State Department Notes ‘Constructive’ Egyptian Military Role

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2011 — News reports from Cairo indi­cate the Egypt­ian mil­i­tary is not tak­ing sides in the demon­stra­tions and counter demon­stra­tions tak­ing place in the coun­try.
State Depart­ment spokesman P.J. Crow­ley said the U.S. gov­ern­ment is in dai­ly con­tact with defense and mil­i­tary lead­ers.

“I think that broad­ly speak­ing, the mil­i­tary has played a very impor­tant and con­struc­tive role in being a sta­bi­liz­ing force on the ground, par­tic­u­lar­ly, … rel­a­tive to what the sit­u­a­tion looked like, … pri­or to the week­end,” he said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence today. “Yes­ter­day was a bad day for Egypt.” 

Crow­ley said there are indi­ca­tions the mil­i­tary is adjust­ing its move­ments today in response to the riot­ing and fight­ing yes­ter­day. Still, “we are very impressed by the pos­ture and the pro­fes­sion­al­ism dis­played by the Egypt­ian mil­i­tary,” Crow­ley said. 

Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates has spo­ken three times with Defense Min­is­ter Field Mar­shal Hus­sein Tanta­wi since the demon­stra­tions start­ed in Egypt. 

“To date we have seen them act pro­fes­sion­al­ly and with restraint,” said Pen­ta­gon spokesman Marine Col. David Lapan. “Again, it’s a very flu­id sit­u­a­tion, so we are watch­ing every sin­gle day.” 

The Unit­ed States is review­ing mil­i­tary aid to Egypt, but has not stopped send­ing aid, White House Press Sec­re­tary Robert Gibbs said yes­ter­day. “We will eval­u­ate the actions of the gov­ern­ment of Egypt in mak­ing and review­ing deci­sions about aid,” Gibbs said dur­ing yesterday’s White House media brief­ing. “That continues.” 

Lapan said mil­i­tary aid is episodic. 

“It’s not like some­thing is hap­pen­ing every day,” he said. “It comes and goes over time, whether there is a sched­uled deliv­ery that’s hap­pen­ing right now or in the future.” 

The State and Defense depart­ments man­age the for­eign mil­i­tary sales pro­gram. Sys­tems have been approved and are sched­uled for deliv­ery to Egypt this year, includ­ing include coastal patrol craft, air com­bat maneu­ver­ing instru­men­ta­tion, spare parts for F‑16 fight­er jets, air defense mis­siles and fus­es for cer­tain munitions. 

About 625 U.S. ser­vice mem­bers are based in Egypt, most of them as part of the Unit­ed Nations Multi­na­tion­al Force and Observers in the Sinai. Their mis­sion has not changed, Lapan said. 

The colonel said the depart­ment is con­duct­ing pru­dent plan­ning if called upon to exe­cute a non­com­bat­ant evac­u­a­tion order. 

“I don’t want to leave the impres­sion that we’re active­ly plan­ning and on the verge of some­thing,” he said. “As the sit­u­a­tion devel­ops, we’re always look­ing from a mil­i­tary stand­point at what’s hap­pen­ing, and what we might do should we be called upon.” 

He stressed there the State Depart­ment has not request­ed any type of evac­u­a­tion assis­tance from the Pentagon. 

For more than 30 years, Egypt­ian offi­cers and non­com­mis­sioned offi­cers have trained and attend­ed pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary edu­ca­tion along­side Amer­i­can offi­cers and NCOs. For­eign mil­i­tary ser­vice mem­bers train­ing along­side U.S. per­son­nel learn lead­er­ship and mil­i­tary skills, “but it’s real­ly about being a pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary force,” Lapan said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →