONA considered
Indonesia’s counter-terrorism
successes to be “a study in con-
trast” to “the ongoing down-
ward slide in the Philippines,
where the collapse of the peace
process in the south threatened
to make this area ‘the new
regional incubator of terrorist
jihadis’.’’
The US embassy reported
that “ONA terrorism specialists
noted signals and human intel-
ligence that JI ‘structuralists’
The leaked US record of the
discussion notes Mr L’Estrange
‘‘expressed frustration at the dif-
ficulties Australia had experi-
enced getting Japan to co-
operate on counterterrorism’’
partly because of ‘‘the constant
turnover of ministers in Japan’’.
But when both Mr Burns and
Mr L’Estrange were joined by
Japanese deputy foreign minis-
ter Kenchiro Sasae at a later
meeting, both avoided criticism
of Japanese diplomacy while the
embedded with the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front were
rethinking plans to return to
Indonesia, while JI ‘freelancers’
were becoming more active and
better linked with Abu Sayyaf
Group operatives.’’
According to the US diplo-
matic reporting, the Office of
National Assessments believed
the southern Philippines
increasingly contained ‘‘all the
ingredients’’ of al-Qaeda’s
‘‘favoured tilling ground’’.
Australian and Japanese repre-
sentatives ‘‘lauded’’ President
Barack Obama’s stewardship of
the war in Afghanistan.
All sides agreed that control
of the Pakistan-Afghan border
was the key. In a comment that
reflected analysis from the
Office of National Assessments,
Mr L’Estrange said Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence
Agency was ‘‘a complex hydra
that was playing both ends
against the middle’’.
Protesters condemn Gillard
By JARED LYNCH
SUPPORTERS of Julian Assange
last night vowed to rally in their
hundreds in Melbourne’s CBD
each week until the WikiLeaks
founder is freed.
At least 300 people rallied
outside the State Library last
night. The protesters created
gridlock during peak hour,
marching from Swanston Street
to the British Consulate on Col-
lins Street, where mounted
police were waiting.
Mr Assange’s Australian law-
yer, Rob Stary, said he believed
there had been a grand jury
indictment in the US to charge
Mr Assange with espionage. He
said the charges were unlikely to
stand up and were bullying by
the US.
Melbourne Greens MP Adam
Bandt said the government’s
handling of the issue was a
disgrace. He said he was worried
about an increasing trend
among Australian governments
to abandon the law whenever
they were embarrassed. ‘‘We
saw it with David Hicks under
the Howard government and we
DAY 8
PICTURE: AFP
Pro-WikiLeaks protesters in Melbourne last night.
are seeing it with Julian Assange
under the Gillard government,’’
Mr Bandt told The Age.
Meanwhile, a Lowy Institute
foreign policy expert has
warned that the episode will
harm US President Barack
Obama and is bad for the Gillard
government.
Rory Medcalf said the leaks
would do more harm to Wash-
ington and its democratic allies
in Asia and Europe than to
authoritarian-leaning powers.
Editors lambast
government bid to
stifle information
By MICHELLE GRATTAN
WIKILEAKS is doing what the
media have always done, bring-
ing to light material govern-
ments would prefer to keep
secret, newspaper editors and
other media figures say in an
open letter to Prime Minister
Julia Gillard.
They say the reaction of the
Australian and US governments
is deeply troubling and there is
no evidence Julian Assange and
WikiLeaks have broken Austra-
lian law.
The letter says Ms Gillard has
condemned WikiLeaks’ action as
‘‘illegal’’, but so far it ‘‘has been
able to point to no Australian
law that has been breached’’.
‘‘The leaking and publication
of diplomatic correspondence is
not new. We, as editors and news
directors of major media organ-
isations, believe the reaction of
the US and Australian govern-
ments to date has been deeply
troubling,’’ they say. ‘‘We will
strongly resist any attempts to
make the publication of these or
similar documents illegal.
‘‘Any such action would
impact not only on WikiLeaks,
but every media organisation in
the world that aims to inform
the public about decisions made
on their behalf. WikiLeaks, just
four years old, is part of the
media and deserves our sup-
port.’’
The signatories say they do
not support the publication of
material that threatens national
security or puts lives in danger.
‘‘Those judgments are never
easy, but there has been no evid-
ence to date that the WikiLeaks
material has done either,’’ they
say.
