US reaches out to Egyptian opposition, talks with ElBaradei.

The Obama administration on Tuesday opened talks with a possible successor to embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as the US ramped up outreach to the hundreds of thousands determined to force their long-time leader out of power.

The context of the discussions with Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was not immediately public. But they were taking place as more than a quarter-million Egyptians gathered in Cairo’s main square in defiance of Mubarak, which signaled the United States is strengthening its push for a peaceful transition to democracy — and looking for alternatives to its ally of three decades.
Pan-Arab news network Al Arabiya reported that Mubarak plans to speak Tuesday night, announcing he will not run in Egypt’s next election. He will not answer the protesters demands that he resign immediately, according to the report.

While the US envoy to Egypt, Margaret Scobey, spoke with ElBaradei, the escalating anti-government protests led the United States to order non-essential American personnel and their families to leave the country. Respected former ambassador Frank Wisner was visiting members of Mubarak’s government and Defense Secretary Robert Gates had a telephone conversation with his Egyptian counterpart, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

“The US Embassy in Cairo has been especially busy in the past several days with an active outreach to political and civil society,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said in a message posted to Twitter. “As part of our public outreach to convey support for orderly transition in Egypt, Ambassador Scobey spoke today with Mohamed ElBaradei.”

Wisner, who represented the US in Cairo from 1986 to 1991, was being counted on to provide the US government with an evaluation of the fast-changing situation. “As someone with deep experience in the region, he is meeting with Egyptian officials and providing his assessment,” the State Department said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat , gave public voice to what senior US officials have said only privately in recent days: that Mubarak should “step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure.”

“It is not enough for President Mubarak to pledge ‘fair’ elections,” Kerry wrote in The New York Times. “The most important step that he can take is to address his nation and declare that neither he nor the son he has been positioning as his successor will run in the presidential election this year. Egyptians have moved beyond his regime, and the best way to avoid unrest turning into upheaval is for President Mubarak to take himself and his family out of the equation.”

By midday Tuesday, the administration had yet to make any public comments on the protests or Mubarak, but renewed a travel warning for Egypt advising Americans to leave and ordering the departure of all non-essential government personnel and their families “in light of recent events.” It was an indication of Washington’s deepening concern about developments in Egypt and replaces a decision last week to allow workers who wanted to leave the country to do so at government expense.

The department said it would continue to evacuate private US citizens from Egypt aboard government-chartered planes.

The US evacuated more than 1,200 Americans from Cairo on such flights Monday and said it expected to fly out roughly 1,400 more in the coming days. Monday’s flights ferried Americans from Cairo to Larnaca, Cyprus; Athens, Greece; and Istanbul, Turkey.

On Tuesday, the US added Frankfurt, Germany as a destination and the Egyptian cities of Aswan and Luxor as departure points.

The Cairo airport is open and operating but the department warned that flights may be disrupted and that people should be prepared for lengthy waits.

Egypt’s army leadership is reassuring the US that the powerful military does not intend to crack down on demonstrators, but is instead allowing protesters to “wear themselves out,” according to a former US official in contact with several top Egyptian army officers. The Egyptians use a colloquial saying to describe their strategy — a boiling pot with a lid that’s too tight will blow up the kitchen, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The officers expressed concern with White House statements appearing to side with the protesters, saying that stoking revolt to remove Mubarak risks creating a vacuum that the banned-but-powerful Muslim Brotherhood could fill, the official said.

While the Brotherhood claims to have closed its paramilitary wing long ago, it has fought politically to gain power. More threatening to the Mubarak regime, it has built a nationwide charity and social network that much of Egypt’s poverty stricken population depends on for its survival.

Stuxnet could harm nuclear safety: U.N. atom chief | Reuters.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Cyber attacks such as the Stuxnet computer worm could harm nuclear sites but Russia and Iran are paying “enough attention” to prevent any possible accident at Iran’s Bushehr reactor, the U.N. nuclear chief said on Tuesday.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told Reuters the U.N. watchdog was watching developments and gathering information about Stuxnet with interest.

