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Protests in Egypt Gain Momentum; Tanks on the Streets of Cairo; Gibbs Tweets: 'Government Must Respect the Rights of the Egyptian People'; Reports of Journalists Being Attacked, Shot by Plains-Clothes Egyptian Police; Egyptian Army Present on Streets, But Not Engaging With Protestors
Aired January 28, 2011 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Live from Studio 7, I'm Carol Costello. It's Friday, January 28th. We're following breaking news out of Egypt.
A curfew takes effect this hour in Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez, three cities where violent protests are spreading.
In Alexandria, riot police today fired tear gas at people running through the streets towards Central Square. Young men hurled rocks back at police.
The city of Suez, another battleground. Thousands turning out to the streets today, despite three people having been killed, dozens wounded there this week.
And in Cairo, police are out in full force, and they're not only targeting protesters. It's just an incredible scene on the streets of Egypt today, in these three major cities.
President Mubarak is about to speak, we believe. We're going to join our sister network, CNN International. Listen.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: -- from state-owned television.
We want to welcome our viewers around the world, and in the United States as well, as we continue our coverage of the upheaval taking place in Egypt.
It is now just about a minute and a half past 6:00 p.m., a time when curfews are to be imposed on three different cities.
Our Ben Wedeman is live from Cairo.
Ben, the latest? Ben Wedeman?
Ben Wedeman, if you can hear me, can you tell us what the latest is that is happening?
All right. We're not able to communicate there with Ben. You're looking at a live picture there of the Cornish El Nil, as I said, just about 100 meters from state-run television.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, dramatic developments.
They can't hear me. They can't hear me.
CLANCY: Ben, we can hear you. Go ahead.
WEDEMAN: Can you hear me, Jim?
CLANCY: Yes, Ben. Go ahead.
WEDEMAN: I'm talking.
Jim?
CLANCY: Well, we've obviously got some communications problems.
WEDEMAN: OK. Dramatic developments here -- yes, Jim.
What you're seeing is dozens of trucks full of riot police seem to be leaving the heart of the city. There are three armored personnel carriers with turrets on top that have moved in front of the Ministry of Information and the television building.
It's not at all clear what is happening, but it appears they're pulling the riot police out of the lines of confrontation in the middle of the city. Looking to the south of Tahrir Square, I see a large column of black smoke. It's not apparent in the dust now -- it appears some building is on fire.
As you know, the curfew is now in effect from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., declared by President Mubarak in his capacity as the commander in chief of the armed forces. It seems that now the military has been brought into play. We have yet to see whether they will take the place of the hated Egyptian riot police and plainclothes policemen who have cracked down so violently on --
CLANCY: Obviously we're having some problems here with communication.
Communications all across Cairo have been disrupted this day. The Internet has been taken down, people are unable to text message.
Ben Wedeman standing -- you're looking at some pictures now from earlier in the day. It's now nighttime.
This has been branded a day of rage. Eighty million Egyptians make up the country that is really the fulcrum of the Arab world, the fulcrum politically, religiously, culturally. In so many different ways, this nation is the leader of the Arab world.
You're looking at pictures taken earlier in the city of Suez, there. Cairo we're looking at now. We have seen demonstrations of tens of thousands of people coming out on the streets. You are looking now live at the picture. You see the paramilitary, military units there on the Cornish El Nil.
Ben Wedeman, can you hear me to tell us what is happening now live?
WEDEMAN: Those are police. Those are police. OK.
Those are the riot police that you're seeing, rushing to catch -- get inside those trucks which brought so many of them to the heart of Cairo. It seems that they are being redeployed, but it's not at all clear where or for what purpose.
But, you know, they've been battling against the protesters now for four days. But President Mubarak, who I'm told is currently on television now, may be addressing what the situation is.
But dramatic developments, Jim. It's only been four days. This regime that some of us here joke was as solid as the pyramids seems to be shaken, if not stirred -- Jim.
CLANCY: Ben, I know there's a very long delay here, but the question of the hour has to be this -- as you noted at the top of this hour, just about six minutes ago, curfews went in place in Suez, Alexandria, and where you are in Cairo.
Have the demonstrators given up the streets, or do they remain to confront police?
WEDEMAN: From our vantage point, it appears they're still out, but they're watching with fascination what is going on. The arrival of the army, it's not even an hour ago that they first started to drive up the street here.
And when the army arrived, I heard people crying, "God is great!" which is what they chant when there are reasons for joy or great emotion. And people here have a high respect for the army, which hasn't been on to the streets of Egypt, involved in putting down civil unrest, since 1985. And ironically, that incident was put down rioting by none other than the police themselves.
