Tag Archives: Mohamed ElBaradei

Cables Show State Department Disregarded Muslim Brotherhood Threat

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by John Rossomando

The Obama administration chose to listen to voices suggesting that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was moderate rather than those who warned it would resort to violence if it came to power, cables obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism show.

A look at recent headlines involving Egypt’s new Islamist-dominated government makes clear the radical, threatening path its leaders are charting, and that those who urged caution in dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood were prophetic. Criticism of President Mohamed Morsi in the media and among opposition groups leads to criminal investigations. Even a comedian is being targeted.

The Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi remains closely tied, routinely threatens Israel and issues anti-Semitic statements.

Meanwhile, Islamists rammed through a new constitution which sparked international concern for women’s and minority rights. Some analysts say the Brotherhood’s actions have pushed Egypt closer to civil war.

The reaction from Washington has been muted at best.

The Obama administration repeatedly ignored and downplayed advance warnings that the Muslim Brotherhood would resort to violent and undemocratic tactics if it came to power, Egyptian opposition leader Michael Meunier tells the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).

For example, a Sept. 20, 2011 State Department cable obtained by the IPT reports on a Muslim Brotherhood representative telling the U.S. embassy in Cairo that the “MB (Muslim Brotherhood) was not the extremist organization the West feared.”

Such assurances have been reflected in comments from Obama administration officials, including the Secretary of State and Director of National Intelligence.

In an April 15, 2010 cable, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson reported that Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie had “reaffirmed the MB was a non-violent” movement.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper similarly described the Muslim Brotherhood in February 2011 as “largely secular” and said that it “eschewed violence.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton listed the Brotherhood’s alleged commitment to nonviolence as among the reasons the State Department planned to expand its contacts with the group in a June 30, 2011 statement.

In the wake of renewed street protests after Morsi’s November decree seizing extrajudicial power, and amid reports of violence and intimidation during last month’s constitutional vote, Clinton and other Obama administration officials have issued tepid and general statements about nonviolence and protecting the rights of all Egyptians.

“The future of Egypt’s democracy depends on forging a broader consensus behind its new democratic rules and institutions. Many Egyptians have voiced deep concerns about the substance of the constitution and the constitutional process,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a Dec. 25 press release. “President Morsi, as the democratically elected leader of Egypt, has a special responsibility to move forward in a way that recognizes the urgent need to bridge divisions, build trust, and broaden support for the political process.”

Read more at IPT

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Morsi Annuls Decree, Advances 12/15/12 Constitutional Referendum

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Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi (C) attends a meeting with Egypt’s Vice President Mahmoud Mekky (4th L) with other politicians and heads of parties at the presidential palace in Cairo December 8, 2012. A new decree was issued to accomplish the same popularly supported result as the 11/22/12 decree—a more Sharia-compliant constitution for a Sharia-thirsty Egyptian society

by Andrew Bostom

Al-Ahram has just published (Sunday 12/9/12)  in English translation the full text of a new constitutional declaration that revokes the controversial constitutional declaration issued by Egyptian President Morsi on November 22, 2012.

The earlier decree granting Morsi sweeping executive powers, which he insisted was necessary to move Egypt’s democratic transition forward, did in fact break the deadlock over the draft constitution. According to Mohammad Salim al-Awa, spokesman for a national political dialogue  held Saturday (albeit, boycotted by the major Morsi government opposition groups), the most contentious article from the prior 11/22/12 edict, which placed all of Morsi’s actions beyond judicial review, has been abrogated.

But the referendum on Egypt’s newly minted, increasingly Sharia-compliant draft constitution, will proceed apace, under the following conditions, outlined in item 3 of the new declaration:

3- If the people vote against the draft constitution in the referendum on Saturday, 15 December 2012, the president is to call for the direct election of a new Constituent Assembly of 100 members within three months.

The new Assembly is to finish its task within six months from its election date. The president is to then call for a referendum on the new draft presented by the Assembly within thirty days of receiving it.

In all cases, vote counting and the announcement of results in the constitutional referendum is to take place publicly in election subcommittees as soon as the voting process is finished. The results are to be validated by the head of the subcommittee.

