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Parker Spitzer
President Mubarak Defies Expectations, Stays On as Egypt's Head of State
Aired February 10, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Kathleen Parker.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Eliot Spitzer.
Welcome to our continuing coverage of the drama unfolding before our eyes in Egypt. We are joined here on the set by our in-house wizard and mastermind of all events, Fareed Zakaria.
Fareed, thank you so much.
But first, as always, breaking news. All over the place today and just in the past few minutes. In response to the speech by President Mubarak in which he did not resign despite everybody's expectations he would do so, the White House has just put out a statement. And it is pointed. It is direct. It is the first time that I recall that the White House has said very directly, emergency law should be lifted and now.
In this statement, the White House also said the Egyptian people have been told there was a transition of authority. But it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate or sufficient.
This is a dramatic moment. The White House clearly distancing itself from President Mubarak's speech. A speech that disappointed, if not just the protesters, perhaps the entire world that had been waiting to see him resign or do something more dramatic.
Meanwhile, what we have in Egypt, protests breaking out all over the place. The protesters who'd been in Tahrir Square, exuberant, excited all day, expecting a resignation speech. The anger was palpable the moment Mubarak's speech indicated he was not going to resign.
Protesters going from Tahrir Square to the presidential palace. Also, congregating at the state TV station which has become a center of propaganda, state propaganda, spreading lies and untruths about the protesters.
We have there live with us a blogger Ramy Raoof, who has been on the show over the past couple of weeks. A blogger. Somebody who has been giving us commentary over the past couple of days.
Ramy, can you hear us?
RAMY RAOOF, EGYPTIAN BLOGGER: Yes, I can. Thank you.
SPITZER: What is going on there and what is the mood of those who are protesting?
RAOOF: Immediately after the speech of both Omar Suleiman and Hosni Mubarak, people at the demonstrations in Tahrir Square and people's assembly, they are really very angry and upset by the speeches because people believe that there is a very big gap between the people's demand and what the speeches give.
Immediately after the first response for the demonstrators that they expanded the area that they are using. And now they went also in front of the national TV and radio headquarters which we call Maspero. It is the main headquarter where we believe that all lies and rumors were spread through this building that I'm not standing in front of it.
And hundreds of demonstrators are now here. I think we're around 800 more or less. A lot of people are joining us from different areas in Cairo and from Tahrir Square, and people are planning to control this area also exactly as we are controlling Tahrir Square and people's assembly area.
SPITZER: You know it is 3:00 in the morning there. And is -- are the crowds growing? Or is the anger palpable? And you gave us some sense of it. But why did you pick the TV station as your destination?
RAOOF: Because people believe that starting the revolution and all demonstrations from 25 of January one of the means that the government under the regime used to crack down on us and to block out people and try to make this revolution not work is spreading lies and rumors about what's happening merely through the pro-Mubarak media and the TV channel that is controlled by Mubarak and his regime.
So people believe that the national TV channel is one of the main enemies that we are now facing because they are always until a few days they are spreading lies and rumors. So for example, from a few days, if you went to Channel 1 of national TV, you will find a picture of Tahrir Square which is totally empty.
Now they are now trying to be more neutral and trying to picture what's happening in a neutral way. But I think it's too late for them.
PARKER: Ramy, you say there are hundreds of protesters there. What kind of security presence is there?
RAOOF: An extreme high presence of army tanks and army officers and soldiers. They are everywhere. The building that we're standing now in front is an O-shaped building. And there are army and fences of fire everywhere around the building, trying to secure it and trying to secure the people who are working in the channel.
And as we are speaking now, the demonstrators there they are building lines of people to prevent people from leaving or going into the offices of the building.
SPITZER: All right. Ramy, thank you so much for your continuing coverage and we'll be chatting with you in days ahead.
PARKER: Stay safe.
SPITZER: All right, Fareed. This is a day that began with exuberance and excitement, ended with rage. What does it mean and what happens next?
FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA GPS: I think the most important thing it means is that the army has decided to side with Mubarak. You remember there was this question of where the army stood. And by making this decision, what the army has decided is that in order to consolidate its own power -- remember, Egypt is a military dictatorship.
The army has enormous privileges that come from that military dictatorship, economic, political, social. They're sticking with Mubarak. And they have decided that in order to do that, they will risk the wrath of the street. Maybe they think they can outlive it. Maybe they think here they can outrun the clock.
But for whatever reason, they clearly did not -- the only push that would have mattered for Mubarak would have been from the army and he didn't get that push.
PARKER: But Fareed, what does that mean exactly? Does that mean that the army will open fire on the protesters? And you say they may stand back and just wait it out. But for how long would they wait before they do something?
ZAKARIA: No, I don't think they'll open fire on the protesters. And the army, you know -- what I mean by the army now is I mean the generals. The Egyptian protests have been saying the army and the people are one. And that's true because it a conscript army.
But the army and the -- but the people and the generals are clearly on a very different page because the generals are with Mubarak. What I think they're trying to do, they're trying to run out three clocks. They're trying to run the clock out on the protesters. At some point people have to get back to work. Remember the economy in Egypt has shut down.
They're trying to run out the clock on the international media. That is us and Al-Jazeera and people like that. And they're trying to run out the clock on the American administration.
