But, Mubarak is an Ally…

By Yoram Ettinger

February, 2003

THE INTENT OF THE $1.9BN ANNUAL U.S. AID TO EGYPT (over $30BN since 1980) has been to advance pro-US policies, to constrain anti-US elements, to promote regional peace, and to reduce proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. However…

1. MUBARAK WAS LOBBYING WASHINGTON ON BEHALF OF SADDAM, in 1990, a few months before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. He misguided key US officials and legislators, painting Saddam as a constructive ruler, thus facilitating US assistance to Saddam ($5BN loan guarantees, sensitive technologies, intelligence-sharing, etc.). In 2003, MUBARAK UNDERMINES USA WAR ON SADDAM, by convening a special session of Arab Foreign Ministers, intended to bolster UN, French, German, Belgian anti-US initiatives. Since 1991, MUBARAK HAS SYSTEMATICALLY VIOLATED ANTI-SADDAM SANCTIONS – AS HE DID WITH ANTI-QADAFFI SANCTIONS – expanding trade with Iraq and Libya.

2. MUBARAK – THREATENED ONLY BY DOMESTIC INSURGENCY WITH NO EXTERNAL THREAT – HAS ACQUIRED MISSILE COMPONENTS FROM N. KOREA, (Wall St. Journal, 2.6.03), violating assurances made to Washington. Egypt-N.Korea ballistic cooperation started in the ’70s. A ballistic missile production facility was set, in Egypt, by N. Korea, in the ’80s. N. Korea supplied Egypt restricted chemicals in 2000/2001. Egypt developed – with N. Korea – a 500km range Scud C missile. Pyongyang’s WMD effort has been advanced by the sale of ballistic technology and components (including engines of long and intermediate range missiles) to Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen. A few hundred N. Korean technicians are stationed in Egypt and Libya. EGYPT and CHINA cooperate in the area of nuclear research and remote-sensing satellites, development of long-range ballistic missiles and extraction of URNAIUM in Sinai (AFP, 6.22.02).

3. MUBARAK REJECTS USA REQUESTS to interview dozens of Egyptian nuclear scientists and engineers employed by Iraq (Mideast NewsLine, 2.7.03). MUBARAK’s INTELLIGENCE HOSTED (Jan. 2003) THE BAGHDAD-BASED ABUL-ABBAS, who commanded the Oct. 1985 Achile Lauro terrorism. Abbas was flown to Iraq, once extradition procedure was launched by the US. Subordinating its ties with the US to its domestic and inter-Muslim arenas, EGYPT VOTES AGAINST THE USA, at the UN, 68% of the time (Heritage Foundation).

4. ARAB NUCLEARIZATION HAS BEEN URGED BY MUBARAK’s-CONTROLLED TOP CLERICAL INSTITUTE, AL-AZHAR (Egypt’s daily, Al-Wafd, 12.15.02). EGYPT-RUSSIA TIES EXPANDED during Mubarak’s April 2001 visit to Moscow: nuclear and laser technologies, missiles and intelligence satellites, advanced air defense systems, joint production in Egypt of the TU-204-120 aircraft (Stratfor, May 5, 2001). Poverty stricken Egypt is allocating 28% of its GDP for military expenditures.

5. A MUBARAK-QADAFFI INITIATIVE HAS UNDERMINED USA PEACE PLAN FOR SUDAN, which has enjoyed support of Sudan’s non-Arab neighbors, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea (3 million killed, since 1969, in Sudan’s Muslim-Christian civil war!). Egypt considers Sudan a domestic matter (its own province 19…), wishes to control the flow of the Nile, claims the Halayeb area in northern Sudan, and prefers a weak Sudan, which depends on Cairo. EGYPT and LIBYA have also cooperated in the development of ballistic technologies. MUBARAK HAS EXACERBATED ERITREA-ETHIOPIA CONFLICTS, in order to bolster Egypt’s clout in the Horn of Africa and at the sources of the Nile. "Divide and Rule" has also characterized Egypt’s ties with Saudi Arabia and its historical rival, Yemen.

