'WikiLeaks shows U.S. dismissed Israel's warnings about Iran bomb'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 2009 claims that Iran was months away from achieving military nuclear capability were dismissed by the Americans, according to a German weekly, quoting classified U.S. documents set to be released by the WikiLeaks website on Sunday. Tension has been building around the world ahead of the massive leak of a reported 250,000 diplomatic cables by the whistle-blowing website, which have media sources around the world speculating as to the content and potential gravity of the information.

According to Der Spiegel, which is running excerpts of the WikiLeaks expose in its Monday edition, a State Department official states in a classified cable that Netanyahu informed the United States of Iran's nuclear advancement in November 2009, but that the prime minister's estimate was likely unfounded and intended to pressure Washington into action against the Islamic Republic

The Monday edition of the German weekly has already gone on sale in Basel, Switzerland, apparently by accident.

The classified communiques are expected to reveal the inner workings of American and international diplomacy, and are likely to cause major embarrassment to the United States. American embassies in more than a dozen nations have informed their host countries that their secret cables could be revealed.

In one cable dated June 2009 quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a U.S. diplomat says Barak told visiting officials that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was viable until the end of 2010, saying that after :any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage"

"He also expressed concern that should Iran develop nuclear capabilities, other rogue states and/or terrorist groups would not be far behind," the U.S. diplomat said.

The cable also quoted Barak as describing the Iranian leadership "chess, not backgammon players," with the U.S. diplomat quoting the defense minister saying would "attempt to avoid any hook to hang accusations on, and look to Pakistan and North Korea as models to emulate in terms of acquiring nuclear weapons while defying the international community."

Another cable, from later 2009, the U.S.-Israel Joint Political Military Group, Mossad representatives said Iran was using repeated attempts to resolve the nuclear issue through diplomacy to "play for time" and evade sanctions, "while pursuing its strategic objective to obtain a military nuclear capability."

"From Mossad's perspective, there is no reason to believe Iran will do anything but use negotiations to stall for time so that by 2010-2011, Iran will have the technological capability to build a nuclear weapon -- essentially reducing the question of weaponizing to a political decision," the cable said.