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Parker Spitzer
Deadly Clashes in Egypt; Egyptian Protests Turn Violent; Makeshift Medical Centers
Aired February 02, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program. Kathleen is out this evening.
For the past few nights as I've come on television to tell you about what's happening in Egypt the streets of Cairo have been very quiet. It's 8:00 Eastern Time here in New York but in Cairo, it's 3:00 in the morning.
Tonight, everything has changed. This is Tahrir Square right now. With many shell-shocked protesters still wandering the area after a night filled with drama and violence.
This was the scene in another corner of the square just a few minutes ago. Everywhere destruction, the fires left behind by Molotov cocktails continue to burn. The fireballs have been hurled all night by the pro-Mubarak forces who stormed into the square today.
Shell-shocked anti-government protesters continue to wander the streets amid army tanks that rolled in earlier this evening. Every so often we hear gunfire in the square.
This was a day of organized thuggery, allegedly at the direction of President Hosni Mubarak. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of armed men, rampaging through Tahrir Square in one scene that looked more like a movie than real life, some came storming in on horses and camels wielding machetes.
Take a look at this amazing scene.
This was just one of many shocking scenes of violence that were live on camera all day. Here the questions I want to drill down on tonight. Has Mubarak lit a fuse that could lead to the radicalization of the protesters or even to civil war? Will today's violence undercut popular support for the protest? Will evidence emerge to definitively link Mubarak to today's thuggery and would that be the final nail in his coffin?
Meanwhile, there were hundreds of casualties today and no one can say for sure how many are dead. A number of journalists were attacked including CNN's Anderson Cooper, along with this photo journalist Neil Hallsworth and his producer Mary Anne Fox.
Anderson joins us now live from Cairo.
Anderson, tell us what happened today to you in that harrowing attack and what's the scene there in the square.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Well, most importantly the scene in the square right now continues to be a standoff between pro-Mubarak forces and anti-Mubarak forces who have held Liberation Square now for 10 days. It is now Thursday here in Cairo.
What we have seen today has been nothing short of extraordinary, Eliot. I mean, you have seen the pictures. There has been -- the vantage point that I had was in front of Egypt's -- the Egyptian museum.
Basically all day long there was an ebb and flow as pro-Mubarak protesters would surge forward attempting, it seems, to gain access to Liberation Square and perhaps drive out the pro -- the anti-Mubarak demonstrators who've been occupying it. That never happened.
At one point they got very close today to being able to actually enter the square but then they were pushed back finally by anti- Mubarak protesters and at this hour tonight the anti-Mubarak protesters are in control of the entire area in front of the Egyptian museum.
The pro-Mubarak forces which have dwindled in number but still remain, are still throwing Molotov cocktails. Every time a cocktail lands in a group of people, a cheer goes up from the pro-Mubarak supporter crowd. We've seen Molotov cocktails being dropped from the roofs of nearby buildings attempting to get them into the crowd.
What is most shocking -- what is most disturbing and especially, Eliot, most disturbing for what may happen in the hours ahead once daylight comes is that the Egyptian military all day long virtually stood by and watched this. There were some shots were fired, yes, throughout the day. The details of which were not clear, whether they were fired into the air, fired at individuals or whether it was military or people within the crowd firing those shots.
But by and large what we witnessed was Egyptian soldiers sitting on their tanks, sitting on their armored personnel carriers, which had been in position now for days around that square, doing nothing, watching all this unfold.
There was at one point today when several military vehicles, some trucks were brought in right in front of Egypt's museum in order to block both groups of protesters, one from the other, but at one point the pro-Mubarak forces surged forward, overturned one of those vehicles in one of their attempts to gain the square.
Those trucks were -- some of which were eventually sent alight. Some fires still burning at this hour.
It has been pitch battles in the streets and again the question is what will happen when morning comes, when light breaks? Will more pro-Mubarak protesters join the fray? Will more anti-Mubarak protesters join the fray, be able to gain access to the square to support those who are still in the square at this hour? They are not leaving. They are holding their ground. But the question is, Eliot, what happens in the hours ahead? We witnessed this firsthand when we were -- my team and I attempted to get to the square to report on both sides, we wanted to talk to pro-Mubarak protesters and anti-Mubarak protesters. We wanted to hear both of their opinions, both of their vantage points.
We were set upon by a crowd of pro-Mubarak supporters, punching us, kicking us, trying to rip the clothes off my producer, trying to take the camera from my cameraman, punching me in the head several times and the body. All of us were punched.
It lasted for several minutes. We immediately tried to get ourselves out of the situation. Walking, not running so as to incite the crowd even further, but nothing seemed to stop this crowd. It continues to try to pummel us. We finally were able to reach a safe location and have been broadcasting ever since the developments that we've continued to watch.