To prosecute an organisation
for publishing a leak would be
unprecedented in the US, and in
Australia it would seriously curtail
reporting on subjects the govern-
ment decides are against its
interests, the letter says.
‘‘To aggressively attempt to
shut WikiLeaks down, to threaten
PICTURE: JOE ARMAO
‘‘It will weaken the US and its
allies in their ability to . . . trust
one another,’’ he said.
‘‘WikiLeaks and its supporters
are further damaging the most
internationalist US adminis-
tration they will see in their life-
times . . . [It] is fanning patriotic
anger in America and this will
translate into political capital
for the Republican right.’’
The revelations in The Age
‘‘will carve fresh rifts and reopen
old ones’’. With MICHELLE GRATTAN
Defence must
do better: Smith
DEFENCE Minister Stephen Smith
has conceded his department and
the government must get better
value for the big spending on
military hardware.
Progress had been made, ‘‘but
we have a long way to go’’, he told
a news conference.
A US embassy cable raised
doubts about Australia’s ability to
pay for the ambitious program in
the 2009 Defence white paper. Mr
Smith said former defence minister
Joel Fitzgibbon had done a good
job ‘‘in trying to put Defence in a
framework of rigour’’.
In the past, Australia had had
‘‘very bad experiences’’ with major
defence projects, and the Labor
government had taken measures to
deal with this.
‘‘But I’ve made it . . . very clear
recently that much more effort is
required on this front,’’ Mr Smith
said.
He said any major procurement
was a high-risk challenge, dealing
with fast-moving technological
change. ‘‘So there are always
challenges in Defence procurement
issues, but I think that Defence, the
Australian government and
Australia can do much better.
MICHELLE GRATTAN
to prosecute those who publish
official leaks, and to pressure
companies to cease doing com-
mercial business with WikiLeaks
is a serious threat to democracy,
which relies on a free and fearless
press.’’
Among the signatories are
Paul Ramadge, The Age editor-in-
chief; Gay Alcorn, editor of The
Sunday Age; Peter Fray, The
Sydney Morning Herald editor-in-
chief; Simon Pristel, editor of the
Herald Sun; Garry Linnell, editor
of the Daily Telegraph; Eric Bee-
cher, chairman of Crikey and Kate
Torney, ABC director of news.
Suspect is
dubbed hero
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
THE US Army private suspected
of giving a mountain of secret
data to WikiLeaks may be
crowned a hero in the California
city known for hippies and anti-
war protests.
Berkeley City Council mem-
bers were to vote yesterday on a
resolution proclaiming Bradley
Manning a hero and urging mil-
itary officials to release him.
‘‘Blowing the whistle on war
crimes is not a crime,’’ read a
resolution endorsed by the city’s
peace and justice commission.
‘‘If Pfc Bradley Manning is
the source who provided
WikiLeaks with the ‘Collateral
Murder’ video and/or the 92,000
documents known as ‘The
Afghan War Diary’, he is a hero.’’
The WikiLeaks website has
yet to reveal how it obtained
hundreds of thousands of secret
documents in recent months,
including more than 250,000
diplomatic cables. But suspi-
cions have centred on 23-year-
old Manning. AFP

SUMMER
AGE
PUBLISHED IN MELBOURNE SINCE 1854
US wanted
Saddam’s
man here
Uni spot for Iraqi biological scientist
By PHILIP DORLING
and RICHARD BAKER
THE United States secretly pres-
sured Australia to place one of
Saddam Hussein’s former top
biological weapons scientists at
Victoria University in Mel-
bourne.
But the federal government
rejected a March 2008 request
from the US to accept Professor
Ali al-Za’ag, a microbiologist
and genetic engineering expert,
under a State Department pro-
gram to provide employment
for Iraqi experts in weapons of
mass destruction.
A cable sent from the US
embassy in Canberra in March
last year confirms that Professor
Za’ag had been refused a visa
after Australian officials cited ‘‘a
range of compelling security,
immigration and legal reasons’’.
Professor Za’ag, who was
awarded a doctorate in micro-
biology and molecular genetics
by the University of Queensland
in 1987, has a six-year gap in his
official biography between 1987
and 1993, the year he founded
the Department of Biotech-
nology at the University of
Baghdad. He was also a director
of Iraq’s National Scientific
Research Commission and head
of the Iraqi Journal of Science’s
editorial board.
