Note however that this complete release by Wikileaks is not the same as what is found on piratebay: the cables that had already been redacted are still given in redacted form. For example, in 01PRETORIA1173 we read
HIS LEGAL ADVISOR MOJANKU GUMBI, RUMORED TO BE MBEKI'S MISTRESS (OR ONE OF THEM), OFFERED HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE LEGAL ADVICE ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF INCLUDING HEATH IN THE ARMS INVESTIGATION.but the WL version (first released on 2010-12-08) redacts this.
A few cables were changed later on the WL website. The comments below refer to cablegate-201108300212.7z. At the time of writing they also applied to the WL website. A side-by-side comparison of redacted and unredacted cables is given by mrkva.
but these occurred at a rate of about 77, 76, 87, 24, 50, 38, 89, 135 a month, and one can imagine/hope that each of these cases has been checked for a need of protection. In August 2011 this number was about 6632, and one wonders whether anybody checked all of these cases. On the positive side, also in these final WL releases one sees some redactions:06BRASILIA1960: according to Eduardo Campos (protect) 09MOSCOW1530: Matthias Warnig (protect) told the Ambassador 06SANJOSE337: interviewed Josh Rosen (Victim - PROTECT). 05LIMA4748: Velasco (strictly protect). 09BEIJING3160: Yuan Yichan (protect), who
(not only of names, but sometimes of larger fragments of text) so there has been at least some WL effort at source protection. For example, this last release redacted88CAIRO19680: XXXXX (STRICTLY PROTECT) 06SOFIA1677: XXXXX admitted Bulgaria's 07LONDON4189: XXXXX described his frustration at the UK police's 07MOSCOW3625: XXXXX suggested that the Kremlin needs Luzhkov's 08ATHENS63: documents XXXXX's suspect activities.
ALTHOUGH LATER HE ADMITTED THAT IT HAD BEEN TURNED INTO A POLITICAL ISSUE THROUGH A DISTORTION OF FACTS RELATED TO THE WORKINGS OF A JEWISH-VATICAN COMMISSION STUDYING PIUS XII'S ROLE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR. GUMPEL PROFFERED COPIES OF HIS STATEMENT, WRITTEN WITH AUTHORIZATION FROM THE HIGHEST LEVELS WITHIN THE VATICAN HIERARCHY, COUNTERING "FALSE" ASSERTIONS BY UNNAMED MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION, AS WELL AS A STATEMENT PREPARED BY CARDINAL WILLIAM KEELER OF BALTIMORE, THE U.S. BISHOPS DELEGATE FOR CATHOLIC-JEWISH AFFAIRS, WHO DID NAME NAMES.in 01VATICAN4258.
The Wikileaks procedure for media partners to report redacted cables was rather fragile. Go to a website, and paste the redacted cable into a text field. This resulted in truncations and various other typical errors. There was no check that what was pasted actually was a redacted version of the appropriate cable. And indeed, there have been all kinds of mix-ups. A newspaper article instead of the cable, an entirely different cable, a truncated cable, a cable together with some newspaper context, etc. The final release cablegate-201108300212.7z that unpacks into 60GB still has these unreliable cable versions (and is not unredacted, as some journalists wrote).
