Iran could make nuclear weapon in 1-2 years – IISS | Reuters.

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran could make a nuclear weapon in as little as one or two years if it wished, an influential think-tank said on Thursday — but industrial sabotage and the Stuxnet computer worm had probably slowed its progress.

Evidence showed “beyond reasonable doubt” that Iran was seeking the capability to produce nuclear weapons should its leaders decide to go down that route, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said in a report.

However, allegations that Iran had carried out prohibited chemical or biological weapons activities “cannot be determined from the available public information and may have been exaggerated,” the IISS said in a 128-page report on “Iran’s nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities”.

Iran is locked in a standoff with the United States and other powers over its nuclear programme, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West suspects aims to develop a nuclear bomb.

IISS said Iran’s nuclear programme looked to have been dented by the Stuxnet computer worm, widely believed to have been built by Western or Israeli experts for the purpose. Iran says the worm infected some computers at its primary nuclear plant but did not affect operations.

Western and other intelligence agencies have also been involved in a worldwide campaign to slow nuclear smuggling and make it harder for Tehran to acquire essential equipment. Some previous estimates over the last decade had suggested Iran could have a bomb by as soon as late last year.

“I think the world has been pleasantly surprised by the limitations that have been imposed on the program through industrial sabotage and the Iranians’ reliance on inefficient methods,” Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the IISS non-proliferation and disarmament programme, told Reuters.

He said so far Iran’s leaders had not gone “all out” to develop a nuclear weapon, but they clearly wanted the option to ramp up production should they make the decision to do so.

CYBER MUNITION

The United Nations Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran over the programme.

Estimates of when Iran might be able to produce a nuclear bomb are important because of speculation that Israel or the United States might launch military strikes to prevent it from doing so. But the head of the IISS said that missed the point.

“The diplomatic parlour game for the last couple of years has been guessing when the US or Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear program,” said IISS director-general John Chipman. “But it appears they already did but used a cyber munition with much less publicity and collateral damage.”

The London-based IISS said Iran’s current stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) would, if further enriched, be enough for one or two nuclear weapons. But it said Tehran would need more than one form for a credible nuclear deterrent.

If the 4,000 centrifuges that appeared to be working well at Iran’s Natanz enrichment plant were used for weapons purposes, and they continued to perform at their maximum output to date, “a little over a year and seven months would be required for the first bomb’s worth of HEU (highly enriched uranium),” it said.

This assumed Iran would use a four-stage production method developed by Pakistan and sold by Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan on the black market, it said. Khan confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya in 2004.

In theory, a quicker method, called a batch enrichment process, could be used, allowing the first weapon’s worth of HEU to be produced in six months and sufficient quantities to make subsequent bombs in four months. But this was untested and was therefore less likely to be used, it said.

Whichever method was used, at least six more months would be required to convert the HEU from gas form into metal and fashion it into a weapon, the report said.

“The minimum timeline then for the first weapon is over two years under the Pakistan method and one year for the batch method,” the report said. Developing a means to deliver a nuclear weapon — a missile — added to the timeline, it said.

(Editing by Keith Weir)

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 2, 2011, 11:16 PM (GMT+02:00)

Pro-Mubarak activists ride into Tahrir Square

Wednesday, Feb. 2, President Barack Obama delivered an ultimatum to Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman and the army and security chiefs: Mubarak must be removed in the coming hours or else US aid to Egypt will be cut off, debkafile‘s Washington sources exclusively report. Pressure on the Egyptian armed forces to oust the president forthwith was further applied by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who called Vice President Omar Suleiman, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates who called Egyptian defense minister Mohamed Tantawi, and US armed forces chief Adm. Mike Mullen in a telephone call to the Egyptian chief of staff Gen. Sami Enan.,

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron were recruited earlier to lean hard on Egyptian army chiefs to bring Mubarak’s presidency to an end in the coming hours.

Our sources report that all the Israelis remaining in Egypt, including news correspondents, were evacuated from Egypt Wednesday night in view of the danger of civil warfare spreading from the first confrontation in Tahrir Square between pro- and anti-Mubarak activists on the ninth day of the campaign for his overthrow.

It turned into a bloody collision with 30 confirmed dead and at least 2,000 injured – most of them protesters.
Obama slapped down his ultimatum when he saw Mubarak had unleashed the strong-arm squads of his National Democratic Party against the anti-government protesters, the day after he told the nation that he would stay for the remainder of his term as president.