He was imprisoned for 38
days and interrogated by the US
military 15 times between Janu-
ary and March in 2004.
While failed insolvency
specialist Stuart Ariff
continues to enjoy the
spoils, those he had
been claiming to
represent are still waiting
for justice,
Adele Ferguson
investigates.
BUSINESSDAY 20
WEATHER
MELBOURNE Showers
BALLARAT Showers
BENDIGO Showers
GEELONG Showers
HORSHAM Cloudy
THE WIKILEAKS
FILES DAY 13
There seems to be
little understanding
that, in part, WikiLeaks
has grown out of a
culture of excessive
government secrecy.
COMMENT & DEBATE
JOHAN LIDBERG PAGE 13
 Assange decries ‘business
McCarthyism’ PAGE 7
The embassy cables, obtained
by WikiLeaks and released exclu-
sively to The Age, refer to Pro-
fessor Za’ag as ‘‘the former
biological weapons scientist dur-
ing Saddam Hussein’s regime’’.
A 1996 United Nations Spe-
cial Commission (UNSCOM)
report noted denials by the Iraqi
government that there was any
relationship between the genetic
engineering components of
Iraq’s biological weapons pro-
gram and the Al-Amiriyah
Serum and Vaccine Institute,
which operated in the early
1990s under the direction of a
‘‘Dr Al-Za’ag’’.
But the Iraq Survey Group, an
international group of civilian
and military experts, reported
evidence that Al-Amiriyah insti-
tute personnel had supported
research by the infamous Iraqi
biological warfare expert, Dr
Rihab Taha al-Azawi, dubbed
‘‘Dr Germ’’ by Western media.
Dili gets outline of Gillard’s Timor solution, five months on
EXCLUSIVE
By LINDSAY MURDOCH
DARWIN
MORE than five months after
Prime Minister Julia Gillard
announced she wanted to send
asylum seekers to East Timor to
‘‘wreck the people-smuggling
trade’’, the tiny nation has
received a document outlining
the proposal.
East Timor’s Foreign Minister
Zacarias da Costa said the
10 — 19 MILDURA Sunny
4
6
7
5
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20
17
21
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WODONGA Showers
WARRNAMBOOL Showers 9 — 17
Details PAGE 17
I Giant crossword
I Quizzes
I How to have a
white Christmas
PAGE 18
The US government has
given special treatment to sci-
entists involved in Saddam Hus-
sein’s weapons programs, unlike
other senior figures in the dictat-
or’s regime who have been
executed or jailed. Selected sci-
entists with sensitive expertise
in weapons of mass destruction
technology have been debriefed
on Iraq’s weapons programs and
given employment to reduce the
risk their skills and knowledge
might be made available to other
countries, for example Syria,
Iran or North Korea.
Since at least 2006, Professor
Za’ag has been working in the
US government’s Iraq Scientist
Engagement Program to develop
an international program to pro-
mote safe and responsible use of
biological materials. He has also
established a new forensic DNA
training centre in Iraq.
The embassy cables, which
are classified as secret and not to
be disclosed outside the US gov-
ernment, show that despite the
Australian government’s refusal
to accept Professor Za’ag in
2008, the Iraqi scientist last year
re-applied for a visiting aca-
demic visa to work at Victoria
University.
The result of this application
is unknown, with the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs and
Trade refusing to answer ques-
tions on individual cases and the
Department of Immigration and
Citizenship referring questions
Continued PAGE 7
document provided a broad
concept for a regional pro-
cessing centre in his country.
‘‘I wouldn’t say the document
has much detail but it has more
detail than we had before,’’
Mr da Costa told The Age. ‘‘We
can at last clarify what Australia
has in mind to [East Timor’s]
cabinet,’’ he said.
Amid concern about the pro-
posal in Asian nations and wide-
spread opposition in East
Timor, Dili has referred negoti-
ations to the Bali Process — a
MELBOURNE DAMS
9 — 23
9 — 19
8 — 19
48.3
53.2%
A YEAR AGO:
AGO: 35.3%
37.9%
MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2010
A quick group hug, then on to business at the ’G
Teammates embrace Ryan Harris after he took the wicket of England’s Steven Finn yesterday to wrap up the third Test.
Comeback crew sets up Boxing Day showdown
ALL roads lead to Melbourne.