For example, the cables
7575LIBREVILLE1895, 78KABUL3619, 85ALEXANDRIA548, 85AMMAN2676, 85BEIRUT3495, 85BEIRUT4802, 86BOGOTA9347, 87HAVANA746, 88AMMAN10345, 88BAGHDAD2571, 88BAGHDAD4559, 88BAGHDAD4587, 88BAGHDAD4589, 88BAGHDAD855, 90ALEXANDRIA448, 90BAGHDAD2098, 90BAGHDAD3340, 90BAGHDAD3856, 90MOSCOW4215, 90MOSCOW5966, 90STATE175914, 90STATE244856, 91MOSCOW10336, 91ZAGREB1661, 94KHARTOUM6366, 95STATE19130, 95TELAVIV17508, 95ZAGREB817, 96ISLAMABAD8679, 99ISLAMABAD495, 00DAMASCUS3013, 00HARARE4821, 00HARARE6317, 00STATE117658, 00STATE228666, 00TELAVIV4462, 00THEHAGUE1985, 01ABUJA1249, 01BEIJING10339, 01HARARE3341, 02ANKARA8139, 02COLOMBO2277, 02KATHMANDU439, 02TEGUCIGALPA2534, 03ABUDHABI1700, 03ABUDHABI5130, 03ABUJA2154, 03ABUJA815, 03ANKARA6144, 03ANKARA704, 03GUATEMALA1454, 03KUWAIT5837, 03ROME495, 03SANTODOMINGO7570, 03THEHAGUE1950, 04ABUDHABI220, 04ABUDHABI2194, 04ABUDHABI2508, 04ABUDHABI3742, 04ABUDHABI3937, 04ABUDHABI4237, 04BOGOTA12434, 04BOGOTA1363, 04BOGOTA2764, 04BRUSSELS4915, 04CARACAS2907, 04COLOMBO1521, 04GUATEMALA1241, 04GUATEMALA2191, 04KATHMANDU594, 04KINSHASA1261, 04KUWAIT3547, 04KUWAIT3590, 04KUWAIT3683, 04KUWAIT810, 04MADRID2804, 04MANAMA838, 04ROME994, 04SANAA2863, 04TAIPEI3743, 04TEGUCIGALPA531, 04THEHAGUE2929, 04THEHAGUE3006, 04YEREVAN2798, 05ABUDHABI2158, 05ALGIERS1753, 05ALMATY3603, 05ANKARA1953, 06AITTAIPEI2349, 06ALGIERS1219, 06ASTANA927, 06ATHENS1851, 06BEIJING21219, 06BOGOTA8946, 06CAIRO6132, 06COLOMBO1661, 06HAVANA23548, 06ISLAMABAD10850, 06ISLAMABAD11546, 06ISLAMABAD19193, 06ISLAMABAD20831, 06ISLAMABAD21224, 06ISLAMABAD22617, 06ISLAMABAD6420, 06ISLAMABAD6647, 06ISLAMABAD9499, 06ISLAMABAD9892, 06KINSHASA1392, 06MADRID722, 06MOSCOW7769, 06MUMBAI1506, 06NEWDELHI162, 06NEWDELHI1806, 06NEWDELHI286, 06NEWDELHI3466, 06NEWDELHI4973, 06NEWDELHI7954, 06PARAMARIBO707, 06PARAMARIBO789, 06PARAMARIBO808, 06PARIS5057, 06STATE113997, 06STATE178573, 06TELAVIV3910, 06TELAVIV4603, 06TELAVIV696, 06THEHAGUE1916, 06TOKYO2986, 06TOKYO6732, 06TOKYO6735, 06VIENNA789, 07ATHENS148, 07BAGHDAD1231, 07BEIRUT176, 07CARACAS1272, 07DOHA1115, 07GUATEMALA216, 07ISLAMABAD1631, 07ISLAMABAD1779, 07ISLAMABAD2113, 07ISLAMABAD2157, 07ISLAMABAD2193, 07ISLAMABAD2218, 07ISLAMABAD2344, 07ISLAMABAD2378, 07ISLAMABAD2493, 07ISLAMABAD2494, 07ISLAMABAD2546, 07ISLAMABAD2574, 07ISLAMABAD2617, 07ISLAMABAD2780, 07ISLAMABAD2905, 07ISLAMABAD414, 07ISLAMABAD4158, 07ISLAMABAD4273, 07ISLAMABAD4495, 07ISLAMABAD4793, 07ISLAMABAD4830, 07ISLAMABAD5085, 07ISLAMABAD534, 07ISLAMABAD616, 07ISLAMABAD899, 07JERUSALEM1522, 07JERUSALEM2597, 07KABUL1456, 07KABUL1867, 07KINGSTON1665, 07LIBREVILLE46, 07LONDON1279, 07MADRID141, 07MADRID1428, 07MADRID215, 07MADRID596, 07MOSCOW5028, 07NAHA53, 07NEWDELHI5422, 07PANAMA85, 07PARAMARIBO172, 07PARAMARIBO501, 07PARAMARIBO540, 07SANTODOMINGO28, 07SARAJEVO2369, 07SINGAPORE803, 07SOFIA863, 07TOKYO1153, 07TOKYO3038, 07VIENNA1231, 07VIENNA1419, 08ALGIERS1267, 08ALGIERS733, 08ANKARA1103, 08ANKARA1423, 08ANKARA1426, 08ANKARA2083, 08ANKARA33, 08ANKARA74, 08ANKARA767, 08ANKARA92, 08ASHGABAT1454, 08ASTANA240, 08ATHENS1517, 10ABUDHABI3, 10ASTANA225, 10BERLIN117, 10BISHKEK114, 10BRIDGETOWN13, 10BUENOSAIRES79, 