But it was just a small taste of what other reporters, many other reporters experienced. Anybody with a camera was a target on the streets of Cairo today around this square by pro-Mubarak protesters.
We've been documenting these -- this demonstration now for going on -- for 10 days now, and ever since the police left the streets it has been incredibly peaceful among the anti-Mubarak forces. Today the pro-Mubarak forces showed up and it has been a different story entirely, Eliot.
SPITZER: You know, Anderson -- well, first of all, thankful you're safe, of course, you and the members of your crew, and that, of course, is something we're all thrilled and we've been praying for.
But let me ask you this. Suddenly people show up in buses with Molotov cocktails, with machetes on camels and horseback. Where are they coming from? What do we know about who is behind it? This doesn't happen by happenstance. It doesn't happen without organization.
What do we know about who's organized this?
COOPER: Here's what I know. I can tell you at this hour last night, basically this exact time, there was a large pro-Mubarak demonstration, almost sounded like a party. We could hear it. It was several blocks from a location we were at, several blocks from Liberation Square.
There was a loud sound system there which seems to have been supplied by somebody who had money, because it was a very nice sound system. They were playing music. There was a party atmosphere at this pro-Mubarak rally last night after his speech.
At about 5:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, during my show which was last night in the United States -- Tuesday night in the United States, a pro-Mubarak mob came from that party, showed up at our live shot location which was in a television building well-known location, and started throwing rocks at us chanting at us, yelling obscenities at us. Trying to disrupt the broadcast.
We continued to broadcast but that was a sign to us that we knew something had changed Wednesday and that pro-Mubarak forces were being mobilized, were going out into the streets, and I would see all throughout the day as these demonstrations turned ugly and turned violent, large crowds of pro-Mubarak supporters coming in groups of 100, 200, sometimes 300 with signs, clearly coming with weapons, as well.
So there does seem to be a level of organization to it. Who's organizing it? I can't say for sure. Certainly the anti-Mubarak demonstrators will tell you that there are members of the secret police in that group. There are instigators there trying to foment violence. Others say that they're being paid by businessmen, pro- Mubarak businessmen.
Again, I can't confirm any of that but certainly there were instigators in the pro-Mubarak crowd today looking for a fight. They're the ones who attacked us. They're the ones who started this violence and the violence started on the pro-Mubarak side. Molotov cocktails were the -- they were the first to be thrown by pro-Mubarak supporters, Eliot.
SPITZER: All right, Anderson, thank you. No doubt we'll be talking to you more both tonight and through the coming days. And stay safe. And don't let any of those thugs on the other side know exactly where you are.
All right. Joining us now is CNN correspondent Ivan Watson.
Ivan, you're looking down on Tahrir Square right now. What are you seeing?
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've been watching a day of bloody battles, Eliot, here. I'm about three-quarters of a mile from where Anderson is and I'm on the opposite side of the barricade that has separated the pro-government demonstrators from the opposition demonstrators, and I'm in territory controlled by them.
We've seen and we can perhaps show you some still photos of the stream of men that have been coming from the front lines of these clashes with wounds from stones that have been hurled, just hailstorms of stones rolled back and forth in front of the Egyptian museum here. Around the parked tanks of the Egyptian army, which has not stepped in at all to try to keep these two warring factions apart.
And as we've moved into the nighttime then sporadic gunfire periodically. We've seen Molotov cocktails thrown over. We've seen medics treating wounded people on the pavement underneath the street ramps here and the opposition demonstrators have been digging in for a siege.
We've been listening to one of their leaders on a loudspeaker exhorting the crowd here. At some point calling for jihad, at other points saying we were holding a peaceful protest and they attacked us so now we must fight back. And mobilizing the thousands of young men here, women and older men here, directing them to different entry points of this roughly one-square-mile area square in the heart of Cairo to extend the different entrances depending on where attacks come from the pro-regime supporters -- Eliot.
SPITZER: Ivan, you know, it is one thing, of course, for the military to stand by passively when things are peaceful. It's another thing for the military to sit in its tanks when there's violence like this on the streets.
Have the anti-Mubarak forces asked the military to come in and protect them from the Molotov cocktails, to chase away the thugs who were throwing the Molotov cocktails and the fireballs and the rocks? What is the military doing and what are they being asked to do?
WATSON: You know, that's a really good question. And unfortunately, I'm holed up. I'm basically in lockdown on the fifth floor of a building overlooking this square and unable to move out.