Despite polling data reported yesterday from Vote Compass Egypt, indicating a mass Egyptian popular support of 70% for the constitution,  National Salvation Front “liberal” opposition leader Mohamed El-Baradei, with predictable (if delusive) bravado,  tweeted shortly after 2 a.m Sunday 12/9/12,

We have broken the barrier of fear: A constitution that axes our rights and freedoms is a constitution we will bring down today before tomorrow. Our strength is in our will.

Inside the Muslim Brotherhood’s Torture Chambers

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photo_aspx_By Daniel Greenfield

Does the Muslim Brotherhood have its own torture chambers? Well it wouldn’t be a proper totalitarian movement if it didn’t. In the Middle East having your torture chambers is like an American politician getting his own handicapped parking sticker, it’s a sign that you have real power now.

Al-Masry Al-Youm spent three hours Wednesday night in a Muslim Brotherhood torture chamber at the presidential palace. The central chamber was located at the gate of the palace in front of Omar bin Abdel Aziz Mosque on Merghany Street. The chamber was cordoned by iron barriers and Central Security Forces, who only allowed this reporter access after a colleague from Misr 25 satellite channel, owned by the Brotherhood, intervened.

Police officials in uniform were present inside the chamber, as were plainclothes officers from the Nozha police station. Fifteen Brotherhood members were also present, supervised by three bearded men who decided who should be there. They could order anyone out of the room.

Opposing protesters were brought to the chambers after being detained by Brotherhood members, who beat them and tore their clothes.

The kidnappers would take the detained person’s ID card, mobile phone and money before beginning “investigations,” which included intervals of beating to force the confession that he or she is a “thug.”

The interrogators would then ask their captive why they had taken to the street, if they had received any money for protesting, and if they belonged to Mohamed ElBaradei’s Constitution Party, Hamdeen Sabbahi’s Popular Current or the dissolved National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak.

If the detainee denied affiliation, the torturers would intensify beatings and verbal abuse. They also documented the interrogations on a mobile phone camera and contacted the Misr 25 TV channel to name the detainees as thugs.

After a while, a captive would be transferred to a central chamber, where a Brotherhood lawyer would hand his or her ID card and personal belongings to a senior police officer, who was the head of the “investigations department” in the chamber. Some Brotherhood members claimed that they found weapons on the detainees and had handed them over to Nozha police officers.

This reporter heard detainees screaming inside the chamber. One pleaded, “I’m a bearded sheikh… It’s Safwat Hegazy who will restore my rights. I’m a friend of all sheikhs.” A bleeding man cried, “I’m an educated person. I have a car. Do I look like a thug?” A severely beaten detainee, who said he was from Sayeda Zeinab, was accused of being affiliated with former Parliament Speaker Fathi Sorour.

Some of the detainees were not able to respond to the questions the Brotherhood interrogators screamed at them because of their physical state. Some were bleeding profusely and severely fatigued, but were not given medical assistance, only offered bottles of water to drink.

There was blood visible on the pavement outside the chambers. Some Brothers covered it with dust to try to hide it, but some of it remained visible.

Maybe Morsi can call in his good friend Obama to help him spread some of the dust over the blood.

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U.S. Abandons Israel as Iran Crosses into ‘Zone of Immunity’

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by: Clare Lopez

Before our eyes, Iran is slipping into what Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has termed “the zone of immunity” – the position where the critical elements of its nuclear weapons program are so far advanced and so well-protected in underground bunkers that they cannot be destroyed by conventional means.

The latest report from the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) notes that the number of centrifuges installed just since May 2012 at the deeply-buried Fordow enrichment site has doubled (to 2,140 from 1,064 in May, even though all of them are not yet up and running). Enrichment at the Natanz enrichment facility continues as do conversion activities at Isafahan and construction at the Arak heavy water research reactor.

Significantly, Iran also seems to be focusing on increasing its output of uranium enriched close to the 20% level, from which it is not difficult to go all the way to the 90% or above needed for weapons grade uranium. All of these activities are in violation of IAEA Board of Governors and UN Security Council resolutions.