Russia has urged NATO to investigate last year’s Stuxnet attack on the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran, saying it could have triggered a disaster on the scale of the Chernobyl reactor explosion in Ukraine in 1986.

“Stuxnet, or cyber attack as a whole, could be quite detrimental to the safety of nuclear facilities and operations,” Amano, a soft-spoken veteran Japanese diplomat, said in an interview in his 28th-floor office in Vienna.

He acknowledged the IAEA had only limited knowledge about the computer worm, which some experts have described as a first-of-its-kind guided cyber missile.

He noted that Bushehr, which Iran says will start operating soon, had been built by Russia and would be operated by Iran.

“I think they are giving enough attention to prevent possible accidents caused by cyber attacks,” Amano said.

For now, the IAEA was not calling for any delay in the reactor’s start-up of operations, he said. “Countries concerned are giving considerable attention to this issue.”

But Amano also said the IAEA was interested in holding a meeting of experts to discuss the issue of cyber attacks.

In Brussels last week, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said the virus had hit the computer system at the Bushehr reactor on Iran’s Gulf coast.

Iran began fuelling Bushehr in August and officials have said the reactor will begin generating energy early this year, a delay of several months following the spread of the global computer virus, which is believed mainly to have affected Iran.

URANIUM STOCKPILE GROWING

Iranian officials have confirmed Stuxnet hit staff computers at Bushehr but said it had not affected major systems.

Security experts say it may well have been a state-sponsored attack on Iran’s nuclear program that originated in the United States or Israel, which suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran denies the charge and says Bushehr is the first in a planned network of nuclear reactors designed to meet growing electricity demand and help it export more of its oil and gas.

Some experts say Stuxnet may also have been a factor in slowing down Iran‘s uranium enrichment activities at Natanz, which can have both civilian and military purposes.

Any delays in Iran’s enrichment campaign could buy more time for efforts to find a diplomatic solution to its stand-off with world powers, even though talks in Geneva in December and Istanbul last month failed to bridge the gap.

But Amano said Iran’s production of low-enriched uranium, potential bomb-making material if refined much further, was “continuing steadily” and its stockpile was growing.

A temporary halt in low-level enrichment in mid-November lasted only for a short period of time, he said.

He said the IAEA did not know whether Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but that it was concerned that some activities may have military links.

Refined uranium can be used as fuel for power plants but also provide material, if enriched further, for bombs.

“We have chosen our words very carefully and we have never said that Iran has nuclear weapon programs but we have expressed our concern over some activities that might have military dimension,” Amano said.

“Since 2008 our Iranian partners have not agreed with us to clarify this issue. It is very unfortunate,” he said.

(Editing by Paul Taylor)

Jordan’s king sacks entire Cabinet amid street protests.

AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan’s King Abdullah II fired his government Tuesday in the wake of street protests and asked an ex-prime minister to form a new Cabinet, ordering him to launch immediate political reforms.

The dismissal follows several large protests across Jordan— inspired by similar demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt — calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Samir Rifai, who is blamed for a rise in fuel and food prices and slowed political reforms.

A Royal Palace statement said Abdullah accepted Rifai’s resignation tendered earlier Tuesday.

The king named Marouf al-Bakhit as his prime minister-designate, instructing him to “undertake quick and tangible steps for real political reforms, which reflect our vision for comprehensive modernization and development in Jordan,” the palace statement said.

Bakhit previously served as Jordan’s premier from 2005-2007.

The king also stressed that economic reform was a “necessity to provide a better life for our people, but we won’t be able to attain that without real political reforms, which must increase popular participation in the decision-making.”

He asked Bakhit for a “comprehensive assessment … to correct the mistakes of the past.” He did not elaborate. The statement said Abdullah also demanded an “immediate revision” of laws governing politics and public freedoms.