The tanks are there. The soldiers that have been stationed in this square, some of them are behind the gates and the fences of the Egyptian museum, which holds incredible treasure trove of ancient artifacts. They've been protecting that. They have put some fires out with hoses from the Molotov cocktails, but they have not participating at all in trying to break people up.
Though when I left in the early morning hours on Wednesday, at 3:00 a.m., long before this all kicked off, I had seen them keeping apart rival groups in those predawn hours. I do know that in the days leading up to this, there were efforts made by the opposition protesters here to woo the military to their side. They were giving them bananas, they were giving the soldiers sandwiches, posing for photos with them and saying that you are with us.
But when push came to shove and the bloody vicious fighting erupted, the military was with neither side, as these two competing factions tried to beat each other to death here -- Eliot.
SPITZER: All right, thank you, Ivan, for that compelling story. No doubt we'll be talking much more in the days ahead.
As Ivan was just telling us, makeshift medical clinics are keeping people alive in the square. One of the doctors who's been performing triage in a makeshift clinic in a mosque is Dr. Mostafa Hussein. He joins us now on the phone.
Doctor Hussein, thank you for joining us.
DR. MOSTAFA HUSSEIN, TREATING WOUNDED AT MAKESHIFT CLINIC: It's a pleasure.
SPITZER: So tell us what you are seeing even at this moment in the square. Does the violence continue?
HUSSEIN: Yes, it seems that near the northern part of the square where it's actually meets with another one called (INAUDIBLE), there is a serene scene to be honest. It's almost like a medieval war scene where people banging on iron gates and making loud noises just to stay alert and ready.
And there -- the anti-Mubarak protesters managed to move forward from the museum to -- up to after the museum and it seems that the thugs hired by the government are all above the 6th October Bridge throwing stones on the -- on the protesters.
It's also really reached at that point a situation where it is very difficult to move forward more because simply they are higher above and the protesters are below. However, they seem to be defending the square very properly in every direction and I think very much calm right now in the way that people are camping. Some people are camping.
There are some people who are wounded. However, the numbers decreased but during the day the numbers were in the hundreds. It seems that something is going on right now at the front -- at the (INAUDIBLE) square where people just stood up from the campsites right now and they're running forward to the front line.
SPITZER: When you first went to Tahrir square, did you go to be a protester or did you go because you knew your medical --
HUSSEIN: No, I joined as a protester first but then suddenly at around 1:00 p.m. or 2:00 p.m., I seen the pro-Mubarak protesters charging in with horses and a camel even and then -- and it was -- and it started -- the whole violence started then. It was a chaotic scene. I had in my bag some medical supplies and I tried to help.
SPITZER: And did you see the Molotov cocktails and the firebombs being thrown as well over the course of the day?
HUSSEIN: Yes, I've seen them. There were actually tens of them thrown from both -- from both sides.
SPITZER: And were people being injured by the firebombs as well as the rocks? Were the injuries burn injuries? How severe were the injuries?
HUSSEIN: No, I haven't seen personally burn injuries, but there might be, but I haven't seen.
SPITZER: And who do you believe was behind the folks who came in on horseback and camel? Who does everybody believe was behind that?
HUSSEIN: We are -- we are sure that they are -- because already the protesters here managed to detain some of them and they've asked them who are they, how did they come here, and so on? And these are just thugs who were hired by the state. They were even told that they would take 200 pounds for coming here but even just gave them 50 pounds even.
SPITZER: All right, well, Dr. Hussein, thank you for what you're doing, taking care of the injured and the wounded, and keep up your good work. Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
HUSSEIN: It's a pleasure. SPITZER: Thank you.
When we come back, have the protests triggered a chain of events beyond anyone's control? A man who truly understands what happens in the course of a revolution will join us next. You'll want to hear what Richard Haass has to say.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: The fairy tale of peaceful protests leading to Mubarak's resignation is now long gone. Instead we're faced with chaos in the streets with no end in sight.
Indeed, Richard Haass says we're only in the second inning of what could be a long, ugly process.
Richard is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, former director of policy planning for the State Department. He's also one of the wisest voices on foreign policy issues and he's here with me tonight.
Richard, thank you. Always great to have you here.
RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Thank you.
SPITZER: So is time now the enemy of a good affirmative outcome here?
HAASS: The short answer is yes. Every day that goes by it puts the military in an impossible situation. Either they do what they did today which is stand by, look feckless, look like they're siding with the regime implicitly as people get hurt, or they have to move, but to sort of stand in between, to do this seems to me is a very bad thing.
SPITZER: It struck me watching today to stand on the sidelines when there's violence does as you say make you look feckless and weak and ineffective, or supportive of the violence --
HAASS: Right.