Now, as you can see, riot police are redeploying to the left-hand side of this, Cornish El Nil. We're hearing bangs -- throwing Molotov cocktails at some of these riot vans. So some mind-blowing scenes here in Cairo tonight -- Jim.
CLANCY: Ben Wedeman reporting there live. We're going to check back in with Ben in just a few minutes.
Meantime, I want to bring you up to date on what has been happening.
As Ben noted there, we're expecting to hear from President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled, been the leader of Egypt for almost 30 years, as he tries to come to grips with this crisis that is really a challenge to his authority, a challenge to his administration of a country that on one hand, has made great progress, has seen some reforms, but on the other still suffers under crushing poverty in some quarters.
What is in effect right now? Martial law, House arrest for the country's top opposition figure. And just a short time ago, the latest dramatic developments.
As night fell across Egypt, one thing appeared certain. The largest Arab nation can't remember a day like this one.
As we have noted, a curfew has now been in effect for about eight minutes on some of the major cities where there are major demonstrations. We're talking about Suez, we're talking about Alexandria, and the capital, Cairo.
This was the biggest, the most violent day yet in a series of protests against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Protests and police engaged in running battles, exchanging rocks and tear gas. There you see a demonstrator being hit by a police van.
As Ben Wedeman was noting, a lot of people cheering that the army came out. Much more respect for them in some quarters than for the riot police that are so often charged with breaking up demonstrations. As we noted, there were massive demonstrations in Alexandria, a historic city, and in the city of Suez as well.
All right. We want to remind all of you we're looking at these pictures --
COSTELLO: OK. We're going to jump out of CNN International's coverage and take it back to domestic.
We're awaiting President Mubarak. He's supposed to speak any moment now.
We're going to take a quick break. When he does speak, we'll come right back.
You stay there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Breaking news. We've been following it for hours and hours -- massive protests on the streets of Egypt, in three major cities there, Cairo, Alexandria, and also Suez.
A curfew has now been instituted. The Egyptian military on the streets to try to break up these crowds.
We're expecting to hear from President Mubarak at any time. And he's to address these protests. He hasn't so far, so it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.
We're going to join our sister network, CNN International. Hopefully President Mubarak will take to the mike soon. Let's go to CNN I. (JOINED IN PROGRESS)
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: -- not specifically back the Mubarak government. So they are walking a fine line here, in part because, as you know, Jim, there is a lot that these two governments work on together.
It was just in September when President Obama brought President Mubarak here to the White House to try and broker Israeli/Palestinian peace. Egypt has been long a key ally to the U.S., and so the U.S. is watching what's going on very wearily right now -- Jim.
CLANCY: Yes, we're watching, too.
We're expecting to hear from President Hosni Mubarak himself. He's to address his nation, we believe, in about 10 minutes' time. We'll bring that to you live.
Ed, don't go anywhere. I have a question for you, a very important one.
Obviously, as the White House monitors what's going on, they also ask the question, who's behind all of this.
HENRY: That's right.
CLANCY: In the past, people have said, you know, these are Islamic militants, this would represent the worst-case scenario, a repeat of what happened in the Iranian revolution. But when we look -- excuse me, I'm being interrupted. When we look at what's happening here, that does not appear to be the case.
Does that change the whole game for the American side?
HENRY: Well, not yet, because, as you say, it does not appear to be the case, but we don't know for sure. And that is a huge issue, obviously, for the U.S., is ascertaining who actually is behind this. And if -- and I stress "if" -- the Mubarak government were to fall, who is going to step into place?
I mean, another aspect, of course, the U.S. has to think about is regional stability. But what kind of impact would this have on another key U.S. ally, in Israel, right in the neighborhood there, if all of a sudden it is Islamic militants taking over. What does that mean for Israel? What does that mean for the potential spread of terrorism?
So there are a lot of tough questions for the U.S. to ask right now, and, frankly, they don't have the answers to a lot of these questions yet -- Jim.
CLANCY: Yes. Well, I think one of the hardest things, Ed -- and I don't know whether it's being discussed there at the White House or not, you tell me -- one of the real questions is, has the U.S. pushed hard enough in the past for those kind of reforms? The president himself we heard talking there, saying, I did push. HENRY: Well, yes, but he, more often than not, pushed in private. It's sort of just like when we saw when the Chinese president was here for a state visit at the White House. In public, very warm words. And in private, the U.S. says that's where they push, because that's how diplomacy tends to work.