When he ascended to the throne in 1999, King Abdullah vowed to press ahead with political reforms initiated by his late father, King Hussein. Those reforms paved the way for the first parliamentary election in 1989 after a 22-year gap, the revival of a multiparty system and the suspension of martial law in effect since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

But little has been done since. Although laws were enacted to ensure greater press freedom, journalists are still prosecuted for expressing their opinion or for comments considered slanderous of the king and the royal family.

Some gains been made in women’s rights, but many say they have not gone far enough. Abdullah has pressed for stiffer penalties for perpetrators of “honor killings,” but courts often hand down lenient sentences.

Still, Jordan’s human rights record is generally considered a notch above that of Tunisia and Egypt. Although some critics of the king are prosecuted, they frequently are pardoned and some are even rewarded with government posts.

It was not immediately clear when Bakhit will name his Cabinet.

Bakhit is a moderate politician, who served as Jordan’s ambassador to Israel earlier this decade.

He holds similar views to Abdullah in keeping close ties with Israel under a peace treaty signed in 1994 and strong relations with the United States, Jordan’s largest aid donor and longtime ally.

In 2005, Abdullah named Bakhit as his prime minister days after a triple bombing on Amman hotels claimed by the al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

During his 2005-2007 tenure, Bakhit — an ex-army major general and top intelligence adviser — was credited with maintaining security and stability following the attack, which killed 60 people and labeled as the worst in Jordan’s modern history.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

.DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 1, 2011, 1:31 PM (GMT+02:00)

March of Millions heads for presidential palace

Certain opposition groups, backed by retired army and security forces officers are planning to take over a key delta city, proclaim it liberated territory and establish there a “Free Egypt” government, debkafile‘s Middle East sources report Tuesday, Feb. 1. The masses flooding central Cairo for the March of Millions are marching on the presidential palace in their biggest protest demonstration in eight days. President Hosni Mubarak is working there at present.

Opposition leaders have come to the same conclusion as most Western and Middle East observers that Mubarak; whose effigy hangs high from a noose over Tahrir Square, has no intention of leaving in the foreseeable future and all his maneuvers are a play for time.

Until now, Mubarak was perceived as working toward an orderly transition by handing over to army chiefs, letting them hold negotiations on a transitional regime with the various factions and set election dates for parliament and the presidency. And indeed, Monday night, Vice President Gen. Omar Suleiman went on state television to announce he had been directed by the president to start a dialogue on constitutional changes with the various factions.

But like Mubarak’s other moves, this action further stoked popular rage against him. It brought out more and more supporters for the March of Millions staged Tuesday in at least 15 Egyptian citieswhich teem with many millions of inhabitants.

Opposition leaders, including the Muslim Brethren, decided to shun the proposed dialogue out of two considerations:

1.  The street does not trust Gen. Suleiman. He is seen as part of Mubarak’s ruling circle and hated as the enemy of Egyptian democracy.  Indeed the rigging of parliamentary vote which only two months ago reduced opposition representation to nil is laid at his door.
2.  Some of the factions are already in the process of separate dialogue with army chiefs outside the military and government mechanisms still loyal to Mubarak.
debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources disclose that the generals are informing the president about this separate track but have not asked him to approve its outcome.

This outcome is already falling into two sections which he is hardly likely to approve.

The army and protesters agreed on a mutual non-violence pact, providing for neither to attack the other. Since Mubarak is standing his ground, the Egyptian crisis continues to be ruled by a standoff between the president, the army and the masses.
To break out of this impasse, certain opposition leaders plan to use the momentum of the Tuesday march to seize control of a central Egyptian city and proclaim it the capital of Free Egypt. They will call on other factions to recognizes their administration and establish more Free Egypt regimes in other cities. For now, Mubarak’s foes are looking for suitable candidates to fill posts in the administrations they hope to establish.

