and potential successor
aided the U.S. with its rendition program
...and oversaw the torture of an Al Qaeda suspect whose information helped justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
...when the CIA asked Suleiman for a DNA sample
from a relative of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri,
Suleiman offered the man's whole arm instead.
[Ron] Suskind said Suleiman "was our point man in Egypt for many years.
Everything went through Omar.
We never had to talk to anyone else.
When we wanted someone to be tortured, we'd send him to Egypt to have them tortured.
We wanted to get intelligence and we didn't need it to be stuff that could be doublechecked."
...Suleiman oversaw joint intelligence operations with the CIA and other Arab countries
"which featured illegal renditions and tortures of dozens of detainees."
Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003,
al Qaeda commander Ibn al Sheikh al-Libi was transferred to Egypt for interrogation.
According to a U.S. Senate report, al-Libi was beaten and locked in a cage
as Egyptian officials attempted to get him to confirm a connection between Al Qaeda
and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Al Libi told his interrogators, according to the report,
that Hussein was supplying Al Qaeda with chemical weapons.
He later recanted.
If the military opens fire on the protesters,
does Egypt lose about $2 billion a year in "assistance"? (Bribe to be at peace with Israel?)
or not?
does Egypt lose about $2 billion a year in "assistance"? (Bribe to be at peace with Israel?)
or not?
...the intelligence gained by the Mukhabarat via torture was often specious.
"On numerous occasions their intelligence was riddled with utter falsehoods and fabrications."
...many officials in Washington were stunned at Mubarak's choice of Suleiman,
and called it a "dead-end appointment. . . .
He is not the right person to conduct negotiations with the opposition."
MATTHEW COLE and SARAH O. WALI
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"The battle was waged by Mohammed Gamil, a dentist in a blue tie who ran toward the barricades of Liberation Square. It was joined by Fayeqa Hussein, a veiled mother of seven who filled a Styrofoam container with rocks. Magdi Abdel-Rahman, a 60-year-old grandfather, kissed the ground before throwing himself against crowds mobilized by a state bent on driving them from the square. And the charge was led by Yasser Hamdi, who said his 2-year-old daughter would live a life better than the one he endured."
The word “traitor” rang out Wednesday. The insult was directed at Mr. Mubarak, and it echoed the sentiment heard in so many parts of the Arab world these days — governments of an American-backed order in most of the region have lost their legitimacy, built on the idea that people would surrender their rights for the prospect of security and stability.
From minute-by-minute coverage on Arabic channels to conversations from Iraq to Morocco, the Middle East watched breathlessly at a moment as compelling as any in the Arab world in a lifetime. For the first time in a generation, Arabs seem to be looking again to Egypt for leadership, and that sense of destiny was voiced throughout the day.
No one was waiting for a savior on Wednesday. Before three decades of accumulated authority — the power of a state that can mobilize thousands to heed its whims — people had themselves.
“I’m fighting for my freedom,” Noha al-Ustaz said as she broke bricks on the curb. “For my right to express myself. For an end to oppression. For an end to injustice.”
“Go forward,” the cries rang out, and she did, disappearing into a sea of men.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/world/middleeast/03arab.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
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