SPITZER: -- to stand on the sidelines when there is a peaceful standoff, you rose above the fray. But no longer is that possible.
HAASS: Exactly right. Things changed today in Egypt. Things changed today in Cairo. Today was a bad, bad, bad turn for the worse. We saw these people come out clearly. They're subsidized one way or another, aided and abetted by the Mubarak regime.
This was bad because it had the -- the civil war is too big of a phrase but had the specter of moving in that direction. And the army now has to decide very quickly, to put it bluntly, Eliot, whose side are they on?
SPITZER: Right. HAASS: Are they going to be on the side of the regime to perpetuate and preserve Mubarak? Or are they on the side of political transition?
SPITZER: They can't stand by tomorrow, another day of Molotov cocktails and hundreds of injuries and --
HAASS: Maybe tomorrow but not Friday. Friday traditionally is the big day of protests. You're going to have almost competing narratives in the mosques. People are going to pour out of the mosques in Cairo and other cities in Egypt on Friday. Friday I don't think the military can do what it did today.
SPITZER: And so this is reaching a crescendo, although we always say it will be decided tomorrow and it just keeps going longer and longer.
HAASS: Not necessarily decided but the people begin to draw conclusions.
SPITZER: Right.
HAASS: That at some point the military loses legitimacy. At some point, people like Omar Suleiman, the vice president, have to decide whether it's in his interest and its institution's interest to essentially get Mubarak out of power sooner rather than later or they get stuck in exactly the scenario you're talking about.
SPITZER: Talking about institutional presence, there has not been any leader, any singular voice for the anti-Mubarak forces. You know Mohamed ElBaradei did not emerge today saying anything that was much more than what he said in the past days and nobody is looking to him right now for leadership.
HAASS: He hasn't had a lot of traction within Egypt. He was seen by many Egyptians as almost a European. He had good timing. He came back last week. He is a smart, decent man, but he's not in control and this is still a ground-up type of thing.
SPITZER: Right.
HAASS: He doesn't have real -- a real big political profile yet in Egypt.
SPITZER: But for that matter neither does the Muslim Brotherhood.
HAASS: Exactly.
SPITZER: They don't seem to be exercising any control?
HAASS: No, they're acting with real restraint, but as you said, it's still early days.
SPITZER: Right.
HAASS: But for all we know they're hiding behind people to basically make this look like something of a democratic secular thing.
SPITZER: Right.
HAASS: They're may be playing for the long game. Very few revolutions get decided early on. Think of the Kerenskys of history in Russia.
SPITZER: Right.
HAASS: The Barzagans in Iran. The first or second leaders of revolutions are not necessarily the ultimate one.
SPITZER: That's right. Now, switching to a different continent, those who were watching somewhat nervously trying to orchestrate an outcome, here in the White House, the State Department.
It seems as though the White House took its shot. It sent over an emissary. It said to Mubarak, you must get out. He said not so fast. I won't -- I'll serve out my term but not run for reelection.
Where is the White House now? What can the United States do at this point? What leverage do we have?
HAASS: Very little leverage is the honest answer. Publicly we should keep a very low profile. We don't want to in a sense make ourselves look like we're responsible for this or in control for this -- of this because then we're going to be blamed for any outcome, so we ought to keep a very low public profile.
But privately I would suggest that either the president's envoy Frank Wisner or somebody else ought to be talking not just to the Mubarak but to the military leadership, and basically say if you want to preserve your country, you want to preserve your institution, you probably need now to bring about a change in leadership.
SPITZER: Haven't we already lost a great deal of leverage and authority visually certainly both in the street in Cairo where everybody now thinks the United States went in, took its shot to get rid of Mubarak, and at one level we failed. He's still there. And from Mubarak's perspective, we went to him and I presume we said, look, we really want you out, and the White House is saying -- their quote today was, "now is yesterday," in terms of when they want the transition to begin.
And we failed there, as well. So where is the White House flexing muscles effectively?
HAASS: Well, again, come back to what you yourself said a minute ago. We don't have all that much influence. We certainly don't have control. Words like that ought to be banished from the conversation.
SPITZER: Right.
HAASS: Privately we've got to basically make the case but at the end of the day Mubarak and the army leadership can tell us to buzz off. They may want to do that. They may basically say we prefer this future rather than the uncertain future, those, quote/unquote, pro- democrats are arguing for. And at the end of the day we may have to live with that.
And one of the thing history shows as you know that regimes that don't lose their nerve, that aren't scared to kill their own people, can often survive. One of the big questions is, is the army willing to do that? Does this army begin to unravel at some point?
That's quite possible.