But I think it's not working. The protests get larger every day. We're not going anywhere. And this latest statement from Obama which is very powerful shows that the United States is not easing up at all.
SPITZER: Yes. You almost get the sense that you have an immovable force in Mubarak and then increasing anger on the part of the protesters, and the notion that today could diffuse it if Mubarak had resigned to transfer power in some meaningful way, clearly that hasn't happened.
And what -- you know, the Egyptian administration is trying to say, well, now Suleiman, who's a handpicked vice president is the guy in charge, but to a certain extent, he was in charge before. So this is almost a meaningless transfer and just sort of a bob and a weave that I don't see has any real mint.
ZAKARIA: Well, Suleiman clearly again decided that he couldn't play whether constitutionally or personal loyalty reasons. He couldn't play that transitional bridge role that a lot of us thought he might be able to play, that frankly the administration thought he might play.
He is too closely tied Mubarak. So he was not willing to try and push for a kind of role that he would play as a transitional figure, creating a council. No. He says I will help Mubarak implement the reforms. But of course that discredits him in the eyes of the protesters.
PARKER: Earlier you were talking just -- we were talking amongst ourselves. And you mentioned the possibility that the government may be trying to radicalize the crowds by doing this, taking this route. What do you think -- would you explain that?
ZAKARIA: What I was -- since it is so clearly something that unless they are really living in a kind of bubble that they don't understand, it is so clearly going to radicalize the crowd. It is going to make them angry. I wonder whether they are baiting them in a sense. Hoping to set off some violence. Hoping to get some of these protesters very angry.
And if that happens, then the army could legitimately go in and say look, we have to preserve order. So are they trying to ratchet up the -- you know what's going on here? Which ultimately, clearly they're hoping at some point to be able to say, we need stability. That has been the constant theme.
SPITZER: Look, that would be a remarkably dangerous game to play. And we'll pursue that in a second.
We've got Arwa Damon in Cairo.
Arwa, where are you? What are you seeing? What are the protesters doing right now?
ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're overlooking down into the demonstration site. We are seeing those numbers in Tahrir Square itself decrease. But as we have been hearing, there are these smaller demonstrations that are springing up all over the capital.
The mood in the square following the speech was truly one of devastation, horror, and also disgust. Many of the demonstrators we were talking to, feeling that the president was speaking down to them. That his tone was condescending. They took a lot of his words, all of his words in fact to be an insult. And all this has really done is galvanized them towards -- even further towards their goal of seeing him step down.
We heard those repeated cries from protesters saying that they were willing to die for this. So much blood had already been shed. They could not at all possibly allow it to be in vain. And they, too, also are bringing up the point that we heard just mentioned there. That they believe this is the president's way of deliberately trying to provoke these demonstrators, to give the military an excuse to go in and crack down.
Many of the people we were talking to were saying that they believe that Friday, tomorrow, is going to be a very bloody day. They stay that the demonstrators have been provoked. They're going to try to continue to be peaceful but they do believe the government to make some sort of an aggressive move against them.
SPITZER: You know interesting you say that, Arwa. Because the -- one of the chants that had been prevalent throughout the protests over the last few weeks have been the military and the protesters are one. People were seeing them almost as a unified force. And they had come to put the military on a pedestal saying you're protecting us.
Has that changed so quickly since the speech?
DAMON: Well, you know, it's quite interesting when we do hear the people talking about the military because we do in fact hear those chants. We do have people grabbing us as we walk through the crowd saying, yes, the military and the people are hand in hand.
But in other conversations, many people are bringing up the point that even though the military has appeared to have this so-called neutral stand, ever since they took to the streets, after the police disappeared on January 28th, it was the military that was carrying out these arbitrary detentions.
It was the military that was blindfolding people for days on end. It was the military that was in some cases, according to some witnesses to it, the one that was torturing people whilst they were in detention.
And the military has also been greatly criticized for the so- called neutral role with some demonstrators saying that by not taking action, by not breaking up the battles between the anti-Mubarak demonstrators and the pro-Mubarak ones, the military was effectively taking an active decision, siding with the pro-Mubarak crowd.
We heard this from a number of demonstrators who say that they were physically beaten up by pro-Mubarak thugs within feet of the military that just stood idly by. And when they were eventually able to get to safety, the military said that they were under orders not to interfere.
Some of our own colleagues at other networks were also beaten up -- had to be hospitalized -- in front of the military. So it might seem to be a neutral role. But there are many out there that would argue that the military has already taken its decision as to how it's going to be siding as this moves forward. SPITZER: Arwa, there's no question about it. The role of the military, as Fareed has said, since the very beginning of the revolution is absolutely central to this. Have you spoken to anybody in the military who even off the record will say, look, we're uncomfortable, now we feel as though we're being honed in to the Mubarak side and we just don't want to be there?
DAMON: The military is very subtle when we approach them even if it is intended to be a side conversation. When they first took up positions around Tahrir Square, we saw them being issued new flak jackets. I was trying to figure out exactly why. The soldier I was talking to just shrugged and then pointed to the crowds.
We have seen some instances where the military has actively joined the protests saying that they were fed up with the regime and with its tactics. But those examples are really few and far between.
