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"Wiki-leeks" - the Western Mail goes to Washington

David Cornock | 14:29 UK time, Monday, 7 February 2011

Intelligence gathering has always been more of an art than a science, with the attendant risk of gossip and hearsay being viewed as fact and presented to the world through what are today known as dodgy dossiers.

In the wake of countless revelations from wikileaks you do wonder just how well-informed are the diplomats whose cables were sent back to Washington.

The latestsuggest US embassy staff in London were rather less than on-the-ball when it came to predicting the future of Welsh politics.

Peter Hain for Welsh first minister? He may have played an important role in creating the job but it was hardly the summit of his political ambition. Eluned Morgan's "experience of government" may be news to some.

The author of the cable implies that some of the information came from the Aberavon Labour MP Hywel Francis, then chair of Parliament's select committee on Welsh affairs.

Curiously, some of the suggestions made in the cable are remarkably similar to those made in a story in the same day's .

But the idea that the most powerful country in the world bases its political intelligence on anonymously-source speculation in a regional newspaper is too far-fetched to be true. Or is it?

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