SPITZER: That's right. And I think I'm correct in saying that the Egyptian army has not in recent memory ever fired on Egyptian citizens. That would be a dramatic step.
HAASS: Right. That's why army has so much more prestige than the police. And the army has to again be very, very cognizant that they're putting that in jeopardy.
SPITZER: But to come back to U.S. leverage. And I know you've said repeatedly, and I happen to agree we have very little leverage, how about the billion dollars in aid everybody talks about? Does that matter? Does the military care that much about that?
HAASS: Sure, they care it but not more than they care about their home political future. The billion dollars is important for the military. But what's going on in the streets, the relationship between the military and Mubarak, that's far more fundamental.
SPITZER: How much do we know if anything about how public opinion outside the square, outside the streets we can see on camera in Cairo are being affected by this violence? Is this scaring people to say we want peace and stability or are they saying now Mubarak has got to go?
HAASS: Possibly neither. I might also say is they simply want order. And that's one of the dangerous things. When things begin to deteriorate, you don't want the choice to become chaos or order, because then they might vote either for repression or even for Muslim Brotherhood that could deliver something like order. So that's the real problem.
We don't really know in terms of public opinion. The U.S. embassy is in so-called lockdown, our diplomats are not moving around. One of your reporters, as you say, -- Anderson Cooper was beat up. So westerners have to keep a low profile now.
SPITZER: All right. Richard, thank you so much for those insights. And no doubt this will be unfortunately continuing for sometime to come.
HAASS: No doubt.
SPITZER: All right, thank you.
Up next, those angry young faces we've been seeing every night on the streets of Cairo, it's all about democracy or is it? Is there another cause for the rage? We'll look for the answer in an unlikely place, a graveyard. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Young Egyptian faces seething with rage. We've seen it on TV screens for days now. Where does the anger come from? Some of it comes from poverty, desperate poverty along with hunger and homelessness.
Cairo is home to some of the largest slums in the world and the biggest is here in a place they call the City of the Dead. It's a cemetery in Cairo where the dead and the living exist side by side. That's right. Millions of people live in a cemetery. As many as five million of Cairo's poorest and most desperate. It's a huge area, stretching seven miles across, and there among the graves of the long dead Egyptians, the poor of Cairo have carved out a community, homes, schools, even medical clinics. And it's not just those without jobs or families, the working poor are there too. Anyone who can't afford another place to live.
For some, the city of the dead is a step up. They're called the zabaleen (ph), the garbage collectors, and they live in so-called garbage cities, derelict buildings where they eat, sleep and sort the city's garbage to recycle and sell for pennies a day. And even that is in peril since the government began paying multinational corporations to collect the city's garbage.
The gap between rich and poor is only getting wider. Wealthy Egyptians used to live side by side with their poor neighbors but in the last few years, they've moved away sometimes to gated communities seeking safety or the illusion of safety.
The statistics are staggering. Fifty percent of the young Egyptian men and 90 percent of young women are jobless two years after college. Over 40 percent of Egyptians, some 35 million people live on less than $2 a day. The city of dead is actually become a tourist attraction. One of the world's largest slums and one of the most desperate places in the world.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Tonight, the bloody battle in the streets of Cairo has a new target, journalists. As our own Anderson Cooper reported earlier, he and his crew were attacked today by pro-Mubarak supporters, thugs who punched them in the head repeatedly and tried to steal their camera. And it wasn't just Anderson. ABC's Christiane Amanpour was surrounded by an angry mob and chased from the scene. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he wants Mubarak. We have the American. (INAUDIBLE) OK. Go.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, ABC NEWS: You want us to go. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I want you to go from here.
AMANPOUR: Why?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: And so was Katie Couric of CBS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATIE COURIC, CBS NEWS: If President Mubarak thought last night's announcement --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: Meanwhile, journalists from Egypt and around the globe were manhandled and some badly beaten. Dan Abrams is the founder of Mediate.com. He's been watching the situation, joins us tonight with the latest.
Dan, thank you for joining us.
DAN ABRAMS, FOUNDER, MEDIATE.COM: Hi, Eliot.
SPITZER: Have you ever seen anything like this? Is this typical? Is this the risk the journalists now face?
ABRAMS: Now, look, there's no question that journalists around the world face risks. This is not the only place in the world we've seen since 1992, well over 100 journalists killed in Iraq. So this is not the first time this has happened. But this sort of concerted effort to kind of manhandle journalists, meaning they're not kidnapping them. They're not causing permanent damage in most cases. This seems to be an effort at intimidation and that's what's particularly odd about what seems to be happening. It's such a bad strategy. I mean, if the pro-government forces are saying among other things why don't you rough up some journalists from western countries, it's a horrible political position to take, as well.
