EGYPT: White House, U.S. politicians sharpen messages to President Hosni Mubarak
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Top U.S. officials stepped up overt and behind-the-scenes pressure on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday, saying he needs to begin handing over power to a new generation now and demanding his government curb the violence unleashed against opponents.
A day after President Obama spoke with Mubarak by telephone and sent an envoy to suggest it’s time the longtime leader leaves the helm, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman that Mubarak needs to begin the power transfer ‘now,’ the department spokesman said.
‘She emphasized, again, our condemnation of the violence that occurred today, [and] encouraged the government to hold those responsible fully accountable for this violence,’ spokesman Philip J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.
Referring to the bloody attacks on peaceful demonstrators at Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Crowley said: ‘We don’t know, at this point, who did it.’
Television images and eyewitness reports from journalists indicated Mubarak loyalists set off the violent confrontations when they converged on the square with clubs and Molotov cocktails. Some rode into the thronged protest site on horses and camels, swatting at those chanting for Mubarak’s departure with sticks and horse whips.
At a White House briefing earlier in the day, spokesman Robert Gibbs reiterated that Obama had made clear in his call to Mubarak late Tuesday that his insistence on staying in power until autumn elections wouldn’t placate the protesters’ demands for democratic change.
“The message that the president delivered clearly to President Mubarak was that the time for change has come,” Gibbs said. “It is clear that the Egyptian people need to see progress and change immediately.”
Gibbs declined to give details of the U.S. leadership’s strategy for dealing with the escalating crisis in Egypt, a longtime ally and bulwark against militant Islamic forces in the region. But Gibbs observed that the United States provides the Egyptian military with about $1.5 billion in aid each year.
The top U.S. uniformed military official, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Michael G. Mullen, also weighed in Wednesday with a call to his Egyptian counterpart, Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Enan.
Mullen ‘reiterated his desire to see the situation return to calm and expressed his confidence in the Egyptian military’s ability to provide for their country’s security, both internally and throughout the Suez Canal area,” said Mullen’s spokesman, Capt. John Kirby.
Sen. John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, added his voice to the U.S. chorus urging Mubarak to make way for a new leadership.
‘Regrettably the time has come 4 Pres. Mubarak 2 step down & relinquish power,’ McCain said in a message on Twitter. ‘It’s in the best interest of Egypt, its people & its military.’
--Carol J. Williams