All cricketing calendars are set
for Boxing Day. Poms and
Aussies will descend upon the
MCG in their thousands eager to
devour the fourth instalment of
a compelling and constantly
changing encounter. Suddenly
the series is alive again.
Australia’s decisive victory in
Perth has changed the mood of
the campaign. Bashed in
Adelaide a bare fortnight ago,
Ricky Ponting’s team regrouped
and rallied and set about
England with such snarl and
spit that they were beaten
before lunch on the fourth day.
Afterwards the man of the
50-nation meeting on people
smuggling. No date has been set
for the Bali Process’s next
ministerial-level meeting, which
was expected before the end of
this year but now will not be
held before February.
A meeting of East Timorese
and Australian officials on the
proposal, which Immigration
Minister Chris Bowen said in
September would be held
within weeks, has not been held.
Mr da Costa said senior
officials had worked on a
ODD SPOT
Former New Zealand prime minister Jenny Shipley
embarrassed her colleagues by offering to educate
them how to examine themselves for sexually trans-
mitted diseases, according to a cable from the
US embassy in Wellington published by WikiLeaks.
DELUGE OF PINK
PETER
ROEBUCK
AT THE WACA
match award was given to
Mitchell Johnson, whose spell
on the second morning turned
the contest on its head. Proflig-
ate in Brisbane, omitted in
Adelaide and subjected to more
analysis than a Manhattan
housewife, the enigmatic bean-
pole tore England’s hitherto
efficient batting apart.
Johnson was a bowler trans-
formed in a team revived. One
concept paper before the Bali
Process meeting. ‘‘About 50
countries are involved, so it is
not easy,’’ he said.
Countries in the Bali Process,
co-chaired by Indonesia and Aus-
tralia, include Afghanistan, Sri
Lanka, China, the US, Russia,
India and Pakistan, with agencies
including the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees.
Decision-making at previous
meetings has been slow and bur-
eaucratic. Agreements reached
included sharing of information
Inequality
from
day one OPINION
day he is Prufrock, the next Her-
cules. Inspired, the Australians
piled into the Poms and did not
let go. Ryan Harris took nine
wickets and Mike Hussey played
the innings of his career.
Ponting’s team won because
it dared to play Australian
cricket. It is a culture, not a civil-
isation. His flingers pounded
away, his fieldsmen pounced,
his batsmen attacked. Nothing
tame or apologetic was offered.
England made the mistake of
trying to meet fire with fire.
Previously composed, the tour-
ists became ragged and
flustered. At one stage England
was 0/78. Thereafter Andrew
and intelligence, improved co-
operation in law enforcement
and co-operation in identifying
asylum seekers.
Officials discussed some
agenda items for the next meet-
ing at a workshop co-hosted by
the UNHCR and the Philippines
government in Manila last
month. They stopped short of
endorsing a regional processing
centre but saw value in a
‘‘regional framework approach’’.
After Ms Gillard revealed the
proposal in July, Indonesia said
INDEX
ARTS PAGES 15
AUCTIONS
CLASSIFIEDS
BUSINESSDAY 13-15
COMMENT & DEBATE
BUSINESSDAY 12
EDITORIALS, LETTERS
PAGE 13
PAGE 12
Strauss’s side lost 20 wickets for
232 runs.
But it’s not over, not by a long
chalk. It a curiosity of cricket
that teams of almost equal
strength can thump each other.
That the series is evenly con-
tested does not mean every
match will be close. England has
had the better in two of the
three Tests.
Moreover, a few questions
remain. Can Australia repeat its
performance on a slower pitch?
Can the remaining batsmen find
form? The elders and juniors
alike were scratchy in Perth.
Most crucial of all, will Pont-
ing be fit to play? He broke a
it should be considered in the
Bali Process, established in 2002
to counter a surge in people
smuggling. East Timor’s leaders
decided in September they
would not consider the plan
outside of the Bali Process —
rebuffing Ms Gillard, who said
before the election the proposal
was such a priority that if elec-
ted she would travel to East
Timor to negotiate personally.
All major political parties in
Dili, including those in the rul-
ing coalition, oppose the pro-
LAW LIST PAGE 10
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OBITUARIES
TELEVISION
WORLD
PAGE 16
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PAGES 8, 9
Open until 8pm
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
421 Bourke Street Melbourne
Telephone 03 9670 1277
www.kozminsky.com.au
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INC
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PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES
bone in his little finger and did
not field yesterday. Wild horses
could not keep him from the
MCG but the fracture is bound
to affect his performance.
It’s been a long time since the
teams arrived in Melbourne
with the Ashes at stake. Two
proud sides will strain every
muscle. The MCG is the appro-
priate venue for titanic struggles
of this sort. Who knows, the
record attendance of 90,800 —
at the same venue against the
West Indies in 1960-61 — might
be threatened.
SPORT
Six of the best spark triumph
posal. But Prime Minister
Xanana Gusmao has said he was
open to the idea of it being dis-
cussed in the Bali Process.
The opposition Fretilin, the
largest party, warned that East
Timor would become a target
destination for asylum seekers if
the centre were built. Fretilin
spokesman Jose Teixeira said
East Timor did not have the
resources to handle a tragedy like
the one on Christmas Island.
Abbott offered refugee deal PAGE 2
ISSN 0312-6307
9 770312 630011
B C D
METAGE A001
 THE AGE
MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2010 7
THE WIKILEAKS FILES DAY 13

McCarthyism reborn in US: Assange US pressure over

‘Increasingly likely’ US is pursuing extradition case
By BEATRICE DEBUT
WIKILEAKS founder Julian
Assange has denounced ‘‘busi-
ness McCarthyism’’ in the US
after the Bank of America halted
all transactions to the website.
The Australian vowed the
whistleblowing website will
carry on releasing controversial
leaked documents as he insisted
his life is under threat.
Bank of America, the largest
US bank, halted all transactions
for WikiLeaks, joining other
institutions that refuse to pro-
cess payments for the website.
‘‘Bank of America joins in the
actions previously announced
by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa
Europe and others and will not
process transactions of any type
that we have reason to believe
are intended for WikiLeaks,’’ it
said in a statement.
‘‘This decision is based upon
our reasonable belief that
WikiLeaks may be engaged in
activities that are, among other
things, inconsistent with our
internal policies for processing
payments.’’
Mr Assange alluded to a
fiscal witch-hunt against the
website. ‘‘It’s a new type of busi-
ness McCarthyism in the US to
deprive this organisation of the
funds that it needs to survive, to
deprive me personally of the
funds that my lawyers need to
protect me against extradition
to the US or to Sweden,’’ Mr
Assange said.
‘‘McCarthyism’’ is allegations
of treason or subversion without
proof and has its roots in the
United States, where it was
coined to describe the anti-
communist pursuits of former
US senator Joseph McCarthy
from the late 1940s to the 1950s.
Mr Assange is staying at the
mansion of journalist friend
Vaughan Smith as part of his
bail conditions while he fights
extradition. He must also report
daily to the police station in the
nearby market town of Beccles,
eastern England.
The 39-year-old, who had
been held in a London jail
before being granted bail, is
wanted for questioning in
Sweden over allegations that he
sexually assaulted two women,
which he denies.
‘‘The case in Sweden is a
travesty in the way it has been
conducted. No person should
be exposed to that type of
investigation or persecution,’’
he said.
He added: ‘‘I have seen a
statement from one of the
Saddam scientist
From PAGE 1
witnesses that she was bam- to DFAT. A Foreign Affairs
boozled . . . I have heard a spokeswoman said in a state-
rumour that one has withdrawn ment: ‘‘In mid-2007, Australia
her statement.’’ was invited by the United States
The former computer hacker to participate in a program relo-
said he feared for his safety. cating former WMD scientists
‘‘There is a threat to my life. from Iraq. The Australian gov-
There is a threat to my staff. ernment was sympathetic to the
There are significant risks facing intent of the program. For a
us,’’ he said. range of compelling security,
Nonetheless, he vowed that immigration and legal reasons,
WikiLeaks would continue to the Australian government con-
release material. cluded that it was unable to
‘‘We are a robust organisa- participate in the program.’’
tion. During my time in solitary One embassy cable reports a
confinement we continued to February 2009 meeting between
publish every day and it’s not the Department of Foreign
going to change,’’ he said. Affairs and Trade’s director for
Mr Assange claimed earlier counter proliferation, Gerry
in an interview with Forbes McGuire, and a US diplomat in
magazine that a ‘‘megaleak’’ by Canberra, where the Australian
the website will target a major official asked if the US govern-
US bank ‘‘early next year’’. ment was behind the latest visa
WikiLeaks has enraged request by Professor Za’ag.
