Clinton Treads Carefully in Leading Massive Damage-Control Campaign

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other State Department officials have been working for weeks now to contain the damage from the WikiLeaks’ release of hundreds of thousands of confidential diplomatic cables, some of which painted foreign officials in an unflattering light. Several days before the cables were leaked, Clinton called leaders in a number of countries–including the U.K., France, and China–to warn them about the impending release of the documents. In addition, State Department bureaus began developing assessments of the impact of the release several weeks ago, after officials realized that WikiLeaks had obtained a large amount of diplomatic messages. Since last Friday, a task force has been running a round-the-clock “war room” at the State Department to address any issues that may arise from the release of the documents. Clinton has also sent a message to State Department personnel in an effort to boost morale, and has said that personnel still need to send candid reports back to officials in Washington, despite the fact that the release of some of the cables has proved embarrassing. While Clinton has said that she did not believe that the release of the cables would do any permanent damage to relations between the U.S. and other countries, some U.S. diplomats say that WikiLeaks has documents that it has not released that could potentially do more damage than those that were recently leaked.

By: Armour National Security Group, LLC – (A New York Security Company)