HardAssetsInvestor

Written by Tom Vulcan  |

January 18, 2011

What WikiLeaks Revealed About ‘Key Metals’

Details

Last year, WikiLeaks published classified documents outlining metals and mines critical to U.S. interests. But did it tell us anything we didn't already know?

In December last year, Metal Bulletin Ltd., based in the U.K., ran a story titled "Wikileaks names key metals resources."

The piece reported that the WikiLeaks' website had identified several metals mines and facilities so critical to U.S. interests that they'd been placed under the National Infrastructure Protection Plan at the request of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (For those who might not want to actually visit the WikiLeaks site to find the aforesaid information, the relevant part of the released cable can quite easily be found on the Internet at, for example, Business Insider.)

As the final paragraph of the article blithely stated:

"Critics, including several high-profile US politicians, have said that the list could help terrorists identify soft targets, and have called for Wikileaks [sic] founder Julian Assange's execution."

The List Of Strategic Metals

A significant qualifier to the information WikiLeaks "revealed" about key metals resources is that it is, essentially, old hat. The importance of many of the metals and mines on the list were already public knowledge.

Since I have no desire to be lined up against a wall and shot, I will refrain from naming any of the so-called soft targets and instead focus on what the Homeland Security defines as "key resources," or metals and metal-bearing minerals that are "so vital to the United States that the incapacitation or destruction of such systems and assets would have a debilitating impact on national security, national economic security, public health or safety, or any combination of those matters."

Among these, of what we would call the strategic metals/minerals, only the following were mentioned:

• Chromite
• Cobalt
• Germanium
• Manganese
• Niobium
• Rare Earths
• Titanium
• Tungsten

To which an obvious reaction is: "Oh come off it! Surely there must be more than that!"

This begs a somewhat more obvious—but considerably more important—question: "Who's actually looking after the interests of the U.S., from the standpoint of national security, national economic security, public health or safety, or any combination of those matters, if these are the only minor metals mentioned?"