But I've been on plenty of trips with President Obama, as well as with President Bush, the former president, to Egypt, where, in public, the U.S. presidents mostly have very, very warm words for Hosni Mubarak. In private, they may be tougher. But when you ask that question about whether or not the U.S. has pushed for those reforms enough, certainly not in public.
And I can tell you that I was in Cairo with President Obama when he gave that dramatic speech to the Muslim world, and he was fairly gentle with President Mubarak there, because obviously President Mubarak was his host, and that tends to be not what you do in public. And certainly the U.S. is going to be asking that question now, is this a turning point where they've got to get dramatically tougher? But is it too late? -- Jim.
CLANCY: Well, a lot of it may depend on what President Hosni Mubarak has to say --
HENRY: Absolutely.
CLANCY: -- in, what, five, 10 minutes from now?
Ed Henry with us there, live from the White House.
Ed, thank you for your perspective.
Important to note, the protests did not just spontaneously happen. Some serious planning went into them.
Take a look at this picture. It's said to be from a pamphlet distributed to prospective demonstrators advising them on what to wear, what to carry with them. Among the items, protective glasses and a scarf to protect their mouth and lungs from tear gas, spray paint for impairing the vision of riot police behind shields. It also asks people not to post the handbook on Facebook, but to send it to any of their contacts by e-mail instead.
Let's listen in -- let's go to Nile television, state television, in Egypt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The police forces have been enduring heavy pressure.
In the first place, we have to listen to the young and the Egyptian citizens and their demands. And the curfew is, I think, a very wise decision. And deployment of the army forces is for the safety of the people and the safety of the properties of everyone. So we should expect that the streets of Egypt are going to calm down, and for the curfew, I believe so. The criminal acts toward the properties of both public and private properties must not go on, and the cars are being burned and destroyed, banks are being destroyed. And there can't be reform when there is destruction going on, on the other side.
CLANCY: All right. You're listening there. Really important developments that Egyptian public television that broadcast nationwide, Nile TV, is they're covering the actual demonstrations. Obviously, stressing some of the government's side of all of this, that there's been violence on the part of some of the demonstrators.
At the same time, our own reporting has reflected the fact that among the demonstrators, there were a lot of people trying to calm their side down. And a lot of fingers pointed at the riot police for the way that they were handling a crackdown against peaceful demonstrations.
But as you heard the commentator there -- and I'm not sure who that was -- he was very clearly saying of course the voices of the young people have to be listened to. This is an important step of rapprochement, if you want, from the government, form the official side, on one hand, to the people in the streets. Obviously that was a translation.
Now, the servers of Egypt's main Internet provider were taken down, and this all happened early on Friday. As a result of that, people weren't able to send text messages in a lot of places, they didn't have Internet access to some of the social media sites.
And following that angle is our own Mohammed Jamjoom.
Mohammed, what can you tell us about the situation now?
MOHAMMED JAMJOOM, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, this is something that's being called unprecedented in Internet history. Let me break this down a little bit as to what happened last night when it comes to Internet service providers in Egypt.
Now, according to a company called Renaissance (ph) Blog -- they do a lot of analysis for Internet companies -- said that all the major carriers in Egypt, Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, these and others were taken offline as of last night. That left about 80 million people unable to use the Internet.
So the question today has been, what happens after that?
Let me show you a graph also provided by Renaissance (ph) Blog, showing what happened at about 11:00 last night, when over 3,500 providers suddenly taken offline. And we're seeing the difficulties of that having happened today.
It's not just media that's having difficulty getting their reports out. It's also people who were blogging, who were tweeting, who were putting things on Facebook the past few days, the past couple of weeks. As we all know, this movement has really been fueled by online activism and by people using social media to get the message across, to get the demonstrators out into the street. Today, virtually quiet.
A lot of the Facebook pages that have been so active and inviting people to participate in these demonstrations, they have gone quiet today. A lot of the people that have been actively tweeting in the last few days, the last couple of weeks, completely gone quiet.
So people are still trying to get the message out, they're trying to find alternative means to do that. There are ways that they are encouraging users within Egypt and in the region to do so. But really, what we've seen today, a complete clampdown on the Internet in Egypt -- Jim
CLANCY: And Mohammed, there may only about -- we don't know how many demonstrators have been out in the streets today. We can certainly put the number in the tens of thousands. But in a country of 80 million, to think that one-tenth of one percent have been out in the streets, say even one percent that are out there, 800,000, but when you look at what happened with the Internet, the 80 million people, the 60 million people that use the Internet, will have felt the effects of a government crackdown, right?
