WikiLeaks: CIA Drew Up Secret Directives for US Embassy in Sofia

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov (R) talks with Leon Panetta, Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), during their meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, 27 May 2010. Photo by EPA/BGNES

The Central Intelligence Agency has been drawing up the US state department's secret directives sent in the summer last year to more than 30 US embassies around the world, including Sofia, the Guardian reported.

The Guardian, which has been publishing fresh diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, has learned that the intelligence shopping list is drawn up annually by the manager of Humint (human intelligence), a post created by the Bush administration in 2005 in a push to better co-ordinate intelligence after 9/11.

Humint is part of the CIA.

One of the most embarrassing revelations to emerge from US diplomatic cables obtained by the whistleblowers' website WikiLeaks has been that US diplomats were asked to gather intelligence on Ban, other senior UN staff, security council members and other foreign diplomats – a possible violation of international law.

A senior US intelligence official said: "It shouldn't surprise anyone that US officials at the United Nations seek information on how other nations view topics of mutual concern. If you look at the list of topics of interest in this routine cable, the priorities represent not only what Americans view as critical issues, but our allies as well.

"No one should think of American diplomats as spies. But our diplomats do, in fact, help add to our country's body of knowledge on a wide range of important issues. That's logical and entirely appropriate, and they do so in strict accord with American law."

But the UN was not the only target. Sometimes the directives appear linked to forthcoming diplomatic obligations of the secretary of state.

In a cable to the embassy in Sofia last June, five months before Clinton hosted Bulgaria's foreign minister in Washington, the first request was about government corruption and the links between organised crime groups and "government and foreign entities, drug and human trafficking, credit card fraud, and computer-related crimes, including child pornography".

Washington also wanted to know about "corruption among senior officials, including off-budget financial flows in support of senior leaders ... details about defence industry, including plans and efforts to co-operate with foreign nations and actors. Weapon system development programmes, firms and facilities. Types, production rates, and factory markings of major weapon systems".

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