Leaked cables depict a world guessing about North Korea

Published 12:01 am Monday, November 29, 2010

With North Korea reeling from economic and succession crises,

American and South Korean officials early this year secretly

began gaming out what would happen if the North, led by one

of the world’s most brutal family dynasties, collapsed,

according to a cable from the American ambassador.

However, the cables on North Korea, part of a cache of secret

State Department cables obtained by Wikileaks and made

available to a number of news organizations, are long on

guesses and short on facts, even when containing the thoughts

of diplomats from China, the North’s ally.

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Other documents reveal painstaking efforts by the United

States to safely reduce the population of the Guantánamo Bay

prison in Cuba so it could eventually close.

American diplomats went looking for countries that were not only

willing to take in former prisoners but could be trusted to

keep them under close watch. In a global bazaar of sorts, the

officials sweet-talked and haggled with their foreign

counterparts.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com?emc=na