JAMJOOM: Oh, absolutely, unlike anything else before. The fact that it's been completely shut down, this isn't like just some minor manipulation of the Internet that's happened in other places in the region, some of the stuff that was going on in Tunisia, things that you'd see going on in Iran when there were protests there.
This is a complete crackdown, a complete shutdown. We've heard that echoed by Ben Wedeman and Nic Robertson today.
So you're not just seeing the anger of the people who are out there protesting, you're feeling the anger of people there who, all of a sudden, have no communication with the outside world. And we can only imagine that will fuel a lot more anger directed at the government. How the government will respond to this we have yet to see -- Jim.
CLANCY: Jon Jensen is a journalist with the "Daily News Egypt," based in Cairo. He was at one of those protests earlier today. And I want to get him in here and get him on the line as quickly as we can.
Jon, what did you witness today?
JON JENSEN, JOURNALIST, "DAILY NEWS EGYPT": Jim, I was at a protest on the Giza side of Cairo. And what started at around 500 people throwing rocks at police cordons who were firing tear gas back at them, quickly grew to numbers that -- our estimates are in the tens of thousands, maybe 15,000, 20,000.
At one point we looked down the street at Public Allah (ph), which is just west of the main square in Cairo, and we couldn't see anything but hordes of people peacefully chanting, chanting, "Mubarak, Mubarak, go to Saudi Arabia," echoing Ben Ali in Tunisia, who recently fled the country. And we saw real defiance and anger on the streets of Cairo from people that were a mixture of classes -- poor, rich -- and all of them had the same thing to say, we are tired of this government -- Jim.
CLANCY: You know, a lot of people questioning whether or not because it came on a day of prayer --
COSTELLO: We're going to step away from CNN International right now and take a quick break, while we continue to await President Mubarak. He's supposed to speak any moment now.
We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: And we're following this breaking news out of Egypt.
A curfew now in place, ordered by the president there, President Hosni Mubarak. Thousands of people still in the streets though. The Egyptian military called out. They're trying to get people off the streets.
Also, the riot police are still there, much hated by these protesters. We've seen some violence between the demonstrators here and the police, and riot police. Some of these demonstrators calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
This all has great implications for the United States and how it deals with Egypt. Egypt is a close ally of the United States.
We want to take you live to Capitol Hill now and Ed Henry, to sort of help us understand why what's happening in Egypt is so important to the United States.
HENRY: Well, Carol, I can tell you here at the White House, it's interesting, because President Obama obviously considers Egypt such a critical ally that, number one, when he gave his speech to the Muslim world, he did it in Cairo. I was there. And the president wanted to underline how important he believes President Mubarak is to some of America's top national security challenges.
Mubarak has been pivotal in trying to rally support in the region for U.S. efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Obviously, Egypt as well important in trying to build a foundation for lasting Mideast peace.
It was just last September, just a few months ago, that President Obama brought President Mubarak here to the White House to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to try and broker that Mideast peace. And so this is a tough balancing act for the White House as they see all of this play out.
White House Tommy Vietor told me a short while ago the president has been getting regular updates on this, he got a special memo this morning from his national security adviser, Tom Donilon, laying out the latest intelligence U.S. officials have on what's happening on the ground in Egypt.
And yesterday, in a session with YouTube, the president did a little Q&A session, took questions from the general public. There were a lot of people interested in Egypt. And here's what he said about some of his concerns about how all of this is playing out.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Egypt has been an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues. They made peace with Israel. President Mubarak has been very helpful on a range of tough issues in the Middle East.
But I've always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform, political reform, economic reform, is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt. And you can see these pent-up frustrations that are being displayed on the streets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: You see the president there --
COSTELLO: Ed -- pause just a moment, Ed, because we have these live pictures out of Egypt, and you know they're rare because it's very difficult to get a live signal out of there. We're going to pause and listen to the demonstrators, and then I'll ask you more questions about President Obama's response to this.
And Ed, you can hear the chaos in the streets there. You see the black smoke rising there. The Egyptian military has been called out to get these protesters off the streets.
In fact, yesterday, CNN talked to one of the protesters who says he was beaten by riot police in Egypt. And he was wondering why the United States' response to this has been so muted. "The greatest democracy on the planet," he said. "Why aren't you on the protesters' side even more?"
Why hasn't the president come out and supported these protesters in a stronger way?
HENRY: Well, because it's not quite that simple. The bottom line is that if the U.S. all of a sudden got behind these protesters, as you say, and it brought down the Mubarak government, what comes next? What is behind these protesters?
We don't have a clear handle right now. Is it just people searching and thirsting for freedom spontaneously? Are there Islamic militants behind them ready to try and take over the government of Egypt, and then all of a sudden, then we would have a much less stable government maybe spreading terror just in the neighborhood of Israel and other key U.S. allies?