The military does appear to be, at this point in time, maintaining its neutral appearance, trying to keep the peace, at least keep the people on its side. But this is a very complex conflict that is playing out here. And to bring up a point that has been brought up by Fareed and by the guest you had on there, and that is the issue of state propaganda.
The state is running such a propaganda campaign, really feeding the public that only has access by and large to state television. This increased rhetoric of how these demonstrations are being fueled by outside powers. They're trying to turn people against the media to such a degree.
I'll just give you this quick example. We were filming in a small town outside of Cairo. A friendly town initially. And all of a sudden out of the blue, the crowd turned on us. We found out afterwards, when we were a safe distance away, from a man who came and follow us out that that happened because a member of Mubarak's National Democratic Party in that crowd told those people that we were American agents intending not just on invading the country, but that the women on our team were going to try to seduce the men. The men on our team were going to be entering the women's bedrooms.
And that is how they ended up turning this crowd against us. And that is just one example of the type of propaganda that this regime is turning out.
SPITZER: Unbelievable. Arwa, an amazing turn of events today and the propaganda is a dangerous thing. Thank you so much. We'll get back to you a bit later.
Fareed, I just want to pick up on something you said before about the power of this statement from the White House. You said there were three clocks that Mubarak is trying to run out. The third one you said was the administration, President Obama.
This statement seems to be a very real toughening of the White House position about what must happen from Mubarak and his administration. ZAKARIA: I think this is actually historic. I've been thinking about American presidents and American allies. If you look at Ronald Reagan in the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos, a very tough dictator but somebody Reagan liked because he was a staunch anti- communist.
He -- Marcos assassinated the leading opposition figure, Benigno Aquino in 1983. It took three years for Reagan to disavow Marcos and ask him to sort of gently push him out.
Clinton administration, Suharto, again, strong American ally, tough dictator. It took a year and a half. And in neither case, neither Reagan nor Clinton ever publicly made any kind of statement like this. It was all very private and nudging.
This is to my mind the first time an American president has taken on a longstanding American ally and clearly distanced himself and effectively pushing him out. This is very, very powerful. It's unprecedented as far as I can remember.
PARKER: Fareed, what are your thoughts on seeming to have been blindsided by this. I mean this morning Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, said that Mubarak was going to step down. And then of course he did not. How did -- how is it that we were taken by surprise apparently?
ZAKARIA: My guess is that the Egyptians signaled to the administration that Mubarak was going to make a major speech and didn't elaborate. And that we assumed, as did everybody, that that meant that he was going to resign. And instead, what we got was another -- I think you called it, you know, a dodge which exactly right.
SPITZER: All right. Let me bring in John King who was in our -- down in Washington, who has obviously had his ear to the ground about what it means. This dramatic statement from the White House.
John, do you interpret it as Fareed has? This is a dramatic statement. Was this a statement of anger from the White House that they had been misled by Mubarak and Suleiman about what was going to happen today as well as being historic as Fareed just articulated?
JOHN KING, CNN'S JOHN KING, USA: I agree on all counts. And to the point of what were they told, I was told this morning by a very senior official who has been a long time reliable source on national security matters that their information came from a ranking and reliable official in the regime that he was going to yield power.
So that is why they were disappointed. They believe they were told by somebody they had trusted over the years that that dramatic statement was coming. They are trying to figure out exactly what happened in the ensuing hours.
To your point about the statement. It is not only a very strong statement. It is essentially a point by point rebuttal of what President Mubarak and then Vice President Suleiman told the Egyptian people. They've been told there was a transition of authority. It is not yet clear that transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient.
The United States says they should move swiftly to explain the changes and spell them out step by step. And one other point, you know President Mubarak says the foreigners are trying to stir all this up. In the final page the president of the United States' statement, he talks about how we have seen young and old, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, join together and earn the respect of the world through their nonviolent calls for change.
Essentially the president of the United States saying, I listened to your speech, Mr. Mubarak. Not even close.
ZAKARIA: John, it's Fareed. I was wondering whether you know whether this statement has been a shoot in Arabic and whether we are trying to get this message out. Because it's important for our viewers to remember that the Egyptian people are not seeing much of this and I'm sure they have not yet heard President Obama's statement in Arabic.
KING: I know it has been distributed to all of the satellite networks, including the Arabic satellite networks. I assume it has been translated. I have not seen the translated version in front of me. But I do know from an official -- not at the White House but at the State Department that it is being widely distributed and that the administration is also now having meetings into the evening about their media strategy going forward for this.
The president made a decision tonight to put this out on paper. It is a long statement. A very long statement direct -- coming directly from the president. But the question now is -- as we watch in the early morning hours in Egypt, what will the administration say publicly to back up this? Much of that I am betting you in the morning will fall not only to the White House but to the State Department.
PARKER: John, President Mubarak's statement was -- had a tone of defiance. And as you pointed out, he was making it clear that they weren't taking orders from foreigners. And the clear implication was not from the United States.
How much discussion is there about this being specifically an act of defiance on his part?
KING: There is no question. They view it as an act of defiance or perhaps better put that he has decided to use the United States and to use the international media as a foil here to try to stoke up some national tendencies inside the country.