The White House shot back: “President Barack Obama has been clear on Egypt that the transition must begin now, and now means now.”
Obama hardened his position following three more occurrences:
1.  The Egyptian army for the first time abandoned its neutrality and let 50,000 Mubarak supporters enter Tahrir Square where the protesters had been gathering without stopping them for inspection at the checkpoints outside. They stormed into the square on camels and horses, trampled protesters and beat about them with knives, swords, axes and petrol bombs.

Until that moment, the White House had been confident that the Egyptian army was solidly behind a peaceful transition process for displacing the president. But then, alarm signals started flashing.

debkafile sources report that the US administration is trying to find out if the army has switched its support to the president on the initiative of a local commander,  or the entire military command has backtracked and laid the country open to a civil conflict. An Egyptian source told debkafile Wednesday night: The country may be descending into a bloodbath.

2.   Information reached Washington that the first appearance of violent Mubarak loyalists in Tahrir Square was not the Egyptian president’s final throw but his first. More are planned for the coming days in other parts of the country too, climaxing on Friday, Feb. 4.

The Americans have begun to understand that the 82-year old Egyptian president, although seriously ill, has no plans to go quietly as he promised in his speech to the nation Tuesday night. It is even possible that he may not go voluntarily at all.
3.  The first fissures appeared Wednesday in opposition ranks. All ten secular parties agreed to respond positively to the Vice President’s invitation to dialogue on constitutional reform, excepting the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest and best organized of them all. Its leaders refused to have any truck with the regime or any of its leaders and demanded that Mubarak step down without further delay.
The Brotherhood also heated up its denunciations of America, Britain and Israel.

‘Al-Qaida on brink of using nuclear bomb’.

By Heidi Blake and Christopher Hope, The Daily Telegraph

Islamists at the Gates – NYTimes.com.

ISRAELIS want to rejoice over the outbreak of protests in Egypt’s city squares. They want to believe that this is the Arab world’s 1989 moment. Perhaps, they say, the poisonous reflex of blaming the Jewish state for the Middle East’s ills will be replaced by an honest self-assessment.

But few Israelis really believe in that hopeful outcome. Instead, the grim assumption is that it is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power. Israelis fear that Egypt will go the way of Iran or Turkey, with Islamists gaining control through violence or gradual co-optation.

Either result would be the end of Israel’s most important relationship in the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood has long stated its opposition to peace with Israel and has pledged to revoke the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty if it comes into power. Given the strengthening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas’s control of Gaza and the unraveling of the Turkish-Israeli alliance, an Islamist Egypt could produce the ultimate Israeli nightmare: living in a country surrounded by Iran’s allies or proxies.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the icon of the Egyptian protesters, and many Western analysts say that the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood has forsworn violence in favor of soup kitchens and medical clinics. Even if that is true, it is small comfort to Israelis, who fear that the Brotherhood’s nonviolence has been a tactical maneuver and know that its worldview is rooted in crude anti-Semitism.

The Brotherhood and its offshoots have been the main purveyors of the Muslim world’s widespread conspiracy theories about the Jews, from blaming the Israeli intelligence service for 9/11 to accusing Zionists of inventing the Holocaust to blackmail the West.

Others argue that the responsibilities of governance would moderate the Brotherhood, but here that is dismissed as Western naïveté: the same prediction, after all, was made about the Iranian regime, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The fear of an Islamist encirclement has reminded Israelis of their predicament in the Middle East. In its relationship with the Palestinians, Israel is Goliath. But in its relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds, Israel remains David.

Since its founding, Israel has tried to break through the military and diplomatic siege imposed by its neighbors. In the absence of acceptance from the Arab world, it found allies on the periphery of the Middle East, Iran and Turkey. Peace with Israel’s immediate neighbors would wait.

That doctrine began to be reversed in 1979, when the Israeli-Iranian alliance collapsed and was in effect replaced by the Egyptian-Israeli treaty that same year. The removal of Egypt from the anti-Israeli front left the Arab world without a credible military option; indeed, the last conventional war fought by Arab nations against Israel was the 1973 joint Egyptian-Syrian attack on Yom Kippur.

Since then all of Israel’s military conflicts — from the first Lebanon war in 1982 to the Gaza war of 2009 — have been asymmetrical confrontations against terrorists. While those conflicts have presented Israel with strategic, diplomatic and moral problems, it no longer faced an existential threat from the Arab world.