SPITZER: It is staggering and the same day that some of the thugs with Molotov cocktails show up and start lobbing those into peaceful protesters, the same thugs go after journalists sequentially and in unison. It does seem as though it must be a directive from above saying try to intimate them.
ABRAMS: The question comes from where. Right? From where above. Let's assume for a moment that it is happening from above. Is it happening from some middle to high-level person in government or is it coming from the top? Or is it just that these are, quote, "angry mobs" and they see someone who represents the west or they see someone holding a camera, or they see someone who doesn't look like they belong and they go after them. We don't know that for certain.
SPITZER: Right. Look, a mob is always a dangerous thing. The anger is difficult to control under any circumstances and so you're right, it could just be that the journalists who look different are lightning rods. On the other hand, it seems as though there was a unified effort today to target western journalists.
ABRAMS: It does. It seems -- it's a little too coincidental that as we are suddenly seeing the pro-government, whatever you want to call them, responders, protesters, et cetera, that in conjunction with that we're suddenly seeing journalists being mistreated.
SPITZER: Now let me ask you this, you have been a manager in a big network context. How do you as an executive weigh the risk that you will expose journalists to sending them into a situation like this?
ABRAMS: Yes, and there's always a risk and one of the great risks is that journalists who are there on the field are there for the story.
SPITZER: Right.
ABRAMS: Right. Which is that there are journalists, many of them who become so devoted to getting that story that sometimes they forget about their own safety and that's the responsibility of the managers, of the editor is to say, hey, we've got two interests here. Number one is your safety, and, number two, is getting the story and in that order.
SPITZER: But, of course, these are the journalists who do give us the most probative, the most exciting, the most real sense of what's going on not only in Cairo right now, but in Afghanistan or Iraq.
ABRAMS: That's right and there are some stories that I've seen where you see journalists, what looks like they are playing to the camera. Right? They're trying to get the right shot. That's not the case here. This is a story where the reports from the ground matter.
SPITZER: Right.
ABRAMS: There's only one way to get a sense of what's really happening there on the ground. Who are these protesters? What's their motivation? What are they really looking for? The only way to get that is to really be there. And that's why I have so much admiration both to the people we're seeing in the television context for the people that we're not seeing or holding the cameras and risking their lives, as well.
SPITZER: Because as you point out, without these reporters, the only thing we would have to depend upon perhaps would be the official media which as we know in Egypt these days has been at least, as we know it, completely distorting. They were claiming the Molotov cocktails were coming from the anti-Mubarak forces which we think is probably wrong.
ABRAMS: That's right, although, look, these days, everyone is a reporter. Right? I mean anyone and everyone can give you a report on what they're seeing happening and we're using that. The media today is using accounts from Twitter and from Facebook, elsewhere, but it is very useful, I think, to have that additional credibility of having the sources, for example, the resources of CNN there to know that the reporters from CNN, the reporters from CBS, the reporters from ABC, the reporters from NBC that they're all there reporting exactly what they see.
SPITZER: Look, you point out so accurately, you have the social media. You have this technological explosion that permits everybody to pass information. On the other hand for a number of days there, the Egyptian government pretty effectively shut down the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, the other social media.
ABRAMS: But -- but we still were getting reports, weren't we?
SPITZER: Yes.
ABRAMS: We were still getting -- we were still getting accounts. Meaning you can shut down and they'll find another source to open it up. Meaning that's where we are today which is, you can make -- you can make as good an effort as you want at trying to quote/unquote, "shut down the media," but it's going to be really, really tough these days to completely shut it off in the way that I think they would have hoped.
SPITZER: As you have pointed out over and over again, what you have with this explosion where everybody is a journalist is a loss of credibility and that is why you come back to those sources you trust and those are the ones you want to be able to get in there to report accurately.
ABRAMS: That's right. But I wouldn't say loss of credibility. Meaning, I do view firsthand accounts of people who I don't know and have never heard of very often as credible. Is it necessarily accurate? No. Is it often accurate? Yes. Is it most often accurate? Yes. The question becomes being able to assess when are those accounts accurate enough for a mainstream organization to go look.
SPITZER: You are so right. You and I both know as lawyers there can be accuracy, but you don't understand the bias, you don't understand the perspective and that is why having as you said these, frankly, western reporters there to report back to us is so crucial and when they are beaten up by the angry mob we are suffering a huge loss.
ABRAMS: And as Americans, these are faces we know. I mean, Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, Christiane Amanpour. I mean, these are faces that Americans know and respect.
SPITZER: Right.
ABRAMS: And so in addition to the fact that we rely on their reporting, when we see them getting hurt, when we see them getting beaten, it doesn't engender a whole lot of sympathy to whoever it is who's trying to make that point.