They know firsthand that the protesters, those on the street, flatly reject that. They just view anything President Mubarak says the demonstrators do as a sham right now. The question is, can he get to a broader slice of the Egyptian public? And to the point that if there is violence tomorrow, and if the military does step in, does the broader swath of middle class Egypt say you know our president is right. They don't think that's the case at the White House. But they certainly see -- and the frustrating part, Kathleen, is that they look at the -- they say if you read the legal documents, that the president is actually taking some significant steps of yielding powerful.
However they need him to look his people in the eye and say that and to step aside and convince them that he means it because he also has the right to take back, at their reading -- the administration's reading of the Constitution and what has been done so far, is that President Mubarak at any moment can raise his hand and say never mind. I'm taking it all back.
That's why they're pressing in this statement for a clear, detailed statement of exactly what will happen when and who is pulling the levers.
SPITZER: All right. We've got to take a quick break. But when we come back, we will pick up all these fascinating points as well as talk to a former director of the CIA and say to him, how could we be so fundamentally misled and misinformed? We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Welcome become to our continuing coverage of the drama and breaking news from Cairo. Amazing events all day. John King still with us in D.C. and we are joined as well by James Woolsey who was the director of the CIA for many years.
And Mr. Woolsey, I've just got to ask you this question. It's been bothering me all day. I want to quote something that Leon Panetta, the current director of the CIA, said in testimony before Congress this morning.
He said, "As you can see, I got the same information you did which is there is a strong likelihood that Mubarak may step down this evening which would be significant in terms of where the hopefully ordered transition takes place."
It was wrong. Why did he say it? How could we have been that misled hours before the events? I just don't understand why the director of the CIA would say that.
JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE: Maybe Leon should have quoted Damon Runyon that nothing what depends on human is who he (INAUDIBLE) at more than eight to five.
You know you often are in a situation in which something will go haywire for a specific reason. Somebody makes a last-minute decision to turn around a paragraph in a speech or whatever. And you don't know that.
What you should be criticized for is if you don't pick up the underlying tensions that make a country like, say, Egypt in these circumstances, a tinder box. And one of the CIA witnesses today said -- she said that they had done that. And it made some contributions to the White House late last year. But nobody is going to get the provoking incident. Whether a Tunisian burning himself or a Serbian nationalist in 1914 assassinating an Austrian arch duke and starting World War I.
The provoking incident is never really going to be something you can get ahold of. But the underlying reality and the tensions and the possibility something might happen, that they should have been on top of and maybe they were.
SPITZER: But, Mr. Woolsey, I agree with you. It's very hard to pinpoint that triggering event, that spark that will ignite the flames. But what amazes me about today's event is that what this statement did was feed the overwhelming presumption throughout the United States media, the government and the protesters in Cairo that a deal had been cut.
That somehow some grand bargain had been struck. And so when that then falls apart, it not only generates additional anger but also casts doubt on the wisdom and insights of the CIA itself. So I'm just massively troubled by the fact that that statement was made.
WOOLSEY: Well, all of the -- all of this sort of storm and stress about the events of today and tomorrow is important. And important to get it right when we can. But the key thing here I think is the strategic view. Revolutions often start out in such a way that the good guys win. Sometime for weeks or months. And then they're killed by bad guys.
Whether they are Bolsheviks or the (INAUDIBLE) against the folks who stormed the Bastille or Iran in '78, '79. It looked like the moderates were going to win and we were all in favor of that. And then whoops, here comes Khomeini lying about what he's going to do and kills all of the -- a lot of the people who had made the original Iranian revolution.
So we've got to, I think, understand that we could very much here end up with a situation in which things go well for a while with some of the reformers and the army being sound and the way it approaches things, and then everybody relaxes and then realize that, let's say, Iran working with the Muslim Brotherhood, the way they do with Hamas, is taking things in a very, very destructive direction.
It's not understanding that sort of thing and not being on top of it that we ought to really criticize the intelligence community for, if they miss it. I don't know whether they missed it or not.
SPITZER: Right.
KING: Director Woolsey, it's John King in Washington, if could I jump in. The question, though, is in this day and age most of these relationships and the security arrangements were based either on U.S./USSR back in the Cold War days, or based on oil and security, economics -- oil -- or Israel and security.
In this new world where these young people are organizing on Twitter and Facebook and social media, and get satellite channels from around the world, doesn't the United States have to make different calculations in making its decisions?
WOOLSEY: Not only different calculations but the United States ought to be in this six ways from Sunday helping, for example, the young people of Iran, Twitter and Facebook, and text to one another securely.
And the United States, I think, should have been on the side of those students who were being killed in Iran a year and a half ago. I would have loved to have seen President Obama make a statement as strongly in support of those Iranian kids as he did today.
We need to be in that game. We need to be helping overthrow really bad dictatorships like Iran's and not just play defense and not just try to understand.
PARKER: Mr. Woolsey, this is Kathleen Parker in New York. You mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood. And of course, James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, says that the Brotherhood is a secular nonviolent organization. Is that your appraisal as well?
WOOLSEY: No, and I think he took that back toward the end of the day and said he was talking about Egyptian society as a whole that was secular. Not really the Brotherhood. But the brotherhood is not only an Islamist organization. It's go its very clear objectives. It wishes to set up a (INAUDIBLE), theocratic dictatorship.
It's fully in support of Sharia, terrible oppression of women, killing of homosexuals and apostates and so on. And I rather imagine Jim who's a very able intelligence officer just got his tongue tangled. I've been there. I know how that can happen.
