WikiLeaks: Omar Suleiman, Egypt Vice President, Favored Over Mubarak By Israel

LONDON — Egypt's Vice President Omar Suleiman was long seen by Israel as the preferred candidate to succeed President Hosni Mubarak, secret U.S. diplomatic cables published Monday suggested.

According to an August 2008 cable released by WikiLeaks and published by the Daily Telegraph newspaper on its website, a senior adviser from the Israeli Ministry of Defense told U.S. diplomats in Tel Aviv that the Israelis believe Suleiman would likely serve as "at least an interim president if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated."

A U.S. diplomat who classified the cable, Luis Moreno, wrote that although he deferred to the Embassy in Cairo for Egyptian succession scenario analysis, "there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of" Suleiman.

The cable quoted the adviser to Israel's defense ministry, David Hacham, as saying an Israeli delegation led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak was "shocked by Mubarak's aged appearance and slurred speech," when it met him in Egypt. "Hacham was full of praise for Soliman, however," it said. Suleiman was spelled Soliman in some of the leaked cables.

Hacham added that he sometimes spoke to Suleiman's deputy several times a day via a "hotline," according to the cable.

On Sunday, Suleiman met several major opposition groups, including the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, for the first time and offered new concessions including freedom of the press and the release of those detained during the country's recent violent protests.

Comments

[EJavaM07]

04:33 PM on 02/11/2011

So exactly when will the Israeli people be electing the new President of Egypt?

[who38]

04:26 PM on 02/13/2011

Right after they "elect" a successor to Jane Harmon.  Jane recently ran to make sure that her most feared opposition would lose.  Now she has left so that Anderson can slide into her place. 

Hope Israeli support is the same kiss of death to Anderson as it will be to Suleiman.b

[nicholas b]

01:55 PM on 02/10/2011

The fact that Mubarak is now going down within hours also points to the fact that any replacements he tries to leave behind - like Suleiman - to uphold his regime and any of its commitments are also doomed to almost as immediate a collapse. Suleiman would be wise to take the next emergency El Al flight out of Cairo to join his puppetmasters across the border - he's already an irrelevancy. The only reason to keep him in Egypt is to put him on trial for his life and get to the bottom of all these covert dealings he was involved in.

[lodger16x]

05:00 AM on 02/10/2011

When the Israeli government says it prefers Suleiman over Mubarak because of Mubarak's age/health, it is not picking a favorite horse, or puppy.
It clearly intends that the US will use its influence to see Suleiman into power if something happens to Mubarak, or preferably before something happens. 
 And that is exactly what the Obama administration has done.

[BestGuest]

08:53 AM on 02/10/2011

And then people call you names for suggesting that the U$ foreign policy is written in foreign lands….

[who38]

04:29 PM on 02/13/2011

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[who38]

04:31 PM on 02/13/2011

You mean names like "wise one", "sage", "realist", etc.?

Sorry my first reply, which was the same, appears as "undefined">

[Freenation]

01:51 AM on 02/10/2011

not a bit surprised,,,

[lodger16x]

05:03 AM on 02/10/2011

Israel as a client state of the US is one of the greatest stories ever told.

[nicholas b]

01:58 PM on 02/10/2011

Yes, I saw that movie too, and like the relationship you reference it was full of special effects and not based on anything authentic, true or meaningful.

[EJavaM07]

04:35 PM on 02/11/2011

Didn't you mean the Us is a client state of Israel?

[Cihangir]

01:00 AM on 02/10/2011

n the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the CIA relied on Suleiman to accept the transfer of a detainee known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who US officials hoped could prove a link between Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. The suspect was bound and blindfolded and flown to Cairo, where the CIA believed their longtime ally Suleiman would ensure a successful interrogation, according to “The One Percent Doctrine” by author Ron Suskind. A US Senate report in 2006 describes how the detainee was locked in a cage for hours and beaten, with Egyptian authorities pushing him to confirm alleged connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. Libi eventually told his interrogators that the then Iraqi regime was moving to provide Al-Qaeda with biological and chemical weapons. When the then US secretary of state Colin Powell made the case for war before the United Nations, he referred to details of Libi’s confession. The detainee eventually recanted his account.”

Thus our loyal ally Egypt provided the fake information used by the United States to justify go to war in Iraq.

[who38]

04:38 PM on 02/13/2011

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[who38]

04:41 PM on 02/13/2011

Is that what Libi told his interrogators or what his interrogators said that he told them?  Just as the current US president waited for the right moment to support a faction in the Egyptian conflict, I am sure that the Egyptian government did the same re/ Iraq.

When the war criminals involved in the Iraqi invasion are finally indicted, Powell should be second the list, following Rumsfeld.

[Cihangir]

12:58 AM on 02/10/2011

Suleiman underwent training in the 1980s at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

The school began in 1951 as the Psychological Warfare division of the Army General School at Fort Riley, Kansas. The Army's Psychological Warfare Center was created at Fort Bragg in May 1952 and the following month the school was co-located as the Psychological Warfare School.The center was proposed by the Army's then Psychological Warfare Chief, Robert A. McClure, to provide doctrinal support and training for both psychological and conventional warfare.