So as much as the U.S. wants to stand up for human rights and basic freedoms, as you heard the president outline a moment ago in that YouTube exchange, they have to be very careful about what comes next here, because as the president also noted, Egypt has been a very strong ally to the U.S. for many years, not just this administration but many Democratic and Republican administrations before this one.
Nevertheless, as you can tell as well from the president's comments, there is an uneasiness in the White House about standing by the side of somebody like President Mubarak who has become repressive and is -- you can see now protestors being hit with violence, as Ben Wedeman and others have been reporting on, social media being cut off. He's not exactly acting obviously like a small-D Democratic leader, and the U.S. is obviously very uncomfortable with that. So they have to go through this through a number of layers, Carol.
COSTELLO: Stick with me, Ed, because we're getting -- developments are happening all the time.
Reuters now reporting there is smoke coming out of the ruling party headquarters in Cairo. We don't know much more than that, but that is disturbing.
President Mubarak, I don't know where he's going to give his speech from, but we understand that some of his family, including his son, has now fled the country for a time; they're in London.
And isn't one of the worries, Ed, that if Mubarak is chased out of office -- and I'm not saying that's imminent or anything -- but if he is, there's sort of a power backing there because you're right, nobody knows who will take his place, and whoever takes his place has to deal with the United States in some way.
HENRY: Obviously, you're right.
And you can see these live pictures, a tank on the streets of downtown Cairo. This is going to be extremely alarming to the U.S. as this continues to play out, and they're obviously very uncomfortable with the situation playing out in the sense of the pushback from the Egyptian government.
But the bottom line is, the U.S. does not know what comes next here. They're watching this unfold just as we are, and you know, if the Mubarak -- as you stressed, it's a big if -- were to fall, what comes next? The U.S. has had a very strong ally and a very stable ally in Egypt now for 30 years, just about, during President Mubarak's time in office.
But obviously, 30 years in office underscores this has not been a period of time where Egyptians have tasted very much freedom, and that does not square with what the U.S. tries to promote all around the world. So this is a very delicate balancing act, Carol.
COSTELLO: Yes. We're looking at tanks now on the streets of Cairo. You can see, and again, I've been telling people there's a curfew now in place. The Egyptian government wants everyone off the streets. These are actually live pictures. Reuters is reporting there's smoke coming from the ruling party's headquarters in Cairo. We understand there's been violence between the demonstrators and the Egyptian riot police. We don't know who started what. There are differing stories coming from either side. Egyptian Public Television saying that the demonstrators themselves became violent, but, of course, we're hearing from the demonstrators that it's been peaceful. In fact, the most the demonstrators say they've been doing chanting, "Mubarak, go to Saudi Arabia. Mubarak, go to Saudi Arabia."
We're also hearing differing things, slightly differing, from American officials. I know the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out in support of these bloggers who have been sort of organizing these demonstrations. Some of these bloggers have been thrown into prison, some of them have been killed, Ed.
HENRY: Yes, and that's why, you know, obviously you're going to see U.S. officials standing up on that very point.
But also interesting as well that in the last few days as senior U.S. officials like Robert Gibbs from the White House podium, for example, have been asked in the last couple of days whether or not the U.S. still backs President Mubarak directly. Robert Gibbs has basically said, Egypt is a strong ally ever the U.S. in general, not getting specific about backing President Mubarak.
And yet, then when vice President Biden was asked last night on PBS about whether or not President Mubarak is a dictator, he wouldn't say that he's a dictator.
And so, the U.S. is struggling. Do we defend him in some respects and say he's not a dictator? Do we back him and give him some sort of endorsement? Certainly, they're not going to do that right now, but they're walking very carefully here as they try to sort all of this out.
COSTELLO: We understand that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is about to make some remarks. We suspect it will be about the situation in Egypt. When she begins speaking, of course, we'll take you there live.
On the subject of Joe Biden, it was interesting that you said that, because he did not call Hosni Mubarak a dictator, yet Mr. Mubarak has shutdown social networks in Egypt. As you can see, demonstrators aren't being allow to freely demonstrate, although the government says they've an been attacking banks and such. But you can see the tanks there on the streets there in Cairo.
So I don't know. You're right, Ed, it's a tough place for the United States because again, Egypt has been very careful in kind of playing the mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.
HENRY: Sure.
COSTELLO: They've helpful in supporting the burgeoning government in Iraq. They've been helpful with Iran, too.