PARKER: Well, he's not the only one. Many people in the last several days have said that the Brotherhood is not to be feared and to not get all worked up about it. So he's really just -- I'm just using his as an example because it's come up a number of times where everybody -- many people are downplaying the importance of the Brotherhood so I want to get that from you.
WOOLSEY: I think if you like the way Hamas runs Gaza, you would love the way the Brotherhood would run Egypt. It is an Islamist organization that wants a dictatorship and it made tactically back off an individual stance from time to time and say that it is being peaceful about this or peaceful about that. But that's tactical.
Its underlying objectives in its charter, it's quite -- I think it's quite clear. And Hamas is a perfect example of Muslim Brotherhood organization with power.
KING: If I could jump in on that point, Mr. Woolsey, it's John King again. If the Muslim Brotherhood, you view them as a threat because of their beliefs, would it be better off for President Mubarak to have an orderly transition now so that you have the trust of the broader swath of the Egyptian society where most people believe the Muslim Brotherhood might be 15 percent, might be 20 percent, maybe 25 percent. Or does the longer the stand-off go on, raise the likelihood that secular kids down there now could become more radicalized? It is hard to say. What you want is a stable institution protecting sensible change. So you end up with a democracy or a republic, a constitutional structure and so forth. And the real problem is that we haven't backed that in Egypt for many years. We've been silent. As Mubarak has arrested, a number of the other real democracy activists.
And as a result, the institutions aren't there on the other side that we can turn to quickly. Fareed mentioned the Philippines. But we had a candidate on the other side. We had a democratic structure, going to Cory Aquino. So we're not that lucky in Egypt now.
It is a much more difficult situation to hold on to a moderate change long enough to let that manifest itself in constitutional change, elections, and the rest. We have to try and we have to try to help the forces for its stability in Egypt which I think are probably going to be principally the army and some members, maybe, of the administration, and of Mubarak's and some civilians on the outside. But this is really going to be hard.
SPITZER: You know, you mentioned Corazon Aquino in the Philippines. Yes, you say there was an opponent. There was a civil society ready to step in to a place in opposition.
Part of the reason there isn't that in Egypt is that there was such repression and to our reading, my reading of it recently, the person in charge of that was the current Vice President Suleiman. He was in charge of the intelligence agencies that did so much of the harm to those very forces that we, as you just said, should have been supporting. So does it mean anything that he is now put in charge of all this?
WOOLSEY: I don't know enough about the internal mechanics of the Egyptian system to know whether he was mainly involved with a threat like the Muslim Brotherhood and in so far as decisions were made to incarcerate some of the real human rights activists and so forth; whether they were his or somebody else's, ultimately they were Mubarak's.
But one has to work with what one can. And I don't know whether Suleiman now would be the right person or speaker of the parliament or some other combination of people from the Defense Ministry or whatever. But we've got to have some degree of stability while we try to help the Egyptians get through this and end up with a constitutional structure on the other side. We can't just be against Mubarak and think that it is all going to work out all right. I don't think it will. If that's all we do.
SPITZER: All right, Mr. Woolsey, thank you so much for joining us. And John King as well. Always great to chat with you.
When we come back, we will go back to Cairo for an update on breaking news. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SPITZER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the dramatic events in Cairo. We're joined by Irshad Manji of NYU and the European Foundation for Democracy, James Traub of "The New York Times."
Thank you both for being here again. We love having you.
Thank you.
SPITZER: But, first, to Ben Wedeman who is in Cairo. Ben is going to give us an update I think on those protests breaking out all over Cairo in response to President Mubarak's speech.
Ben, what's going on? What are you hearing?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Eliot, it is more like the protests spreading around Cairo. Basically, we've had one small group of protesters going toward the presidential palace in Heliopolis. They apparently are basically sitting down and waiting through the night outside the palace. It is not quite clear how close to the palace they are because there are multiple army blockades with tanks and armored personnel carriers blocking them from the palace itself.
Elsewhere not far from here, we saw hundreds of protesters who made their way to state TV, which of course is a symbol of sort of government propaganda. It of course is also surrounded by tanks. There is a limited number of those protesters as well. But, really, Eliot, we have to watch tomorrow. Tomorrow, of course, Friday, the traditional day of prayer and protest. And then we will see what sort of numbers will be mobilized.
What is important to note in all of this is that over the last 48 hours, the demonstrators in Tahrir Square have been joined across the country by thousands of striking workers. And they, of course, oppose a large challenge to government that until now has been able to say that its opponents are basically these people in Tahrir Square, that the rest of Egypt has been standing by passively. That's not the case any longer.
PARKER: Ben, we understand that there are protesters at the palace, where Mubarak is physically. Is there any sense at all that the protesters are going to try to get into the palace?
WEDEMAN: By the numbers they have at the moment, no. They are simply impossible. But that has been one of the goals of the people in Tahrir now for several weeks. But they need a lot more in terms of numbers to get anywhere near that area.
