Wikileaks: US Embassy Said Brazil Air Force Prefers F-18 Jets

SAO PAULO -(Dow Jones)- Brazil's Air Force commander, Brigadier Juniti Saito, told U.S. officials in mid-2009 that a perceived lack of U.S. government support undermined Boeing Co.'s (BA) bid for a multi-billion dollar Brazilian fighter jet contract, according to U.S. documents revealed by WikiLeaks Sunday.

Question regarding the U.S. government's commitment to technology transfer to accompany Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter remain "a significant political barrier," Saito is reported to have told the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Clifford Sobel.

Sobel wrote a cable July 31, 2009, outlining his talk with Saito, according to WikiLeaks.

The U.S. Embassy in Brasilia couldn't be reached for comment by telephone, and didn't respond to an emailed request for comment. A spokesman for the Brazilian Defense Ministry didn't respond to an emailed request for comment.

While a decision has been delayed for months, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is widely expected to pick the winning bid before his second term ends Jan. 1. Brazilian press has reported that the Rafale warplane, produced by France's Dassault Aviation SA (AM.FR), is heavily favored by Lula, while the third competitor is Sweden's Gripen NG by Saab AB (SAAB-B.SK).

The value of the contract to supply 36 jet fighters hasn't been revealed, but it's estimated at between $4 billion and $10 billion, depending on the final choice, maintenance costs and armaments.

In the cable, Sobel reported that Saito said "there was no question from a technical point of view that the F-18 was the superior aircraft."

Saito asked the U.S. ambassador for a letter assuring the Brazilian government that U.S.

Obama behind WikiLeaks?

A WikiLeaks timeline
The National Post ^ | 11-28-10 | Post Media News
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/11/28/a-wikileaks-timeline/

January 2007: WikiLeaks.org is launched by “Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.” The organization’s original mandate was to “[expose] oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations.”

March 2008: WikiLeaks publishes documents originating from the Church of Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs, including the official procedure of how to detect “thetans” in the religion’s adherents. The church demanded WikiLeaks to take down the documents citing a breach of copyright law; in response, WikiLeaks unloads thousands of more memos.

September 2008: Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account is compromised by a member of Anonymous, an online group of hackers, in the final months of the presidential campaign. Personal emails are posted to WikiLeaks, and questions are raised about whether Palin used the personal account to flout public records laws.

November 2009: WikiLeaks posts emails and other documents hinting at collusion among U.K. scientists at East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit to withhold data. Climate-change skeptics said the emails were proof that scientists had overblown the potential impact of global warming. The controversy sparked three investigations into research practices at the university, all of which found no wrongdoing but urged more transparency and public accountability among scientific communities.

December 2009: The draft agreement from the Copenhagen Climate Conference that would abort theKyoto accord and limit the UN’s role in future negotiations is posted to WikiLeaks. Developing nations criticize the agreement as favouring wealthy countries. The summit plunges into disarray and a much-watered down accord is agreed to afterward.

April 2010: A video of a U.S. Apache helicopter killing Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists is posted to WikiLeaks. While the U.S. had never denied that the civilians and journalists were killed, the graphic footage of the horrors of war quickly goes viral online.

July 2010: WikiLeaks publishes 92,000 pages of U.S. military memos termed the Afghan War Diaries. Among the dump’s contents are reports confirming that members of Pakistan’s intelligence agency routinely met with Taliban fighters between 2004 and 2009, as well as field notes on mounting civilian casualties throughout Afghanistan.

October 2010: Some 400,000 pages on the Iraq War that the Pentagon called “the largest leak of classified documents in its history” are posted by WikiLeaks. The group’s de facto spokesman, Julian Assange, says the documents show 15,000 civilian deaths previously unreported, as well as numerous instances of abuse of civilians at the hands of Iraqi security forces.

Nov. 28, 2010: Through several mainstream media partners, WikiLeaks releases confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, frank assessment of various American allies, with some incriminating information about U.S. foreign activities. WikiLeaks says the information, to be followed by further releases later in the week, will contain “seven times” as many documents as October release.

Compiled by Mike Barber, Postmedia News

MY POST: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2637720/posts?page=20#20

To: FS11

“This timeline and the info leaked proves that BO is behind WikiLeaks.” ~ FS11

No kidding? :)

July 26, 2010
Examining the WikiLeaks Story
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072610/content/01125108.member.html

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, WikiLeaks did not “leak” anything. I don’t know who leaked it, but since there’s no mention of Obama and his administration, the regime, in any of these tens of thousands of documents, I’d have to say somebody in the regime leaked ‘em. But WikiLeaks did not leak ‘em. They just published ‘em. WikiLeaks is just a sponge, a useful idiot sitting there over in the UK and some disgruntled military guy in Afghanistan somehow has access to all of this and hands it over. ...

“.....Isn’t it amazing that 91,000 secret documents have been published and not one of them mentions the Obama regime? Not one! ......”

[snip]

<>//<>

July 27, 2010
WikiLeaks Truth: Afghanistan is Democrats’ War and They Want Out
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_072710/content/01125107.member.html

[snip]

RUSH: “....The irony is this is the war the Democrats wanted. Throughout the Iraq war they all said Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan, gotta go to Afghanistan, that’s where you gotta go find Bin Laden. They wanted this war. This is the Democrats’ war. They want out of it. That’s why these leaks.

[snip]

<>//<>

November 29, 2010
Rush Analyzes the WikiLeaks Waif
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112910/content/01125107.member.html

[snip]

RUSH: “....And, you know, Michael Ledeen has a piece today. He used to work for the State Department. When he got a job there, he called Henry Kissinger, and he said, “Give me the best piece of advice you can in the State Department.” He said, “Don’t write a memo unless you expect it to be leaked,” which is the point. All of this stuff comes out of the State Department who’s run that for the last two years? This stuff is only three years old. All of this is coming out of the Clinton State Department. Is this really accidental? How is it that the WikiLeaks guy remains free?

Now, I’m sure you’ve seen the story that the United States government has just seized and shut down 75 domestic websites in America, 75 domains, because they’re guilty of copyright abuse or infringement or some such thing. Now, the WikiLeaks website’s international law, so we just can’t unilaterally shut the guy down, but, you know, back in the old days when men were men and countries were countries, this guy would die of lead poisoning from a bullet in the brain, and nobody would know who put it there! I mean, if our secrets were really being compromised like this, and if some people were really upset about this, and this is not... I mean, everybody knew this was coming, and this is not the first leak from Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. We’ve known he’s out there doing this stuff, we’ve known this stuff is coming, and yet, it keeps coming! ....”

[snip]

<>//<>

December 1, 2010
WikiLeaker Wants Hillary to Resign
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_120110/content/01125110.member.html

[snip]

RUSH: “....Obama clearly is not acting upset about it because the perception is it hurts America, and you got enough diplomats saying, “This is very devastating to American foreign policy,” which is the Obama idea. So in that sense he even likes it. There’s Eric Holder out there, this incompetent guy threatening to bring him up on charges. Big deal. We know that will never happen. Holder is still trying to secure a trial for the grand sheik mastermind of 9/11.”

<>.//<>

MORE: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/tools/search.member.html

20 posted on Sunday, December 05, 2010 1:07:30 PM by Matchett-PI ( Sarah Palin / Marco Rubio - a “can’t lose” ticket for 2012..)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2637720/posts?page=20#20

12 posted on Sunday, December 05, 2010 1:06:22 PM by Matchett-PI

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