Washington with its release of ‘‘According to McGuire, Al-
thousands of leaked US diplo- Za’ag applied for a ‘visiting aca-
matic cables and confidential demic’ visa at the Australian
military documents relating to embassy in Amman on January
the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 21, 2009, seeking to work tem-
Mr Assange said on Friday it porarily at Victoria University,’’
looked ‘‘increasingly likely’’ the the cable noted. ‘‘His destina-
US would try to extradite him on tion, contact data, academic
charges related to the leaked placement and other details in
cables. He said his lawyers the visa application correspon-
believed a secret US grand jury ded closely to that arrangement
investigation had been started earlier proposed by the United
into his role in the release. AFP States under the temporary relo-
cation program, except for the
absence of details on how his
placement would be financed.
‘‘Because of this coincidence,
McGuire explained, the GOA
[government of Australia] was
interested in knowing whether
the US had any role in Al-Za’ag’s
recent decision to reapply for an
Australian visa. The GOA also
wished to know whether the
temporary relocation program
still exists, whether Al-Za’ag
remains a candidate for reloca-
tion under the program, and,
regardless of the foregoing,
whether the US possesses and is
willing to share any background
information or updates on Dr
Al-Za’ag’s activities and
movements over the past year.’’
The cable shows Professor
Za’ag applied separately for a
refugee visa with the help of his
son, an Australian resident.
In the March 2009 cable, the
US government provided some
answers. It reveals Professor
Za’ag had been working on a
State Department fellowship at
a university in Jordan and that
the US government had no role
in his January 2009 application.
A Victoria University spokes-
woman said the application
would have been handled by the
then dean of the Health, Engin-
eering and Science faculty, who
was no longer at the university.

Cloud over biological weapons

‘No coercion’ on Kopassus
By TONI O’LOUGHLIN
JAKARTA
THE Indonesian government
has denied it threatened to
derail US President Barack Oba-
ma’s visit to Jakarta to pressure
Washington into lifting its ban
on training its controversial
Kopassus army special forces.
The US announcement in
July that it would remove its
12-year moratorium on training
Kopassus, which has a history of
abusing human rights, was
based on mutual interest,
Indonesian Defence Minister
Purnomo Yusgiantoro said.
‘‘In the agreement that we
signed, Indonesia and the US
had the same position.
‘‘We did not force them,’’ The
Jakarta Globe reported Mr
Yusgiantoro saying. ‘‘We never
did such a thing. Really there is
nothing [to the reports],’’ he
said.
The US embassy in Jakarta
also denied the reports. ‘‘The
President’s visit was not condi-
tioned on re-engagement with
Kopassus,’’ spokeswoman
Corina Sander said.
But WikiLeaks cables from
the US State Department show
Indonesian President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono privately
told the US that continuing the
ban was the ‘‘litmus test’’ of the
relationship between the two
nations.
The cables also show that US
diplomats encouraged Wash-
ington to yield to Dr Yudho-
yono’s demands to ensure
Indonesia’s military and security
services would protect US
interests in the region.
They show that although US
diplomats in Jakarta were con-
cerned about resuming ties
because of human rights viola-
tions, they played down credible
reports by Human Rights Watch
about such abuses.
‘‘It was clear that our con-
cerns were making them
uncomfortable, but we always
got a solicitous reception from
them,’’ Phil Robertson, HRW’s
deputy director for the Asia divi-
sion, said of his organisation’s
discussions with the US
embassy in Jakarta.
‘‘Now what we have found as
a result of WikiLeaks is that we
put information out there and
they were disparaging it,’’
Mr Robertson said.
THE regime of Saddam Hussein
claimed to have destroyed its biolo-
gical weapons arsenal immediately
after the 1991 Gulf War, but it did not
provide confirmatory evidence.
The United Nations Special Com-
mission (UNSCOM) established that
the program had included missiles
armed with anthrax and botulin toxin.
In 1996, the UN oversaw the
destruction of Iraq’s Al-Hakam facility,
which was suspected of being the
headquarters of the program.
UN inspectors never received full co-
operation from the Saddam regime
and were expelled in 1998.