Additionally, the new IAEA report describes extensive clean-up activities visible in satellite imagery at the Parchin military site, where Iran built a large containment vessel in which to conduct hydrodynamic experiments (explosives experiments for nuclear warhead triggers). At least five buildings at Parchin have been demolished; power lines, fences and all paved roads have been removed; and “significant ground scraping and landscaping have been undertaken over an extensive area.” Despite repeated requests, Iran has not permitted the IAEA to visit and inspect Parchin.

In contrast to the IAEA’s permissive stance towards Iran under former Secretary General Mohamed ElBaradei, recent reporting from the IAEA candidly addresses the “possible military dimensions” of the Iranian program and once again in the August 2012 report also cites “activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile” and “activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”

There are other alarming developments as well. Towards the end of the late August 2012 , at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting in Tehran (attended by Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi and featuring a turnover of the group’s leadership from Egypt to Iran), North Korea and Iran signed a new technology agreement.

While the two long have cooperated in both nuclear weapons and ballistic missile delivery systems development, a July 2012 report from veteran national defense reporter Bill Gertz focused attention on a Chinese military journal article about a North Korean program to develop a “super-EMP,” a small-scale nuclear warhead that produces massive emissions of high-powered gamma rays that could disrupt or destroy all electronics in its range.

Meanwhile, the Iranian nuclear scientist considered by Western observers to be Tehran’s top “nuclear guru,” according to the Wall Street Journal, is back in action after having worked out of the public eye for a number of years. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is a senior officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite Iranian military organization charged by the Ayatollah Khomeini in the mid-1980’s to “get the bomb.” In 2000, he began working at Parchin; now, Fakhrizadeh has opened a new research facility in Tehran’s northern suburbs which is focused on nuclear weapons work.

Evidence that Iran is closing in on the capability to produce and deliver nuclear weapons, possibly including the devastating “super-EMP,” is mounting. Further, evidence that Iran increasingly is protecting this capability in deep, underground sites that soon may be invulnerable to a conventional air strike is unavoidable. The Jewish State of Israel has never been more vulnerable to existential threat—and yet, now too, the distance between Jerusalem and Washington, D.C. has never been greater.

Despite protestations by President Obama that “we’ve got your back,” White House actions speak louder than words. The U.S. has drastically scaled back its troop and equipment commitment to the annual joint U.S.-Israel military exercise, called “Austere Challenge 12.” First postponed from early 2012 to October, the exercise now looks likely to go forward just before the November U.S. presidential election; but the U.S. has slashed the number of its troops that will be participating by more than two-thirds, Patriot anti-missile systems are to be sent without crews to operate them and even the two Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warships promised as a replacement are not a definite.

Jeffrey Feltman (second from left)

Jeffrey Feltman (second from left)On the diplomatic front as well, the Obama administration is sending signals that align its policy more closely with that of Tehran than Jerusalem. When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon ignored an Obama request not to lend legitimacy to the mullahs’ regime by visiting Iran and attended the NAM meeting, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State went along, too. Jeffrey Feltman (who now works for Ban Ki-Moon at the UN), was photographed at an August 30 meeting (looking distinctly uncomfortable), seated on a couch between Ahmadinejad’s senior Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and Moon during an audience with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

As journalist-in-residence at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Claudia Rosett wrote at PJMedia on August 29, “This is a diplomatic coup for Iran’s regime, which tops the U.S. list of terrorist-sponsoring states, thumbs its nose at UN and U.S. sanctions, and continues to pursue nuclear weapons, coupled with threats to America and America’s allies — including the genocidal threat to annihilate Israel.” It’s also a slap at U.S. ally Israel, which will not have missed the message from its erstwhile friend and protector.

Finally, lest it be thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, there’s the craven comment from the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who told reporters in London during a late August visit that he thought Israel could damage but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities—and then added, “I don’t want to be complicit if they choose to do it.”

Bottom line: Israel can be in no doubt that it is being abandoned in its hour of supreme need by its sometime champion, the former defender of the free world—a United States of America now willingly implementing policies that embolden and empower the forces of Islamic jihad and shariah, whether Sunni or Shi’a, which are dedicated to the destruction of us all.

Clare Lopez is a senior fellow at RadicalIslam.org and a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on the Middle East, national defense and counterterrorism. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).