RT | WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has opened up about his new book,
'The WikiLeaks Files,' speaking about the 'US empire' and telling RT's
'Going Underground' program that Washington had plans to overthrow
Syria's government long before the 2011 uprising began.
Speaking to 'Going
Underground' host Afshin Rattansi, Assange referred to the chapter on
Syria, which goes back to 2006. In that chapter is a cable from US
Ambassador William Roebuck, who was stationed in Damascus, which
apparently discusses a plan for the overthrow of the Assad government in
Syria.
“...That plan was to use a number of different factors to create
paranoia within the Syrian government; to push it to overreact, to make
it fear there's a coup...so in theory it says 'We have a problem with
Islamic extremists crossing over the border with Iraq, and we're taking
actions against them to take this information and make the Syrian
government look weak, the fact that it is dealing with Islamic
extremists at all.'”
He added that the most serious part of the plan was to “foster
tensions between Shiites and Sunnis. In particular, to take rumors that
are known to be false...or exaggerations and promote them – that Iran is
trying to convert poor Sunnis, and to work with Saudi and Egypt to
foster that perception in order to make it harder for Iran to have
influence, and also harder for the government to have influence in the
population.”
