Confirming Cablegate? Were US Officials mentioned as present at meetings really there?

A lot of the wikileak cables mention meetings attended by many different parties,
but, is there a way of confirming that the Officials mentioned were actually there?

I haven't read on ATS about this point amongst the "wikileaks are good", "wikileaks are DISINFO" threads.

After reading a recent post about wikileaks being part of a dis-info strategy,
I thought that maybe if it was one big chess piece in the next stage of the game,
then with that many cables,
someone could type in the wrong ambassadors name, or some other glitch on timing.

eg;
What if a cable says that:
"US ambassador ABC and Tony Blair discussed lollypops at the UK Embassy on Jan 14 2002"......
but a search of newspapers, or the govt websites/press releases, showed that Tony Blair was in Germany at that time....

Well there may be a case for querying the source of the cables.

Has anyone heard or seen any research like this?

Originally posted by CitizenNum287119327
A lot of the wikileak cables mention meetings attended by many different parties,
but, is there a way of confirming that the Officials mentioned were actually there?

I haven't read on ATS about this point amongst the "wikileaks are good", "wikileaks are DISINFO" threads.

After reading a recent post about wikileaks being part of a dis-info strategy,
I thought that maybe if it was one big chess piece in the next stage of the game,
then with that many cables,
someone could type in the wrong ambassadors name, or some other glitch on timing.

eg;
What if a cable says that:
"US ambassador ABC and Tony Blair discussed lollypops at the UK Embassy on Jan 14 2002"......
but a search of newspapers, or the govt websites/press releases, showed that Tony Blair was in Germany at that time....

Well there may be a case for querying the source of the cables.

Has anyone heard or seen any research like this?

May I respectfully suggest that using that line of thinking you may well simply tie yourself up in knots. In some instances those mentioned in the cables will be recorded as having been 'elsewhere' because they were not supposed to be having the conversations with the US Embassy. People's diaries will have false entries if they were clandestinely meeting with the US Embassy - using your line of thought you would have to have absolute proof that someone was elsewhere when the cables say they were talking to the US Ambassador in a given location. And why would anyone make the mistake of saying something like 'I was talking to Blair here in Baghdad' - when he was elsewhere on a given date? It's easily verified.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing to indicate that the cables are anything other than they are purported to be - Ambassadorial cables sent back to the US. And redactions would not be taking place if they were less than genuine. These need to be taken at face value until someone can show a hole in them somewhere. I doubt that hole will exist and when it all stands up to scrutiny after over a quarter of a million cables are exposed - we gotta admit, that's impressive.

Oz