On Cairo streets, Egypt army allows citizens to break curfew – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Soldiers are showered with love while generals keep their distance in the Egyptian capital.

By Anshel Pfeffer

CAIRO – “We’re here to protect the people,” says Major Ahmed, an officer in the Egyptian army’s radio corps. “That’s our only job.”

The short major observes one of the elevated roads leading to the center of Cairo. He is in charge of laying out the communications network connecting the various units, infantry and armor in the Egyptian capital.

	An Egyptian family passing by soldiers near a museum in Cairo yesterday.
	Photo by: Reuters

“We also have satellite communications,” he says, pointing to the paratrooper’s wings on his chest.

Talking to a group of admiring youngster, he says: “I jumped three times from a plane, but I’m not a professional paratrooper. I’m a computer man.”

He adds: “This is the army’s curfew, not the government’s or the police’s, so the public respects it.”

In fact, the army permits anyone who so desires to remain all night in Tahrir Square. Tens of thousands of demonstrators who decide to go home leave in an orderly manner at 10 P.M. Then the streets are under the control of the army and groups of citizens who volunteer to protect their neighborhoods from looters.

Like Egyptian society, the army consists of classes. The lower-rank soldiers are mostly working class or conscripts from farmers’ families in the Delta villages.

On the night between Sunday and Monday, five soldiers sit on the pavement on Corniche El-Nile Street, watching the city lights reflected in the river. Around them sit local youngsters providing them with cigarettes.

“We’re all friends here,” one of them says in English. The soldiers smile sheepishly.

The middle-rank officers, men in their ’30s and ’40s who have chosen a military career, are mostly educated and speak decent English. They are proud of the relatively modern American equipment at their disposal and are interested in tightening ties with the West, not only because of the annual $1.5 billion in military assistance their country receives from the United States.

They try to avoid talking about politics but appear to sympathize with the sentiments of the masses demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak.

“I can’t talk about the government now,” says one colonel in charge of the force protecting the national television building. “I have not received clear orders, except to be here with my soldiers. We will stay here as long as we’re needed.”

On Sunday night, the army was caught between the police and demonstrators when a long convoy of tanks was sent into the square, half an hour before the police-imposed curfew was to come into effect, at 4 P.M. Afterward, two F-16 planes and a gunship flew over the crowd. The masses, however, responded by encouraging the soldiers and embracing them.

Yesterday, the armored convoy left the square, leaving a number of tanks and armored personnel carriers at its entrances and near the Egyptian Museum. The tanks and most of the soldiers moved to intersections and entrances to the city. The soldiers milling in the crowd in Tahrir Square leave their AKA rifles in the tanks and armored personnel carriers and mingle unarmed with the people, who call out words of encouragement. Several soldiers serve as traffic policeman after the police have disappeared.

The hatred people feel toward the police seems to intensify their love for the army. Many of the middle class manage to evade military service, but quite a few educated young people have served as junior officers.

“I used to be a second lieutenant in the Engineering Corps,” says Mustafa Mabruk, a 25-year-old civil engineer.”Our base once hosted Defense Minister Tantawi. We built a special gate for him that cost 1 million Egyptian pounds. I thought at the time how many young people could get married and raise families with that money.”

The senior officers are identified with the regime and are part of the political leadership headed by Mubarak, who himself formerly served as air force commander. The newly appointed deputy president and prime minister are also generals.

“If Tantawi gives an order to shoot civilians, they won’t listen to him,” says one demonstrator, who recently completed his military service.

The generals are keeping their distance from the protesters. Tantawi came to visit the forces on the banks of the Nile but kept well away from the crowds. The love the people feel toward the army does not include him

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis February 1, 2011, 12:11 AM (GMT+02:00)

Hamas’ Grad rockets

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, Jan 31 he feared Egypt could end up with a radical Islamic regime as in Iran that would “grind human rights to dust” and go against the interests all the peoples of the region share for peace and stability. “Our main care is to preserve the peace,” he stressed in his first comment on the Egyptian crisis at a joint conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The Israeli prime minister’s words were widely interpreted as support for President Hosni Murakak, for three decades faithful defender of peace with Israel, rather than a reference to the tidal changes overtaking Egypt and potentially other authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.

