Video: Hagel says U.S. has limited influence in Egyptian internal conflict
WASHINGTON – The spectre of Benghazi is affecting U.S. policy in an increasingly restless Egypt.
U.S. officials said last year’s deadly attack on a diplomatic outpost in Libya weighs heavily in the Obama administration’s deliberations on how to respond to the growing violence across the Arab world’s most populous country. Fighting between Egyptian security forces and recently ousted President Mohammed Morsi’s Islamist supporters has killed almost 1,000 people in the past week.
The fear in Washington is that any significant cut in military aid could prompt Egypt’s ruling generals to scale back their protection of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and other diplomatic properties.
“We are concerned about our people,” Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said at a news conference Monday. “Protection of Americans in Egypt, not just only our diplomats but all Americans, is of the highest priority.”
“American government officials, including American military, have been working very closely with the Egyptian military and police to assure the security and protection of Americans in Egypt,” Hagel told reporters.
To respond to the growing death toll and security crackdown, the Obama administration is considering suspending about $250 million in annual U.S. economic aid for Egypt, officials said. Congressional notification could arrive in the next week, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
However, officials said President Barack Obama and his national security team are still reluctant to make any similar decision on $1.3 billion in annual military assistance. The administration has refused to declare Morsi’s ouster a “coup d’etat,” which would require the U.S. to suspend military and economic funds to Egypt.
The U.S. could make more piecemeal moves like last week’s decision to put off the delivery of four F-16 fighter jets and cancel U.S.-Egyptian military exercises planned for next month, officials said.
Since the army’s overthrow of Morsi in early July, U.S. diplomatic facilities in the country have been well protected.
But protesters last September marched on the U.S. embassy compound in Cairo, climbed the walls and replaced the U.S. flag with the black banner favoured by Islamists before a belated response from Morsi’s government.
Many Egyptian citizens and even some in the government deride U.S. financial assistance as unnecessary interference.
The Obama administration defends the aid. Obama stressed last week that cutting off the assistance “was not in the national security interests” of the United States.
The U.S. has outlined the important operations such money supports – from fighting al-Qaida in the heart of the Middle East and safeguarding the stability of the Suez Canal to halting weapons flow to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and ensuring Israel’s security.
The protection of American diplomatic assets is another major element in U.S. policy considerations, officials said.
Any attack targeting the U.S. overseas would be a political disaster for Obama, given the continued criticism over his administration’s handling of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Benghazi has weighed so heavily on the administration’s perception of threats that it recently closed diplomatic posts across the Muslim world for a week after intelligence suggested an al-Qaida strike against Western targets. U.S. officials said they acted out of “an overabundance of caution.”
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Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper contributed.
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