HENRY: Sure, in trying to make sure and help build a coalition in the Mideast, in that region and the world, and stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, which obviously would be a huge threat to the entire world including the U.S.
But nevertheless, at some point, as this continues to play out, the U.S. is going to be under enormous pressure to call this what it is, if the government is in fact cracking down, if tanks continue to roll in the streets, and if social media continues to be cut off, the U.S. is going to be under intense pressure to call it what it is, call Hosni Mubarak as a dictator. They're not ready to do that yet, as you note.
But I would also recall all little perspective about how much pressure and criticism this very White House faced about two years ago when we saw similar scenes playing out in Iran and there were a lot of international critics saying that President Obama wasn't doing enough to back up the protesters in Iran who maybe were about to overthrow that government. And then when that fizzled out, there was a lot of criticism of this White House.
They're acutely aware of that, obviously, but they're also not going to rush to judgment right now. I mean, the most important thing is to have some calm, some reasonable judgment and figure all of this out.
I was talking to a White House official a short time ago who was talking about the fact Robert Gibbs moved his briefing from 1:00 p.m. Eastern to 2:00 p.m. Eastern. I understand from this official the reason is they're considering bringing in maybe one of their national security officials to be with Robert Gibbs to talk about this. They realize they're going to get a lot of questions, all of these questions we're chewing over now.
And so far, the U.S. has been very careful, very cautious, understandable to some extent, but as this continues to play out, they're going to face more and more pressure to speak out and speak out loudly, Carol.
COSTELLO: and I'm sure you'll be in the White House briefing today. It should be very interesting.
As I said, Secretary of State Clinton, maybe she'll address the situation in Cairo, Egypt, we don't know. She's speaking about Colombia, but if she makes remarks about Egypt, we'll take you there.
We're also awaiting the president of Egypt, President Mubarak, to begin speaking. He was suppose to begin about a half hour ago and he has not. But when he starts his speech, of course, we'll take you to Egypt live.
We're going to take a quick break, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: We're continuing to cover the breaking news out of Cairo, Egypt, and also in Alexandria and in Suez in Egypt. As you can see, there are tanks on the streets of Egypt, some fires are burning. They're trying to break up these protestors. They just instituted a curfew.
Thousands of protestors have been protesting for hours now, right after Friday prayers, and they're calling for their government to improve the economy there, to make their lives better. In fact, some of them are chanting they want President Mubarak to leave the country.
Let's go back to Washington and Capitol Hill.
I understand, Ed Henry, you just got a tweet from Robert Gibbs. What is he saying?
HENRY: Yes. Very interesting, Carol. You and I were just speaking about the fact Robert Gibbs is going to have a briefing scheduled for 2:00 p.m. Eastern and we were wondering whether or not he would speak out a little more as the White House has so far as the pictures have unfolded.
And literally as we were speaking, Robert Gibbs has just put out from his official Twitter account a tweet that says, quote, "Very concerned about violence in Egypt -- government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people and turn on social networking and Internet. "
As you can imagine, that's now being retweeted as it comes out from the official account, @presssec, for Robert Gibbs. And it goes without saying that Robert Gibbs does not just sit down -- I was just looking, I think he has in just several months that he's been on Twitter has only sent out 300, 400, maybe 500 tweets at the most. Yes, 580 tweets.
So he does not send these out often, and when he does, he doesn't just do it carelessly. This is very carefully sent out by the White House. And the fact is, they are now putting more pressure on the Egyptian government and using a social networking tool like Twitter to do it, Carol.
COSTELLO: Interesting. I did find it interesting that the only comments the president made on the situation in Egypt was via YouTube.
HENRY: Well, that was only the forum in which -- it's the only interview he's done since the State of the Union, which by the way interesting because I remember talking to White House aides on Tuesday before the State of the Union, and they were touting the fact that 80 percent of the speech was going to be about the economy and domestic issues, only 20 percent about national security, because obviously that's what a lot of Americans that's what they want to hear, that's the heavy focus the president has. But here we are just within three days and suddenly this big international and national security issue has vaulted to the top of this president's agenda.
But you're right, he also could, on his own, schedule another event, come out and make some comments. And thus far this president has not done that. Now that Robert Gibbs has put out this tweet putting pressure on the Egyptian government, you wonder if later this afternoon, tonight we may see the president. Have no idea whether we will, but as international pressure ratchets up on the Egyptian government to stop, and there's pressure on this White House to stand up for the protestors, we may very well see the president if not today over the weekend. Who knows?
COSTELLO: And you wonder, President Mubarak is about to speak, we've been expecting him to speak for the past hour now, but once he takes the podium, you can imagine every eye in the White House will be turned on the television I'm sure.