He also made the gesture of allowing the first Egyptian 800 troops to enter Sinai since the military since the 1979 peace treaty demilitarized Sinai – as first disclosed by debkafile.

The troops arrived Monday, Jan. 31, to back up Egyptian special police units under attack from Hamas intruders from the Gaza Strip, who were acting on orders from the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.

The Israeli prime minister repeated the same old mistake of leaning on the Egyptian military, in the person of the former intelligence minister – now Vice President – Omar Suleiman to sort out the Hamas threat from the Gaza Strip and Sinai.

Equally true to form, Hamas hit back Monday night by shooting three long-range Grad rockets against the Negev towns of Netivot and Ofakim, damaging property and leaving a number of shock victims.

For helping the dying regime, Hamas’ parent, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, punished Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu’s first two reactions to events in Egypt were knee-jerk gestures to old friends in Cairo rather than part of a far-sighted, clear-eyed assessment of the fast-moving Egyptian epic.

They were misplaced on five counts:
1. Mubarak may not return the favor. If he believes he can survive the raging popular demand for his removal by throwing Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel to the winds, he will not think twice.  He will dump Israel just as the United States dumped him when the streets of Egypt filled with protesters.
2.  Is Netanyahu counting on the sustainability of Israel’s close military and intelligence ties with new Vice President? Apparently, he is – in which case he is backing Suleiman to come out on top of the standoff between Mubarak, the army and the protesters.

Is Suleiman a peace asset? The truth is for that for a decade, the Egyptian general’s deep involvement in the Israel-Palestinian dispute has led Jerusalem astray time and again, especially with regard to Hamas, for which Israel is paying and will continue to pay a heavy price.

Furthermore, while Suleiman is well liked in Jerusalem, he is despised at home almost as much as the president. And when Mubarak finally falls, he too will prove to be a broken reed.
3.  Any assistance the Netanyahu government may render the Mubarak regime – like opening the 1979 peace treaty to let troops into Sinai – is wasted as far as helping to stabilize the situation in Egypt is concerned. It may be used as dangerous precedent in the hands of a still unknown future regime.

4.  The Brotherhood is not a radical bogeyman on a par with Iran’s ayatollahs as depicted by Netanyahu. Egypt’s society is diverse enough to withstand a despotic theocracy as the first six days of the popular protests demonstrated.

If anyone can keep the Muslim Brotherhood in its place, albeit with a role in government alongside other opposition factions, it is the army. According to our sources, a military takeover of government is in the making, planned for an interim stage until a new political order can legitimately take charge. Monday, the army announced it would not use force against the March of Millions called for Tuesday and considered the people’s demands legitimate.
So what did the Israeli prime minister have to gain by being almost the only world leader to take a stand against the popular uprising in Egypt and putting the Muslim faction in the limelight?

5.  His slowness in formulating a strategic policy more in tune with the momentous changes overtaking Egypt and the region may be due to the failure of Israeli intelligence and his advisers to correctly diagnose the ferment in Egypt. They were taken by surprise when it boiled over.

It may also be due to his innate tendency to respond to critical situations by doing nothing, as in the cases of the Iranian-backed Hizballah coup in Lebanon and Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb. In standing out against change in Egypt, Netanyahu has broken ranks with the United States and Europe, failed to address the inevitable transition of government, and turned Israel’s back on the Egyptian people’s universally championed fight for democratic reforms.

Even Mubarak cannot avoid adapting to the changes landing on his head. Monday night, he asked Suleiman to start a dialogue with opposition leaders for “constitutional change.” When that change comes, where will Israel stand?