6. EGYPTIANS WERE EASILY RECRUITED BY BIN-LADEN, as a result of entrenched anti-Western incitement in Egypt’s systems of media, clergy and education (e.g. Mohamed Atta of 9/11, the blind Sheikh Rahman of the 1993 World Center, Ayman al Zawahri who was Bin Laden’s key advisor, etc.).

7. MUBARAK’s-CONTROLLED MEDIA AND CLERGY REJOICED THE 9/11 TERROR, IMPLICATING THE USA, forcing US ambassador David Welch to publish a rebutting OpEd in Al-Aharam. Two weeks before 9/11, the Mubarak-controlled daily Akhbar Al-Yom, incited: "THE STATUE OF LIBERTY MUST BE DESTROYED…" "Congratulations, shouted Egyptians watching the incredible images of airliners crashing into the World Trade Center" (Agence France Presse, 9.12.01). On 8.17.02, Akhbar Al-Yom claimed: "RUMSFELD IS A MODERN-DAY HITLER." "CHENEY, RICE and RUMSFELD ARE THE AXIS OF EVIL" (ibid, 7.3.02). "You [PRESIDENT BUSH] are an evil person with an ugly soul…You are stupid and ignorant of world events…" (Dr. Adel Sadeq, chairman of the Arab Psychiatrists Ass’n and Head of Psychiatry at Mubarak-controlled Cairo’s Ein Shams University, Egypt’s Hadith Al-Madina, 4.23.02, via MEMRI).

8. MUBARAK’s FOREIGN MINISTER, AHMAD MAHER, OPPOSES USA PLAN TO DEMOCRATIZE THE MIDEAST (official weekly, Al Mussawar, 1.10.03): "Powell’s proposal [MEPI] is the epitome of idiocy… Our response to the US is – ‘examine yourself first, since you require a great deal of improvement’…" Egypt’s media and officials consider MEPI "colonialism in disguise" and "Afghanization of Arab countries," consistent with their criticism of US sanctions on – and bombing of – Saddam, US bombing of Afghanistan and US war on Islamic terrorism.
9. VIOLATING BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS, Egypt sentenced US citizen, Sa’ad Al-Din Ibrahim, a sociology prof. at Cairo’s American University, to seven years imprisonment for allegedly spying for the US. Ibrahim has researched MUSLIM OPPRESSION OF EGYPT’s CHRISTIAN COPTIC MINORITY. A retrial is pending due to US pressure.

10. EGYPT HAS LED ANTI-ISRAEL INITIATIVES IN NGO’s meetings, at the UN and in Africa, consistent with its anti-Semitic state-directed education, media and clerical systems, which have been the role-model for PA’s own anti-Semitism. Egypt has provided "safe passage" for terrorists and weapons smuggled to PLO’s Gaza.

11. FUAD AJAMI, a leading Mideast scientist, Johns Hopkins U: "THE USA COULD GRANT GENEROUS AID TO EGYPT, BUT THERE WOULD BE NO DAMPENING OF THE ANTI-AMERICAN FURY OF THE EGYPTIAN POLITICAL CLASS… On September 11, 2001, there was an unmistakable sense of glee and little sorrow among upper class Egyptians for the distant power, only satisfaction that America had gotten its comeuppance. After nearly three decades of American solicitude of Egypt, after the steady traffic between the two lands, there were no genuine friends for America to be found in a curiously hostile, disgruntled land… A free-floating anti-Americanism blows at will and knows no bounds, among Islamists and secularists alike. For the crowds in Karachi, Cairo and Amman, the great power could never get it right. A world lacking the tools and the political space for free inquiry fell back on anti-Americanism…There would be no open embrace of America, and no public defense of it…" (Foreign Affairs, 11-12.2001).