SPITZER: If that was their strategy, it has backfired.
ABRAMS: Entirely.
SPITZER: But who knows? All right. Dan Abrams, thank you so much.
ABRAMS: Eliot, good to see you.
SPITZER: Thanks for coming by.
We'll be right back.
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SPITZER: Let's check in to the scene in Cairo right now. And just to put this in perspective, it is a quarter to 4 in the morning and it looks as though it could be midday based on the number of people there in Tahrir Square. And those of you who are watching earlier today know that was the scene of massive fighting on horseback, camel back, Molotov cocktails and tanks, going back and forth. Absolutely incredible what has happened there today.
Now we're going to check back in with our senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman who described today's fighting as a government-sanctioned mass lynching. Ben has lived and worked in Cairo for many years. He joins us now.
Ben, describe what's going on.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, now it's a little bit quieter than it was before but certainly this has just been a pitched battle in the heart of Cairo in Tahrir Square.
It started just after midday when large crowds, estimate as many as 4,000 or 5,000, so-called pro-Mubarak demonstrators made their way to Tahrir Square. They were not at all impeded by the army who deployed in the northern part of the square with tanks and armored personnel carriers. They basically walked right by the tanks and they met up with the anti-government demonstrators and briefly there was an amazing moment when they actually were arguing with one another, were talking peacefully with one another. But after about 15 minutes, that ended and the rocks and the stones and there were sticks and bars and everything started to fly and it just deteriorated from there. And as the day wore on and night set in, we started seeing Molotov cocktails being thrown from the side of the pro-government forces over to the other side and at the same time Molotov cocktails flying down from the roofs of some of the buildings overlooking Tahrir Square and it's just gone and on.
And I've been watching as small lots of men have made their way past the army checkpoint in front of state TV toward Tahrir Square, so it appears that the army is simply acting as traffic cops. If nothing else they're doing nothing to stop these clashes that have been going on now for 14 hours.
SPITZER: Ben, two critical questions I suppose that confront us. One, is Mubarak himself behind in orchestrating this vicious attack and, second, is the army changing its posture? Is it now tacitly or almost overtly supporting Mubarak's efforts to beat back with violence the demonstrators?
Ben? All right. I think you know what, we may have lost Ben Wedeman over in Egypt. And we'll take a break and be right back, see if we can get him again.
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SPITZER: All right. We got Ben Wedeman back on the phone from Cairo. And as you can see on the picture on the screen, there are ambulances going back and forth in Tahrir Square.
Ben, what is going on there right now? Are people preparing for another pitch battle for tomorrow?
WEDEMAN: What I'm hearing is that the onslaught continues. That wave after wave of these pro-government supporters is just coming one after another and, in fact, Arwa Damon, our colleague was at a hospital about 10 minutes' drive from the square where she said there was a constant flow of wounded coming in, and, of course, it's different. As the pro-government demonstrators, if we can call them that, they're treated on the spot and oftentimes sent right back into the fight. For the anti-government people, it's a much more difficult situation. They have to somehow make their way out of Tahrir Square to get an ambulance to go to a hospital where apparently there are plainclothes policemen looking for people who are involved in these clashes.
SPITZER: You know, Ben, everybody seems to be saying and how do we establish what evidence is there that Mubarak and his forces are orchestrating these onslaught, these waves of forces that are pushing back against the peaceful anti-Mubarak demonstrators.
WEDEMAN: Eliot, for one thing, the fact that this goes on without any intervention to stop it would indicate that it has some sort of government sanction. But I have to tell you having lived in this country for many years, this is not the first time I've seen plainclothes apparently civilians engaged in this sort of mob violence against critics and opponents of the regime. In 2005, there was a period of unrest here as people were yet, again, agitating for Democratic reform and we would go to protests where there would be these men, clearly rough individuals wearing civilian clothing but often having rubber truncheons. And they were known in Arabic as ashrin (ph). That means 20 pounds, about $4, that because they were paid that amount of money plus a pill of Viagra as payment to go into these crowds oftentimes what they would do and this is was always -- they were always shielded by the uniform police. Oftentimes what they would do is they would jump into the crowd of demonstrators, target women, pull them aside and then sexually molest them. So this is not unusual for the government to use this type of tactic to unleash people who are basically criminals who have been recruited by the government. Because I was at the demonstration earlier today when there many, many more people and it was clear that some of them were actually sincere. But here we are at 4:00 in the morning in Cairo. This is clearly a directed operation that's supported by someone within the government who's providing these people with food, with refreshment, with Molotov cocktails, and, of course, turning -- allowing the authorities to turn a completely blind eye as the entire world watches on live television as this goes on hour after hour after hour.