Inspections resumed in 2002. Non-
co-operation was cited by then US
president George Bush as a reason for
the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In 2005, the Iraq Survey Group —
civilian and military experts — con-
cluded that the weapons program had
been abandoned during 1995-96.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at Beccles police station as stipulated in his bail conditions. PICTURE: AFP However, Saddam Hussein hoped to
use the program’s ambiguous status
as a deterrent.
A 1996 UNSCOM report noted
denials by the Iraqi government that
there was any relationship between
Iraq’s biological weapons program
and the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine
Institute, which operated in the early
1990s under a ‘‘Dr al-Za’ag’’.
The 2005 report of the Iraq Survey
Group found that while the Amiriyah
Serum Institute was the only facility in
Iraq associated with smallpox
research, there were ‘‘no indications’’
of biological weapons activity there.
But the Survey group also reported
evidence that Amiriyah personnel
supported research by the infamous
biological warfare expert Dr Rihab
Taha al-Azawi. Dubbed ‘‘Dr Germ’’ by
the Western media, Dr Taha reportedly
‘‘made frequent visits to Amiriyah . . .
where she . . . conducted unidentified
BW [biological weapons]-related
research’’. PHILIP DORLING

Get-out deal Cables reveal Key’s Dalai ‘dishonesty’

for Mugabe
WELLINGTON the considerations favouring

THE United Nations offered
Zimbabwe President Robert
Mugabe a retirement package
and safe haven overseas if he
agreed to stand down, accord-
BUILDING BETTER
the policy was that it would lead
NEW Zealand Prime Minister to New Zealand withdrawing or
John Key assured Chinese being pushed out of ANZUS,
Premier Wen Jiabao no minis- thereby lessening the country’s
ters would meet the Dalai Lama, defence spending require-

ing to a US diplomatic cable
revealed by WikiLeaks.
The offer was made by Kofi
Annan, the UN secretary-
general at the time in 2000, said
the memo, which was drawn up
by US officials and cited the
then-opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).
‘‘Kofi Annan, in the recent
meeting in New York during the
millennium summit offered
Mugabe a deal to step down,’’
said the memo written in
September 2000 and printed in
the British newspaper The
Observer.
‘‘The opposition party heard
despite a pre-election commit-
ment 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, Mr
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 a pre-
election commitment to Friends
of Tibet chairman Thuten Kesan
that he would meet the exiled
leader, and Foreign Affairs Min-
New Zealand PM John Key
hame 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 minis-
ters would meet with the Dalai
Lama.
‘‘Morton said the Chinese
The Dalai Lama
the cable ‘‘demonstrates the Key
government has not been hon-
est with New Zealanders’’.
Mr Key is out of the country.
Another cable claims New
Zealand’s anti-nuclear legisla-
tion was influenced by budget-
ary concerns as well as ideology.
‘‘We have been told by retired
CHRISTMASES.
ments,’’ the cable said.
New Zealand adopted
nuclear-free legislation in 1984
when David Lange’s Labour gov-
ernment swept into power —
effectively blocking visits by US
warships.
The cable also notes an
attempt by the Labour govern-
ment of the 2000s to move away
from the traditional American and
Australian influence in the Pacific Many young people with disabilities will spend Christmas in nursing
by favouring China and France. ®
homes with people in their 80s. Please help us to help them into more
■ The US wanted to relocate
captives held in Guantanamo suitable accommodation by donating to buildingbetterlives.org.au
Bay to New Zealand, according
to a leaked 2005 cable from the
US Embassy in Wellington. The

that Mugabe turned down the
offer the following day after dis-
cussing it with the first lady,’’ the
memo said. Mugabe, 86, is
Africa’s oldest leader. AFP
ister Murray McCully telling Par-
liament there was no boycott.
A cable from Wellington to
Washington quoted Ministry of
Foreign Affairs diplomat Gra-
OU
TN
‘obviously registered’ this. Mor-
ton added that the PM . . . made
this decision without any con-
sultation.’’
Labour leader Phil Goff says
outstanding
[government of New Zealand] cable said the US wanted to
officials who were in senior pos- transfer Uighur refugees, an eth-
itions in the Lange government nic group from Central Asia and
. . . [when] the anti-nuclear China’s Xinjiang province, to
policy was instituted that one of New Zealand. NZPA
students
outstanding
results!

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