WASHINGTON: Of all the military leaders in the world, only one merited a personal phone call from the head of the US joint chiefs of staff prior to the extensive leak of diplomatic cables. That one person is none other than Pakistan’s own General Ashfaq Kayani.
At the time the US secretary of state was frantically calling various world leaders especially Germany, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France and Afghanistan and her staff contacted officials in Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Israel and Norway, an unexpected apologetic call had already been made to the military chief in Pakistan by Admiral Mike Mullen.
In October this year, Wikileaks published nearly 400,000 classified US military documents related to the war in Iraq. The website had published tens of thousands of military papers about Afghanistan, but the diplomatic documents release came out as most embarrassing for not only the United States military and the State Department, but for foreign governments as well.
Typical diplomatic cables contain analysis of situations, as well as records of discussions between US diplomats and foreign officials. Such conversations were recorded by different foreign service officials about Pakistan, its military and politics.
In some cases, cables contain personal and embarrassingly candid assessments of public figures. For Admiral Mullen, Pakistan was the primary ally that the Department of Defense wanted to keep in the loop before the cables were released.
The cables related to Pakistan touch on a wide variety of topics, revealing elements in the always-fraught relationship between the two countries.