SPITZER: You know, Ben, as you were talking right now, we're watching a live picture in Tahrir Square where there's apparently an ambulance ministering to somebody. The wounded are there obviously nearby, and there seem to be official figures around and some sorts of uniform. We can't really see it very well from -- I'm certainly far away from it, but clearly there is an official presence there. Somebody is orchestrating this clearly. And you referred earlier to the role of the military. What is the military doing to stop this, if anything, and will that change the way the public at large views the military and its role in all of this?
WEDEMAN: As to this point, it's apparent that the military is under orders not to intervene. In fact, I was at a makeshift hospital where people were being treated from the rocks. And I overheard, an officer from the army, calling in a rather agitated state, one of his commanding officers asking him what am I supposed to do, the situation is very difficult? And he clearly got an answer that left him dumbfounded because he said I don't understand. I don't understand.
Clearly they're being given orders simply to stand by and let this go on. Otherwise, why is the army there? Of course, they don't have the manpower on the street. They have tanks, they have armored personnel carriers but there are very few infantrymen who would be able to play the role of restoring order. The tanks and the heavy machine guns simply aren't practical in this kind of situation.
SPITZER: You know, Ben, earlier in the week, much was made of the fact that the peaceful anti-Mubarak protesters were, in fact, friendly with the military. They would climb on the tanks. They would exchange pleasantries, food, pray together. Is that going to continue, or will this dynamic break down and will things become that much more tense and volatile because the military seems now to be siding with those who are throwing the Molotov cocktails?
WEDEMAN: Eliot, I can tell you the attitude towards the army has changed dramatically as a result of the events today. People in the square and many Egyptians are profoundly disappointed that the army has essentially by doing nothing, by being passive, has assisted the government in this onslaught against the pro-democracy demonstrators. That there was -- and that certainly as you rightly mentioned so vividly contrasts with the warm welcome they received when they first appeared on the streets being seen as something as like saviors after the battle that went on on the 28th of January between the police and the demonstrators. Of course, the police are now gone, simply disappeared off the street and it's only the army that's there. And so as I said, now there's growing anger at the army for simply standing by while this -- that is going on.
SPITZER: You know what? Ben, as we talk, we can see images of somebody else who appears to be rather seriously wounded being taken to the ambulance so as you said, the onslaught continues, the carnage continues, and the casualties are just continuing to increase in number.
You know, one of the things that has been fascinating about this obviously is that here we are a mere 24 hours or so after Mubarak's speech and, instead of being -- generating calm and peace across the nation, Cairo has descended into warfare and the cries for his departure increase. So what happens next?
WEDEMAN: Well, what we expect is that this is going to continue throughout the day Thursday and there's talk that Friday will be another so-called day of rage in which pro-democracy activists are going to redouble their efforts to try, in fact, people are talking about this will be the day of departure, the day that they hope that President Mubarak will, in fact, step down. So it looks like we're heading toward the climax, but the situation is so unpredictable at this point. Every day seems to bring a new permutation and just it's hard to even realize that it was only yesterday that there were these peaceful demonstrations in the square. No instances of violence. It was more like a family festival out there and, of course, today Tahrir square was a battleground. So God knows what's going to happen tomorrow and the next day.
SPITZER: You know, Ben, I want to just re-emphasize that point. As we look at the screen here, we see ongoing battles, we see ambulances picking up additional wounded. It's 4:00 in the morning. This is an around the clock battle. It does not seem to be abating and, of course, when sunlight returns early tomorrow morning, who knows who will return and what the violence will bring -- what violence that will bring with it. The question I've got to ask you as time runs out, Ben, who is emerging, if anybody, to be a voice for the anti-Mubarak forces? It still seems there is a void. It still seems there is -- this is a leaderless revolution.
WEDEMAN: Yes, to this point that seems to be the case. Mohamed ElBaradei came forward but he didn't really rally the people in the square. They seem to be all out there with this one single demand for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, but as of yet, there are no leaders.
There's organization. They've got it secured. They've got a health committee. They've got a supply committee that is making sure everybody is well fed, well taken care of and protected, but there is nobody apparently who's actually leading the movement. It's sort of unprecedented in this sort of political environment that you have this enormous (ph) mass of people somehow working with such incredible focus and sense of purpose.
SPITZER: You know, Ben, all right. Thank you so much for your expertise on this. We'll be chatting with you in the days ahead. It is amazing to see this revolution in real time unfolding.
Thank you for watching tonight. Please join me again tomorrow night. Good night from New York.
"PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.