10ISLAMABAD269, 10KHARTOUM71, 10KINGSTON56, 10KYIV184, 10KYIV275, 10LJUBLJANA6, 10MADRID76, 10MOSCOW435, 10PRAGUE86, 10RIYADH101, 10SANAA139, 10SANAA25, 10SANSALVADOR35, 10SANTODOMINGO71, 10TELAVIV180, 10TOKYO95, 10VATICAN19,etc. are badly truncated. The tail was truncated e.g. in 06ASUNCION589, 06MANAGUA418, 06MANAGUA806, 07BRATISLAVA631, 07JERUSALEM2318, 07MANAGUA796, 07SANJOSE524, 07SANJOSE63, 10HANOI7, 10MANAGUA202, 10MANAGUA228, 10SANJOSE130, 10SANJOSE90. The start was truncated in 06BUENOSAIRES2711, 07MOSCOW4691, 07PANAMA1838. The start was duplicated after the tail in 06TOKYO5805, 07MOSCOW5598, 07TRIPOLI1032, 07TRIPOLI1039, 07TRIPOLI936, 10TRIPOLI79, 07TRIPOLI945, 07TRIPOLI949, 07TRIPOLI967, 07TRIPOLI972, 07TRIPOLI989, 08ASMARA249. All of 02TEGUCIGALPA2959 and 03TEGUCIGALPA1914 and 06MEXICO1798 was replaced by XXXXXXXXXXXXXX. A newspaper summary was prefixed in 07MOSCOW5060.
The cable released as 02ROME3796 has 02ROME4031 tacked to the end.
The cable released as 06MONTEVIDEO259 has 06MONTEVIDEO268 tacked
to the end.
The cable released as 07ANKARA1733 has 07ANKARA1778 tacked to the end.
The cable released as 07BERN881 has 07TBILISI2290 tacked to the end.
The cable released as 07MANAMA1067 has 07MANAMA1070 tacked to the end.
The cable released as 73TEHRAN2077 is actually 06THEHAGUE131
(corrected on WL website).
The cable released as 73TEHRAN8233 is actually 08THEHAGUE174.
The cable released as 85BEIRUT2659 is actually 07ANKARA1560.
The cable released as 88BAGHDAD28 is actually 09STATE68250.
The cable released as 90KHARTOUM10657 is actually 08MONTEVIDEO404.
The cables released as 02KATHMANDU2393 and 03NASSAU586 are both
actually 08CAIRO1416.
The cable released as 03ABUJA1872 is actually 86MADRID5480.
The cable released as 03ABUJA997 is actually 06RIYADH8811.
The cable released as 04ABUDHABI4005 is actually 05PANAMA1175.
The cable released as 04LAGOS2073 is actually 09MADRID614.
The cable released as 04ROME3708 is actually 09STATE55869.
The cable released as 04ROME4563 is actually 08ASTANA338.
The cable released as 06AMMAN3564 is actually 06PARIS4247.
The cable released as 06BUCHAREST618 is actually 06BUCHAREST1639.
The cable released as 06CAIRO6325 is actually 06PANAMA1999.
The cables released as 07KABUL1971 and 07THEHAGUE1196 are actually
07KABUL2004.
The cable released as 07MADRID859 is actually 07PARIS1844.
The cable released as 07OSLO320 is actually 09BAGHDAD429.
The cable released as 07PARIS2725 is actually 07MOSCOW5154.
The cable released as 10ASUNCION71 is actually 09ASUNCION13. Etc.
The cable released as 10ASTANA267 is a newspaper article.
Sometimes short fragments are lost, like in 07BUCHAREST463:
Ambassador also remarked on recent press reports regarding the upcoming referendum, noting that while politics might be played as a tough sport, he hoped all sides would play by the rules. Tariceanu assured the Ambassador that the government would not "discredit itself" in the referendum and that the process would be straightforward. Regarding(the red part was deleted by WL). Similarly, in 07SANTIAGO89
energy supplies has generated internal debate within the GOCwas lost, a copy-n-paste error.