IRSHAD MANJI, SR. FELLOW, EUROPEAN FOUNDATION FOR DEMOCRACY: Ben, it's an earshot here in New York. I have a number of friends in Cairo who have told me that they are going to hold hard and fast to the principle of non-violence because they believe that's a huge part of where the moral authority of this uprising comes from. From what you can tell, to what degree do you believe many more people will do that and not just can do that? Hold hard and fast to non-violence if in fact they are provoked further by police or military. WEDEMAN: There is no guarantee that some elements within the protest movement will not actually decide that peaceful means are not working. In fact the other day, I spoke to one man in the square who said look, if we do not succeed at achieving our goals peacefully, there are many among us who will have to go to, quote/unquote, "other means."
And that may be what the government is trying to do, is to provoke the demonstrators into violent action, which will therefore justify a harsh crackdown. Because until now, what we've seen is the government is incapable of dealing with a largely peaceful movement calling for the ouster of the president.
JAMES TRAUB, NEW YORK TIMES: Ben, it's James here in New York. The events of the day were really confusing. Especially in regard to the fact that senior military officials came to Tahrir Square to reassure protesters that it was all going to be resolved in their favor. I wonder if you see any signs now of split within the military in terms of how they're going to react to whatever happen tomorrow?
WEDEMAN: Well, I think that is what is emerging is that there is some sort of division between President Mubarak and his Vice President Omar Suleiman on the one hand. And certain elements within the army. Because earlier in the evening, we did see this higher military council issuing a, what it called communique number one, which in Arab political rhetoric is usually what comes out of a new government formed by a military coup d'etat.
And what the communique essentially said, we are meeting continually to consider and study the situation in order to protect the higher interests of the Egyptian people. No mention in that communique of the president. And in the president's speech, there was no mention of the army. So there seems to be something of a split. Not on the surface, necessarily. But certainly, the rhetoric would indicate that.
SPITZER: All right, Ben, thank you so much. We're now going to be join by Ether El-Katatney, who is a blogger who has been at the protests virtually all week. And she is going to be joins us via Skype. Ether, what do you know about what will happen tomorrow and what sense do you have about what's being organized through the social media?
ETHER EL-KATATNEY, EGYPTIAN WRITER AND BLOGGER: Well, definitely the anticipation that built up today. There was this huge build-up towards the speech. The speech, a lot of it was leaked. You had the military announcements in Tahrir that there was a really good announcement coming. You had the secretary general saying that the president was going to leave. This huge build-up towards the speech and then this incredible letdown, the speech where, you know, the president as you mentioning, he praised himself. He berated the people. He listed the accomplishments. He didn't mention any of the mistakes. And then somehow in the middle, promised to constitutional change. The speech was an incredible letdown. And that kind of really, really, really made the people very, very angry. And actually a lot of people are discussing through social media on Twitter, on Facebook, but this was actually a kind of a strategy to make the protesters who so far have been extremely peaceful for the past week, to turn violent.
So once they turn violent, that would be an excuse to crack down on it. Because the speech if you look at it, I didn't promise -- there hasn't been anything. The emergency law wasn't canceled. The parliament cannot be dissolved by the vice president. President Mubarak can go back on his word any time. There has been no actual promises, no firm concrete reforms. The speech is extremely vague.
And as a writer, as a journalist, I think I could write a better speech. A lot of people on Twitter, on social media, they are like, it's kind of like we got punked, in the Ashton Kutcher stuff. Everyone was really, really stunned.
In Tahrir, the photos, the people, just the reaction. And you actually had state media. The minute the speech ended, they cut to the national anthem. You know, our national anthem, they didn't cut to the reaction of the people which was extremely loud. Extremely angry shouting, leave, leave, leave, leave. And invalid, invalid.
So on the ground right now, a lot of people who are marching, who are going to the presidential palace. A lot of people through the social media are saying calm down. This is the strategy. They're trying to make us violent so they can take action against us. Calm down. Go to sleep. And tomorrow is a new day.
PARKER: This is Kathleen Parker. Our president, President Barack Obama issued a statement tonight and took a sort of a point by point analysis of your president's speech and was not terribly friendly. Has that gotten out at all on your side of things?
EL-KATATNEY: A lot of people aren't really happy with the speech. You know, a lot of people saying that all the speeches combined they really don't -- the message isn't strong enough. That there was really no point to them. That it keeps -- a lot of people said, you know, even the President Obama speech before President Mubarak came up, it was almost as if he had no idea that we have been led to believe that President Mubarak was going to step down and that it was a shout before.
So this has starting to filter, but a lot of people are now taking note, they're taking the way of just leave us alone. This is our deal. This is our issue. We'll work it out, foreign intervention. And that's also partly because of state media and also if you realize the president, he reiterated a lot the idea of I will not bow to foreign influences. I'm not leaving. And that kind of also, you kind of felt that maybe President Obama, they didn't really think that this was going to happen. That he was not going to step down. We got the impression that President Obama thought the president was going to step down.
PARKER: We got that impression, too.
MANJI: Ether, it's Irshad, here in New York. Assalamu alaikum. I would like to know that if, back to your reference. Your wonderful reference of being punked. If the military punks the demonstrators tomorrow by turning violent on the demonstrators, how are the protesters going to deal with that?
EL-KATATNEY: I think a lot of people right now are actually hoping that, no, this isn't going to happen. And a lot of people, if you're looking at Twitter, a lot of people have been making sure to document instances where the army, where the generals, or people who have actually leave and join the protesters' ranks. That, you know, the people and the army are one. It could actually, you never know.
