Mubarak tells ABC fears Egypt chaos if he steps down

WASHINGTON (Agencies)

Draft US Senate resolution urges Mubarak transfer power

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he fears chaos in Egypt if he steps down and he would
like to leave office but cannot, according to an ABC interview on Thursday. “I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go,” Mubarak said in an interview with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour. Mubarak said he was “very unhappy” about the scenes of violence in Egypt and did not want to see Egyptians fighting each other.

	I am feeling strong. I would never run away. I will die on Egyptian soil
President Hosni Mubarak

“I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other,” Mubarak was quoted as saying in an early snippet of the interview.

“He told me that he is troubled by the violence we have seen in Tahrir Square over the last few days but that his government is not responsible for it,” Amnapour said in her account of the interview.

“Instead, he blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political party here in Egypt,” she said. Mubarak warned that Muslim Brothers would come to power if he left immediately.

He described President Barack Obama as a very good man, but wavered when asked if he felt that the United States had betrayed him, ABC said.

Mubarak said he told Obama: “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now,” according to ABC.

The interview took place in the heavily-guarded presidential palace in Cairo, with Mubarak’s son Gamal seated at his side, ABC said.

“I never intended to run again. I never intended Gamal to be president after me,” Mubarak reportedly said.

He told Amanpour that he had felt relief after announcing in an address to the nation on Friday that he would not run again for the presidency.

“I don’t care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country, I care about Egypt,” he added.

Asked by Amanpour how he was feeling, the veteran leader replied: “I am feeling strong. I would never run away. I will die on Egyptian soil.”

	We have warned of instability. We didn’t know what the triggering mechanism would be for that. And that happened at the end of the last year
Stephanie O’Sullivan

Draft resolution

A draft U.S. Senate resolution called on Mubarak to transfer power to an inclusive interim caretaker government.

The draft resolution, sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator John Kerry, does not specifically call on Mubarak to resign.

It calls on Mubarak to immediately begin an “orderly and peaceful transition to a democratic political system.”

This should include “the transfer of power to an inclusive interim government in coordination with leaders from Egypt’s opposition, civil society and military” to enact reforms needed to hold free and fair elections this year.

The U.S. intelligence committee warned President Barack Obama’s administration of instability in Egypt at the end of 2010, but did not foresee the trigger for unrest, a top U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday.

“We have warned of instability. We didn’t know what the triggering mechanism would be for that. And that happened at the end of the last year,” said Stephanie O’Sullivan, a current CIA official nominated to become the principal deputy director of national intelligence.

She was asked at her Senate confirmation hearing when the U.S. intelligence community warned Obama that protesters might threaten Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s grip on power.