For Israel, then, peace with Egypt has been not only strategically but also psychologically essential. Israelis understand that the end of their conflict with the Arab world depends in large part on the durability of the peace with Egypt — for all its limitations, it is the only successful model of a land-for-peace agreement.

Above all, though, Israeli optimism has been sustained by the memory of the improbable partnership between President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin. Only four years before flying to Tel Aviv on his peace mission, Sadat had attacked Israel on its holiest day. Begin, Israel’s most hawkish prime minister until that time, withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, an area more than three times the size of Israel.

Though Egypt failed to deliver the normalization in relations Israelis craved, the thousands of Israeli tourists who have filled the beaches of the Sinai coast experienced something of the promise of real peace. At least in one corner of the Arab Middle East, they felt welcomed. A demilitarized Sinai proved that Israel could forfeit strategic depth and still feel reasonably secure.

The Sinai boundary is the only one of Israel’s borders that hasn’t been fenced off. Israelis now worry that this fragile opening to the Arab world is about to close.

Obama: Egypt must transition peacefully into democracy ‘now’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Speaking hours after Egyptian President Mubarak vowed to step down later this year, U.S. President says world is inspired by the passion and integrity of the Egyptian people.

By Natasha Mozgovaya

Egypt must transition peacefully into a democratic regime and it must do so now, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday, hours after beleaguered Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he would retire only later in the year.

	Barack Obama speaking about the situation in Egypt at the White House, Feb. 1, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

Mubarak announced earlier Tuesday that he would not run in the next elections in the country, following mass protests that have been ravaging the country for the past week.

In a televised speech, Mubarak announced that he would step down at the next elections scheduled for September, saying he “did not have the intention of running in the next election and wanted to spend my life trying to serve the people,” adding that he wanted “to finish my role while Egypt is at peace.”

The next presidential election is scheduled for September, but in his address, Mubarak pressed his cabinet to speed up elections.

Commenting on the ongoing protest in Egypt as well as Mubarak’s vow to retire later in the year, Obama indicated later Tuesday that Washington would like to see Egypt transition into democracy as soon as possible, saying that “what is clear, and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now.”

	Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., making a statement on the crisis in Egypt, Feb. 2, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

“Furthermore, the process must include a broad spectrum of Egyptian voices in opposition parties,” Obama said, adding that such a move “should lead to elections that are free and fair. And it should result in a government that’s not only grounded in democratic principles, but is also responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people.”

Speaking of Mubarak’s need to bow to the will of his people, the U.S. president said that all of us who are privileged to serve in positions of political power do so at the will of our people.”

“Through thousands of years, Egypt has known many moments of transformation,” Obama said, adding that “the voices of the Egyptian people tell us that this is one of those moments, this is one of those times.”

Obama also commended the passion and the dignity that has been demonstrated by the people of Egypt,” saying they served as “an inspiration to people around the world, including here in the United States, and to all those who believe in the inevitability of human freedom.”

“To the people of Egypt, particularly the young people of Egypt, I want to be clear: We hear your voices. I have an unyielding belief that you will determine your own destiny, and seize the promise of a better future for your children and your grandchildren,” the U.S. president said, indicating that he was “committed to a partnership between the United States and Egypt.”

Also speaking of Mubarak’s decision to step down on Tuesday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry applauded the “important announcement by President Mubarak to bring his presidency to an end and pledge that free and fair elections will be held.”

“I believe that President Mubarak should now work with the military and civil society to establish an interim caretaker government,” Kerry said, expressing doubt, however, if Mubarak’s declaration would appease the Egyptian masses.

“It remains to be seen whether this is enough to satisfy the demands of the Egyptian people for change. We arrived at this point because millions of Egyptians spoke with one voice and exercised fundamental rights we Americans hold dear,” Kerry said, adding that the Egyptian public “made it clear the future they want is one of greater democracy and greater economic opportunity.”

Speaking more of the changes Egypt would have to undergo in the wake of the political earthquake that shook the Arab nation, Kerry said that “much work remains to be done to turn this auspicious moment into lasting peace and prosperity.”
“Egyptians must now prepare for elections and achieve a peaceful transition of power,” the U.S. senator said, adding that he hoped the Egyptian army would “continue to show the restraint it has so admirably exercised these past days.”

“And opposition leaders must come together to develop a process that will ensure that all of Egypt’s voices are heard,” Kerry said, adding that, “as friends of the Egyptian people, there is much that the United States can do as well. Egypt has been a close ally of the United States for many years, and it is my fervent hope that our relationship can grow stronger as the Egyptian people take control of their destiny.”

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