HENRY: Big time.
COSTELLO: Stay with us, Ed. We're joining Elise Labott, I believe she's on the phone from the Washington bureau. She's our State Department producer.
Elise, we understand that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is speaking on Colombia, but she might say something about Egypt. What do you think?
ELISE LABOTT, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT PRODUCER (via telephone): Well, Carol, I think she'll certainly say something on Egypt. There are journalists that are going to be asking her questions and really been looking to see what this administration is going to say.
I mean, the protestors on the street are looking for a very strong statement from the United States of support, and at the same time the United States has to walk, as Ed had been saying, this very careful line because on the one hand it definitely wants to support those aspirations of the Egyptian people and make sure that there's no crackdown, that there's no use of the security services that we've seen, but at the same time, the Egyptian government is a very close ally of the United States.
So the U.S. is really focusing on the rights issue, not talking about anything other than the human rights, not cracking down, making sure that the Internet is not cut off. Obviously, yesterday the U.S. warned against that, and the government did it anyway.
So the message is very focused on rights. All issues right now that the U.S. is talking about are falling well short of anything resembling calling for regime change in Egypt.
COSTELLO: OK, Elise, stay there. Ed, you stay there too.
We're going to take a quick break, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: A curfew now in effect in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez in Egypt, three cities where violent protests have been spreading. That curfew in place. We've seen armored personnel carriers on the streets, we've seen tanks on the street, we've seen Egyptian riot police on the streets, all trying to get the protestors to go home.
Ben Wedeman has been in the thick of it for hours now. He joins us live now.
Ben, what's the scene now?
WEDEMAN: The scene here is mindboggling. The air is thick with black smoke and tear gas is causing us to gag.
Right in front of our office on the Cornice, which is the main road by the Nile, we have what looks like an armored personnel carrier from the army on the main -- one of the main bridge across the Nile. There seem to be hundreds if not thousands of protestors who are trying to get off the bridge and onto this main road. They're being stopped by about 150 riot police who have been just firing constantly tear gas, making it impossible to breathe here. Of course, the tear gas is mixed with rancid, thick smoke from burning tires and cars as well.
The nation -- the curfew went into effect about 50 minutes ago, but it doesn't seem any of the protestors are observing it. They continue to try to make their way into the middle of the city.
Egyptian television announced that President Mubarak would make some sort of statement, but that has yet to come.
He, in his capacity as a commander in chief of the armed forces, announced a curfew from 6:00 p.m. to 7:0 a.m. in Alexandria, Suez, and of course Cairo, Cairo being the scene of the biggest protests and clashes between the police and the protestors.
No idea how long this is going to go or really where it's going. The protesters don't seem to be backing down on their biggest single demand, that President Hosni Mubarak leave power now.
COSTELLO: Ben, I know it's difficult for you to speak because you're breathing in all of that tear gas and the other things in the air, and we appreciate your staying with us.
Reuters was reporting there was smoke coming from the ruling party's headquarters in Cairo. Do you know anything about that?
WEDEMAN: Well, I can see down the road in that direction and it appears that there were cars on fire in front of the ruling party headquarters, but from my vantage point I don't think it's on fire at this moment.
There were a lot of riot police guarding it throughout the last few days. Although, that seems to be very close to the most intense clashes between the protesters and the riot police but I really can't tell for sure.
COSTELLO: The public television station, I suspect, is controlled by the government. They are saying that there are exceptions and extends to journalists like you and ambulances and firefighters.
Does that make you feel safer about roaming the streets down there, because I understand you had trouble earlier? WEDEMAN: I wouldn't feel safe at all on the street at the moment.
Earlier today we were attacked by plain-clothed policemen who broke and stole our camera. One of our stringers who shoot for us sometimes, she got hit by several rubber bullets fired by the police. Other journalists have been attacked by plain clothed and uniformed police.
The problem is not the protesters. The protesters from the very beginning, four days ago, of these demonstrations have been welcoming, they've been happy. In fact, they -- they have been cheering when they see that we are from CNN.
It's really the government. You can sense that the police are angry at journalists for showing pictures of what's going on and we're trying our damndest to get these pictures out, but we have no Internet connection, no cell phones. Can't even send an SMS. I've been trying to reach my wife in the suburbs and it's been very difficult. Communications are the biggest challenge, in addition, of course, to the violence that the police are subjecting us to.
COSTELLO: How are you getting a signal up? Can I ask you that or can't you say?