There are also funny bugs. For example, one cable (00TASHKENT4223) originally had "WAHHABISM" but some editor probably had automatic spelling correction enabled, and the WL version has "washbasin". In the same cable "FOCUSSED" is turned into "focused".
Islamic philosophy and learning owed much to Uzbekistan and was not to be confused with washbasin and other debased ideologies.
as the security situation diminished and collateral damage from army and Frontier Corps operations affected the lives of the local populace. An influx of displaced from the Waziristans into bordering areas of NWFP and Balochistan also ostensibly increased sympathy for the Taliban cause among local populace in these districts.was deleted from 06ISLAMABAD12391. And fragments like
Thus, the status quo of seemingly perpetual negotiations between mosque leaders and government officials is acceptable to the public.were deleted from 07ISLAMABAD2401. Fragments like
Our interlocutors say, however, that while infiltration across the Line of Control may be falling, it appears to be continuing through alternative routes such as Bangladesh and Nepal or sea-based incursions into Mumbai. They explain further that the drop in violence (with the exception of the Samjhauta Express bombing) may be due to a temporary effort by Pakistan to build goodwill with India in the peace process, but that sleeper cells in the rest of India continue to build a network capable of doing significant damage in India's heartland if these restrictions are lifted. End Summary.were deleted from 07NEWDELHI2258. Fragments like
She said Israel is satisfied with the development of its relations with both countries. The relationship with China has completely recovered from the problems following the "Falcon crisis" and now encompasses a wide range of activities including trade and culture exchanges, with only negligible defense cooperation. While Iran currently dominates the political discussions, China is, quietly, the largest recipient of Israeli foreign assistance. With India, the relationship is focused on commercial trade and defense cooperation. Kahanoff also wanted to discuss Israeli efforts to develop contacts with Indonesia, Pakistan and Malaysia. Of these, the GoI believes Indonesia is the most promising, but Jakarta is still reluctant to move forward. End Summary.were deleted from 07TELAVIV3517.
Often text is redacted without any sign of redaction. For example, 06MINSK641 is a long cable listing "Belarus' top 50 oligarchs and their net worth", but the WL version deletes the list and only leaves the summary. Or, in 06OSLO101 WL removes sections 12 and 13. Or, in 06PORTAUPRINCE559 the sentence
In any case, the bulk of Preval's voters expressed their direct support for him, rather than support for Aristide's return to power,was removed without sign of redaction. Or, in 06QUITO1920 the sentence
The parent company is authorized by Ecuadorian law to explore, develop, refine and retail oil, as well as to organize and implement bidding processes for unexplored fields and production blocks.was removed without sign of redaction. Or, in 07TRIPOLI1056 the paragraph
8. (U) Biographical note: Siala, who was trained as a pharmacist and previously served as Libya's ambassador to Valletta, serves as a combination of chief-of-staff and senior special assistant to Mutassim al-Qadhafi. She is married to a Libyan businessman who, somewhat unusually, is several years her junior. She is the niece of Deputy Foreign Minister Muhammad Siala.was removed without sign of redaction. Or, in 07TRIPOLI1066 the paragraph
11. (S/NF) Claiming that Qadhafi's revolution had succeeded in some political respects, particularly as a catalyst for anti-imperialism, Sawani characterized Libya as "a failed state" in the economic and social sense. The lack of proper housing, infrastructure, education and health care in a hydrocarbon rich state galled Libyans. Noting that he had recently spent a month's salary to take his ailing wife to Tunis for medical care, he said no Libyan who could afford to would subject his family to the Libyan health care system.was removed without sign of redaction. Or, in 07TRIPOLI945 the sentence
Elobeidi mentioned in particular the perceived hypocrisy between Qadhafi and Saif al-Islam's remarks condemning corruption and the fact that the Qadhafi family is the biggest beneficiary of graft in the country.was removed without sign of redaction. Etc.
In almost all places WL changed tags like UNHRC-1 or UNGA/C-3 or ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN into tags like UNHRC or UNGA or ISRAELI PALESTINIAN and deleted tags like Biotechnology (with lower case letters). Almost all: 04NEWDELHI6983 has 'India-Burma', 05NEWDELHI2606 has 'Human Rights', 92ZAGREB1002 has 'War Crimes'. 09GENEVA117 has UNHRC-1. The files cables.csv (and allcables.csv and Cableheaders.zip) still have tags with slashes, hyphens, lower case letters.