What will happen, you have the presidential guard now going to the palace. What if the presidential guard and the military can face? You know, there are all these scenarios that could happen. It's all really up in the air. I don't think anyone could have ever -- things keep snow balling so fast. And there are so many different scenarios that could happen. But I think one thing everyone agrees on that tomorrow could potentially be extremely violent. That it could turn very bloody simply because people are extremely frustrated. They're extremely angry.
The president's speech did not -- his last speech at least made some people feel some empathy towards him. But this speech was extremely, you know, "father knows best" style. And even the vice president when he appeared after it was, you know, everyone go home and don't watch al Jazeera or don't watch satellite channels. They're all trying to trick you.
TRAUB: Ether, it's James Traub also here in New York.
I wonder if at this point you can even imagine any kind of compromise solution in which, for example, Mubarak does something like what we imagined he might do in which he would say that he might formally retain powers, but he would have delegated all of his powers to Suleiman and that in turn might lead to some other process.
At this point have the protesters so despaired that any kind of compromise, which might have been possible before, is no longer possible now?
EL-KATATNEY: Well, they say three times the charm. And he's already had the kind of three times. The thing is this would have been the very beginning. Wael Ghonim, who is the administrator of Khaled Said page, the Google executive, who has been kind of the official spokesperson now.
He mentioned, you know, January 25th, this was when people would have listened to the compromise. And then as everyday goes by, people, even thought opposition, you know, a couple days ago, they withdrew from the talks that there's no more compromise.
People would reached an extent where right now it's just he needs to leave. This is the only thing we will take. And this speech today just inflamed people even more. You know, the fact that if, 15 minutes before, or half an hour before the president was late, there was this huge trend in worldwide on Twitter. Reasons why Mubarak is late. People are joking. People who instill humor and this is a huge part of our Egyptian revolution that humor is playing a strong part. And the fact that after the president, there were no more jokes. And you know that beyond furious, if Egyptians aren't joking anymore, because throughout this, everyone has been joking all the time.
And all these people are extremely, extremely furious. The compromise should have been today. He should have been, if he had stepped down, things would have more or less calmed down perhaps. And things would have started to get work back on the country. But this has just really enraged the people.
And I don't think, there is no compromise. What more compromise? His speech was extremely nonchalant. There absolutely was no -- even admission. Even when he talked about the people who died, he talked about your martyrs. He didn't say our martyrs. Very, very alienating to people.
And I don't think -- I definitely think, you know, his time is over. His regime is over. People aren't going to. They're not just going to, you know, wake up and be OK. Let's just listen to the army. They're actually, "we all got SMS," and they got an SMS text message a couple of hours ago, and it's from the army. The army is saying that they will protect us and that wait for an announcement. And everyone was like, wait for an announcement? It is 3:00 in the morning. What kind of announcement will be made now?
SPITZER: Ether, you raise the military and the relationship between the protesters and the military. It seems, again, there will be this enormous credibility gap because as James Traub refers to earlier, the general, the very senior military spokesmen visited Tahrir Square and said all of your demands will be met; building this sense throughout the course of the day that there would be a resolution. Some overarching agreement among all the major forces in society. And then all those expectations dashed and destroyed.
How can you possibly rebuild that relationship either with the military or certainly with Mubarak and Suleiman?
EL-KATATNEY: Well, you know, another argument for that is perhaps that they were also misled. Because even state-run media was saying, you know, that this was repeated everywhere. The secretary general, the ruling national democratic party, Hossam Badrawi, he appeared on all the channels saying that the president would actually fulfill all your demands. Your main demand by tomorrow morning at the latest.
So that can be forgiven, say that perhaps they were misled in a way. But I think the biggest way that the army will show that they are with the people or against them is their reaction toward, if the people actually do decide to go to the presidential palace. There are not that many now. But tomorrow, tomorrow will -- or not tomorrow, I guess in a couple of hours now, will show us. This will be the definitive moment, where if people do decide to actually take action, no more.
You know, people have been doing very much with Gandhi and Gandhi's quote, you know. First, they laugh at you. First, they ignore you, laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win. But people are now calling for civil disobedience. And the military's reaction to them that will show us whether they are for the people or against.
SPITZER: All right. Ether El-Katatney, thank you so much for joining us and always interesting observations.
Let's take a quick run back to Ben Wedeman who is in Cairo.
Ben, we've just heard from Ether El-Katatney that tomorrow might be violent and bloody. I don't want to sort of sow seeds for anything. But what is your sense? What is going to happen on the street tomorrow between the protesters and the military?
WEDEMAN: Well, it is really hard to say. The military until now has not done anything to harm the protesters. Of course, we did see there are those two days when they sort of stood back and let the pro- Mubarak thugs go after them. But by and large, they've got along well. The protesters continue to chant, "The people in the army are one, one hand together."
But I think tomorrow is going to be decisive in terms of this struggle between the protesters and the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Hard to say where the army is going to stand in all of this. But, clearly, this whole drama is coming to ahead. And tomorrow, we may see the climax to it.
SPITZER: All right. Ben, thank you so much. And let's wait and keep our fingers crossed. Hopefully, there is no violence tomorrow. Ben, thank you.