WEDEMAN: I'd rather not say because it's best that we keep that sort of our thing ourselves. We have a backup system and -- but it's also under stress because many other journalists are using the same system and that's why sometimes our signal comes and goes. It's not clear, it's --
COSTELLO: I understand.
Let me ask you this question, because the Egyptian government and military seems to be showing some restraint over the past several days and now all of a sudden this is happening. You see the armored personnel vehicles on the road, you see tanks on the road, you see -- I can hear the tear gas being fired into the crowds. They've cut off social media, they're arresting journalists, they're attacking journalists.
I mean, isn't this making it worse?
WEDEMAN: Well, certainly if you speak to -- every Egyptian I have spoke to is flabbergasted by what is going on. The violence of the police, the absolute intolerance for any sort of peaceful expression of discontent has left people wondering if this government is really beginning to shake from these protests.
And let's keep in mind, it's only four days now. Regarding this sort of -- the behavior of the police, on the first day, on Tuesday, they were under orders to be restrained. But since then, a series of declarations saying there would be zero tolerance for demonstrations and that's certainly what we've seen.
Now the army, as far as we can tell, has not yet been brought into the fray. They are stationed outside government buildings. We've got one tank right in front of our office. But they have not been used to suppress the crowd.
Now I'm seeing two soldiers walking up the street in the direction of the protesters but what is interesting is they do not have -- no, they do have automatic weapons. I thought they didn't . It's hard to see and my eyes are not working very well at the moment. But the army isn't in large enough numbers to replace the riot police. And the worry is that the police, the army themselves won't have any better success at controlling the crowds as the riot police have.
COSTELLO: Well, let me ask you, Ben, like the curfew has been put into place, you said not many people or listening to government. So how big are the crowds that you are seeing?
WEDEMAN: I'm sorry. How big are the crowds?
COSTELLO: Yes.
WEDEMAN: Well, it's difficult to say because we've got a very panoramic view of the Nile from where we are and we can see hundreds of people on the bridge. But I know that there are demonstrations going on everywhere, even in my neighborhood, which is a leafy, quiet neighborhood. On the margins of it there are demonstrations.
So I think these scenes are being duplicated in many places around Cairo, if not all -- many parts of Egypt as well.
COSTELLO: And another question, you said that people were cheering when you said you were from CNN when you were out and about in the crowds. We talked to a protester on the street of Cairo who said that he was sort of taken aback that the United States wasn't speaking out more strongly in support of the protesters.
What are you hearing?
WEDEMAN: There's a good deal of frustration with the U.S. attitude towards the Mubarak government because the feeling is that the United States has never really pressured Mubarak to make the kind of reforms that Egyptian people have always been demanding.
What's interesting is that if you recall, President George W. Bush was, by the standards of any U.S. president, was the harshest when it came to Egypt's human rights record. But the feeling was that when Obama came in, he wanted to be different from Bush and kept his diplomacy more private, behind closed doors and left criticism out of the public arena.
Now, right now -- are you seeing our live picture?
COSTELLO: Yes, I am. Yes, we are. Tell us what are we seeing? We're seeing people running (INAUDIBLE) --
(CROSSTALK)
WEDEMAN: OK, what you are seeing is the riot police are slowly back, the demonstrators are moving forward.
What's interesting, there's a soldier amongst the demonstrators. He's not stopping anybody, but nobody is harassing him. The soldiers are trying to calm the crowd down, but the crowd is just moving forward.
I can't make out what they are chanting, but they're moving forward. We haven't -- oh, eleutheria (ph), freedom that is what they are chanting. And they are moving forward, these ministries of information -- now the police are firing tear gas back at them, but the protesters are throwing rocks and they don't seem to be driven back by that.
COSTELLO: Ben, let's pause and just listen for a time. Thank you.
WEDEMAN: I'm sorry. Say again?
COSTELLO: Let's pause and let's listen for a time.
WEDEMAN: OK.
(CHANTING & SHOUTING)
COSTELLO: So Ben, as you're watching this, tell us how unusual this is to see on the streets of Cairo?
WEDEMAN: This is unprecedented in modern Egyptian history, that you've had mass protests going forward like this.
And the army stepping in -- as you can see, the army -- nobody is attacking the army. The army is being treated with respect -- it's not adulation. People cheering and waving at them. The army is not trying to keep the protesters back but they are very angry at the riot police who over the last few days have been brutal in their crackdown on the protest movement.
But this is an incredible scene. This is, you know, history in the making on live television.
Let's just listen in.
(CHANTING & SHOUTING)
(WHISTLES)
COSTELLO: We're going to break away. Of course, we'll be right back, but we must take a quick break, Ben.
We'll be right back, stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