[Planet Caravan]

08:44 PM on 02/09/2011

Israel should announce they prefer the MB. That way the MB will get dissed by all the Israel h8ters

[Genders]

07:18 PM on 02/09/2011

Who do the Egyptians want?

[FerFree]

07:09 PM on 02/09/2011

Down with Mubarak & Suleiman! ElBaradei is the one to lead Egypt.

[Amryxx]

04:32 PM on 02/09/2011

Sorry, how is this a worthwhile story?

It's one thing if it's "Israel conspires with Egyptian VP" or "Israel bankrolled Mubarak"; but this article basically says, "Israel prefers guy X over Y". All countries are like that, so I'm not sure what's so controversial it requires reporting.

[johnsonc20]

08:11 PM on 02/09/2011

Israel isn't just any country with regard to Egypt. Egypt serves as Israel's jailer in Gaza. A new administration might not take that same role - and if it reflected the will of the Egyptian people it would not. The Israelis know from experience that they can count on Suleiman to keep Gaza's gate closed tight when they want it that way (which is pretty much all of the time).

The question becomes, as Genders says above, "who do the Egyptians want?" They should make that choice in a free and fair election - just like "all countries" that we consider civilized do. Israel is entitled to its opinions. The Israeli government should not dictate to Washington to back a pro-Israeli government in Egypt. Again the question must be - "who do the Egyptians want?" It is their country.

[BestGuest]

08:56 AM on 02/10/2011

FnF...

[BestGuest]

08:56 AM on 02/10/2011

It wouldn't be a story if events weren't occurring that pointed towards this guy being brought into power by all sorts of machinations….

[muck-raker]

03:05 PM on 02/09/2011

Robert Fisk: Egypt: Death throes of a dictatorsh­­ip

Sunday, 30 January 2011

Egyptian tanks, the delirious protesters sitting atop them, the flags, the 40,000 protesters weeping and crying and cheering in Freedom Square and praying around them, the Muslim Brotherhoo­­d official sitting amid the tank passengers­­. Should this be compared to the liberation of Bucharest? Climbing on to an American-m­­ade battle tank myself, I could only remember those wonderful films of liberation of Paris. A few hundred metres away, Hosni Mubarak's black-unif­­ormed security police were still firing at demonstrat­­ors near interior ministry. It was wild, historical victory celebratio­­n, Mubarak's own tanks freeing his capital from his own dictatorsh­­ip.

In the pantomime world of Mubarak himself – and of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Washington – the man who still claims to be president of Egypt swore in the most prepostero­­us choice of vice-presi­­dent in an attempt to soften the fury of the protesters – Omar Suleiman, Egypt's chief negotiator with Israel and his senior intelligen­­ce officer, a 75-year-ol­­d with years of visits to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and four heart attacks to his credit. How this elderly apparatchi­­k might be expected to deal with the anger and joy of liberation of 80 million Egyptians is beyond imaginatio­­n. When I told the demonstrat­­ors on the tank around me the news of Suleiman's appointmen­­t, they burst into laughter.

http://www­­.independ­e­nt.co.uk­/o­pinion/­com­mentat­ors/­fisk/­rober­t-fi­sk-egy­pt-­death-t­hr­oes-of-a­-­dictators­­hip-219844­­4.html””

[xMoonWalkerx]

02:53 PM on 02/09/2011

Is it the prevailing wisdom that any Egyptian favored by Israel or the US must be bad for egypt?

[anandblr]

03:36 PM on 02/09/2011

you seem to be confusing anti-semitism with opposition to anything Israel does. convenient, but intellectually dishonest.

[johnsonc20]

08:14 PM on 02/09/2011

If a pro-Israel candidate can win a free and fair election in Egypt then why would anyone object. Are we afraid of democracy? Let the people of Egypt decide who represents them, not Israel or the US.

[BoFo]

02:45 PM on 02/09/2011

That's absolutely RIDICULOUS! Why would they want the OCTOMOM to be the president of Egypt?

Oh, ....umm.... nevermind........ I read it wrong.....sorry........

[Anbreen]

04:01 PM on 02/09/2011

Faved for making me laugh.

[Lpeter]

04:54 PM on 02/09/2011

I don't get it.

[wowme]

02:14 PM on 02/09/2011

Should the egyptian people live for themselves or other countries

[messy]

03:16 PM on 02/09/2011

what kind of question is that? Nasser went to war in Yemen and took over Syria because of the latter.

[johnsonc20]

08:16 PM on 02/09/2011

And what does that statement have to do with price of bananas? The question is, should the people of Egypt be denied their right to choose their own leaders because the US and Israel are worried about what their choice might be? That is the question that the US must answer. We already know about how Israel feels about the rights of Arabs. We their justice every day in the streets of Israel and in the occupied territories.