Now we're going to bring in Ron Suskind, who we had last night. You may remember, fascinating observations about Suleiman, Vice President Suleiman in Egypt.
Ron, what is your take? Suleiman is now the person who has been given all this power by the president, President Mubarak, supposedly. Who is he? What does he stand for? What do we expect from him?
RON SUSKIND, AUTHOR, "THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE" (via telephone): Well, you know, Suleiman is in a, I think, a tighter spot than he was yesterday. I think I said last night, Eliot, that this regime like many of these regimes, you know, you're hopeful. You know, they seem to be responding to people power. But I think the history shows that they generally go out feet first or not at all. And I think what we're seeing is a lot of the throes, the back and forth of a power structure that is crumbling, but still holding on for dear life.
I think Suleiman right now is probably in a pretty delicate position, because the military which does have obviously sort of central power, the real institution of might that is intact in the country, I think is probably looking at its cards right now to decide which way it's going to go.
And Suleiman is not a guy who controls the military. He is a powerful force. He is Mubarak's man. He controls the intelligence service, which is like the secret police, but he is not in control of that military. So the brokering right now I think is between Suleiman and the military as to which way this thing goes.
SPITZER: All right, Ron, don't leave. We want to keep you there.
I want to ask James Traub. This has been a remarkable day. It is like riding a roller coaster up and down, the expectations
What do you think is going to happen next? Who was going to lead this protest movement? Clearly, there is rage. Is there now a leader for the protesters?
TRAUB: Well, Eliot, the problem is we can't talk right now to the people who are making the crucial decision, which is Egypt's military leaders. We don't really know what happened today. And so some of the things we've talked about made it clear, I think, they can make me think that one thing was decided at one point in the course of a day and then something else happened. Does that mean Mubarak lied? Does that mean Mubarak changed his mind? We don't know.
But right now, I very much doubt that Egypt's senior military leaders are sleeping. They've got a few hours to make a decision. There are going to be hundreds of thousands of people out there. Many of them at the presidential palace. They may feel they have to choose between either undoing what Mubarak said, i.e., a coup, or confronting the protesters. Two choices they deeply don't want to make.
SPITZER: Irshad?
MANJI: Do we still have Ron Suskind on the line?
SPITZER: Ron, can you hear us?
SUSKIND: Yes, I mean --
MANJI: Ron, hi. It's Irshad here in New York.
I have a very basic question and forgive me if this sounds obtuse. But, you know, Omar Suleiman is the ex-spy chief. You know, former chief of intelligence.
How is it possible that he could have ever had credibility as a transition leader? Either with the U.S. government, or more importantly with the people of Egypt? I don't get that.
SUSKIND: Well, you know, you're dealing with the shadow land here of the way much of the world works with the unions, or uneasy alliances between the West that champions democracy and this part of the world, where we need things done but we don't want them to be done in any way that has accountability in daylight and sunlight. So we deal with a guy like Suleiman, like many of the intelligence chiefs in many of the countries as this region.
What that means is that essentially the U.S. and many countries in the West, has its -- their hands get dirty in alliances with countries like Egypt and, specifically, the broker, the fixer is a guy like Suleiman.
So a couple days ago, a week ago when Suleiman started to rise up in the western democracies who were saying he's our man, you know, of course, I just sort of shook my head to say, well, in fact, he has been the guy doing the things that we don't want to admit in public for quite some time. Especially in battle against al Qaeda in trying to preserve stability with lots of insurgency groups, you know, sort of a complications in the region.
You know, it is interesting, because so much of this is a matter of the western democracies not wanting to admit the way they do business in this part of the world. And Suleiman is their broker. He is their fixer. I think basically what happened here, Suleiman promised he can manage the transition, i.e. an exile for Mubarak. And that's probably what he's been working on for the past couple days. A place where Mubarak could get out of the country with his assets and get to some cushy place in some other part of the world, some other country and be free of prosecution. That clearly didn't happen. Mubarak seems to have kind of pulled back from that. And I think the army probably was figuring that was going to be happening as well.
So what you've got is a very dynamic situation. I agree with what's been said. The key player right now is the army and what it will do. I think if you try to understand Suleiman and the army, that's really the key relationship. A guy like Suleiman who runs the intelligence service and the way they do business, as I said the secret police inside this country, they would want the military to essentially exact violence on the demonstrators. That's something a secret police chief does. That's not something an army general is in many cases willing to do.
So right now, we're in a position where I think Mubarak and Suleiman are probably going to turn to the army and saying do what need be done. And the army may, may not, may say, look, we are officers of the military. We do not bring violence to our citizens. And that's going to be the key break point.
SPITZER: Ron, Ron, thank you. We have got to break away. We are seeing live on the camera pictures in front of the presidential palace with a military clearly behind barbed wire, worried about what's going to happen as the protestors gather and launch and prepare for what tomorrow could be a monumental day. A yes or no answer as the clock runs out. The clock is running out. We don't even have time for the yes or no answer.
TRAUB: Yes.
MANJI: Can I say, no? He says yes, and that's no for me.
SPITZER: Thank you, Irshad, James Traub and Rob Suskind, for recapping a day that is a roller coaster emotionally. Just crazy and it continues. And we will have live coverage.
PARKER: Thank you for watching. Good night from New York. "PIERS MORGAN" starts right now.
