WASHINGTON: WikiLeaks has divulged a secret list of key infrastructure sites around the world that the United States believes could “critically impact” U.S. security if they come under terrorist attack.
The February 2009 cable from the State Department requested overseas U.S. missions update a list of infrastructure and resources around the globe “whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security and/or national and homeland security of the United States.”
“Critical infrastructure and key resources”
The list includes undersea cables, communications, ports, mineral resources and firms of strategic importance in countries ranging from Austria to New Zealand.
The cable said the State Department, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, was seeking input from embassies on “critical infrastructure and key resources within their host countries which, if destroyed, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the United States.”
It said diplomats were “not being asked to consult with host governments with respect to this request.”
The request came under the National Infrastructure Protection Plan, which aims to enhance protection of key resources “to prevent, deter, neutralize or mitigate the effects of deliberate efforts by terrorists to destroy, incapacitate or exploit them; and to strengthen national preparedness, timely response, and rapid recovery in the event of an attack, natural disaster or other emergency.”
The cable reveals a vast range of sites and firms seen as vital to national interests and security, ranging from major infrastructure such as the Panama canal and oil pipelines to Belgian medical firms and Italian and Australian companies which produce snake-bite treatments.
In Europe, the Ludwigshafen plant of German chemical giant BASF was the “world’s largest integrated chemical complex” while Siemens AG in Erlangen was responsible for “essentially irreplaceable production of key chemicals.”
The cable describes Russia’s Nadym gas pipeline junction as “the most critical gas facility in the world.”
In the Middle East, it notes that “by 2012 Qatar will be the largest source of imported LNG (liquefied natural gas)” to the U.S.
The hundreds of entries in the document leaked also include mines and mineral resources in Africa and South America, undersea pipelines, cables and ports in China and Japan, French medical and pharmaceutical companies and shipping terminals and crude oil refineries in the Middle East.
In addition the list includes Danish and German suppliers of smallpox and rabies vaccines, British defence contractors and telecommunications facilities, chromite mines in India, and dams and hydro-electric projects in Canada which supply power to the United States.
From pipelines to vaccines
WikiLeaks created an international firestorm when it started releasing more than 250,000 classified State Department cables on Nov. 28, which have included embarrassing details of American diplomats’ private assessments of foreign leaders.
Malcolm Rifkind, a former British defense and foreign secretary, said in The Times of London that WikiLeaks had made no credible effort to establish whether the list could assist extremists.
“This is further evidence that they have been generally irresponsible, bordering on criminal. This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing,” he was quoted as saying.
The release will add to the political storm engulfing WikiLeaks and its 39-year-old founder Julian Assange, who broke cover on Friday to say in an online chat that he had boosted security after receiving death threats.
The website is already battling to secure its avenues for financial donations online, and has been hop-scotching across servers and legal jurisdictions to evade a total shutdown.
Assange’s British lawyer, Mark Stephens, expressed concern on Sunday that a legal pursuit of Assange in Sweden had “political motivations.”
Stephens, in comments to the BBC, also warned that WikiLeaks had secret material in reserve, which he likened to a “thermo-nuclear device”, to be released if it needed to protect itself.
Source: AlArabiya.net
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