This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CAIRO 000358 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV OVIP KDEM PHUM KIRF EG IR MFA
SUBJECT: CODEL WOLF MEETINGS WITH GOE MINISTERS 
 
 
Classified by Ambassador Francis Ricciardone for reasons 1.4 
(b) and (d). 
 
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Summary 
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¶1.  (C)  In January 15 meetings with the Ministers of 
Interior, Justice, and Trade-Industry, as well as with senior 
MFA officials, Congressman Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) pressed the 
GOE on the Ayman Nour case, as well as religious freedom, 
support for the U.S. in international fora, and discussed 
regional challenges.  The GOE officials responded with 
consistency on the Nour case (that he is a convicted criminal 
with a shady past), though Minister Rashid, a leading 
reformer within the Cabinet, suggested also that unnamed 
anti-reform elements in the GOE had manipulated the Nour case 
in order to stymie the GOE's reform drive.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  Rep. Wolf, accompanied by the Ambassador, Chief of 
Staff Dan Scandling, and poloff (notetaker), met separately 
with Interior Minister Gen. Habib Al-Adly, Justice Minister 
Mahmoud Aboul Leil, and Trade and Industry Minister Rashid M. 
Rashid on Sunday, January 15.  Due to FM Aboul Gheit's sudden 
trip to Kuwait for the funeral of Sheikh Jaber, MFA Assistant 
Minister for the Cabinet (D equivalent) Wafaa Bassim, joined 
by Assistant Minister for American Affairs Ali Al-Hefny, met 
with Rep. Wolf in place of the FM. 
 
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MFA 
--- 
 
¶3.  (C)  In his meeting with the MFA, Rep. Wolf reviewed four 
areas of concern: 
 
--Ayman Nour; 
--a dearth of GOE support for U.S. positions within 
international fora; 
--treatment of Egypt's Coptic Christian and other religious 
minorities; and 
--Iraq and other regional challenges. 
 
Regarding the Nour case, Rep. Wolf--who opened all of his 
ministerial meetings by passing to his interlocutors copies 
of the December 29 masthead editorials on the Nour case--told 
Ambassador Bassim that the Nour case has "hurt" the GOE; that 
Nour himself has "now become bigger than life;" and that 
"this has definitely created a problem" that will persist as 
long as Nour remains in jail. 
 
¶4.  (C)  Regarding issues such as potential IAEA referral of 
Iran to the UNSC and the reform of the UN Human Rights 
Comission, Rep. Wolf cited the absence of GOE support.  He 
warned that GOE support for the U.S. position on Iran and UN 
reform is "really going to impact Egypt,s reputation in the 
Congress."  Rep. Wolf told Bassim, "We need you on the (Iran) 
nuclear issue; we ask for your vote." 
 
 
¶5.  (C)  On the matter of Egypt's religious minorities, Rep. 
Wolf stressed that members of Congress want the GOE to 
continue to build a "fundamental equality" for all Egyptian 
citizens.  The GOE should consider how it can ensure that 
religious conversion in any direction, and to any faith, is 
treated equally under the law.  GOE law should also adopt a 
unifed approach for houses of worship in terms of zoning, 
building regulations, and permits. 
 
¶6.  (C)  Regarding Iraq, Rep. Wolf told the MFA officials 
that the U.S. "needs your help" with regard to additional 
steps to secure and stabilize Iraq.  The ramifications of a 
U.S. failure in Iraq, said Rep. Wolf, would be serious for 
the region, especially for Egypt, since jihadists in Iraq 
would soon direct their efforts against the Mubarak 
government if they ever were to succeed in Iraq. 
 
¶7.  (C)  Regarding Ayman Nour, Bassim said "we must await the 
outcome of his appeal" to the Court of Cassation.  She noted 
that the coverage of the Nour case in the Washington Post and 
New York Times suggested an orchestrated campaign against the 
GOE.  She argued that notwithstanding "some problems" during 
the 2005 elections, Egyptians are now "inspired to 
participate" in politics.  "There will be mistakes on the 
way; you had yours," she told the Congressman, but the GOE is 
seeking "help and training, not just criticism."  As 
strategic friends, she continued, the USG and the GOE must 
each accept the other with its "deficiencies."  Assistant 
Minister Hefny added that "your country had 200 years" to 
build democratic institutions, and that no one in Egypt had 
ever done as much for democracy as President Mubarak did in 
¶2005. 
 
¶8.  (C)  Regarding the GOE position on referral of Iran to 
the UNSC, Bassim said that Egyptian public opinion would not 
allow the GOE to apply different standards to Iran and 
Israel.  Bassim introduced her colleague, Deputy Assistant 
Minister for Human Rights Ehab Gamal Eddin, to present the 
GOE position on UN Human Rights Commission reform.  Gamal 
Eddin said the GOE agreed about the need for reform, but also 
believed that democratic procedures in the UN required 
"universal participation" in order to make the new council 
more credible.  The new council, he argued, should "be open 
to all and reflect all belief systems."  Neither MFA official 
responded directly to Rep. Wolf's question about the 
legitimacy of an UN Human Rights body that allowed countries 
like Sudan to play a leading role. 
 
¶9.  (C)  Bassim told Rep. Wolf that "Iraq is issue number 
one."  Three million Egyptians live in Iraq.  She cautioned, 
however, that the murder of the Egyptian Ambassador to 
Baghdad in 2005 made the GOE "once burned, twice shy." 
Nevertheless, Egypt was a willing and important partner in 
stablizing Iraq:  the GOE remained willing to provide 
security training in Egypt, and Orascom, the private Egyptian 
communications company, was playing a leading role in 
building the Iraq cellular phone network. 
 
¶10.  (C)  Responding to Rep. Wolf's concerns about religious 
freedom, Gamal Eddin insisted that the GOE needed to continue 
to annotate national ID cards with religious status because 
different religious laws govern the civil affairs of Egypt's 
different confessional communities.  Moreover, argued Gamal 
Eddin, the computerization of the national ID card system, 
which "is 40-50 percent complete," would have to be restarted 
from scratch if the GOE were to abolish the religious 
identity requirement at this point.  Regarding Egypt's small 
Bahai community, Gamal Eddin admitted that the GOE needs to 
find "a practical way out" of the problem it has created by 
refusing to issue the Bahais with birth certificates and 
national IDs. 
 
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Interior Minister Adly 
---------------------- 
 
¶11.  (C)  In his meeting with Interior Minister Adly, Rep. 
Wolf told Adly that the Ayman Nour matter was hurting Egypt, 
and needed to be resolved.  Minister Adly replied that Nour's 
case was a simple criminal matter, that the court gave the 
defense plenty of time to make its case, and that it would be 
an insult to the Egyptian judiciary to try to intervene in 
the matter.  Adly assured Rep. Wolf that Nour, who is 
currently in the hospital at Torah Farms prison in south 
Cairo, has "full medical assistance" and "extra care."  In 
response to Rep. Wolf's request, Adly said that he had no 
objection to Wolf making a visit to Ayman Nour, but that the 
modalities would need to be worked out with the Justice 
Minister. 
 
¶12.  (C)  Rep. Wolf and the Ambassador also briefly discussed 
with Adly the prospects for increased USG support for modern 
police training (including crowd control, public affairs, 
responding to complaints, and community-based policing) for 
the GOE police services in light of the recent police 
violence against voters and deaths that occured during the 
removal of Sudanese refugee protestors.  Adly noted that he 
had already discussed this issue with Suzanne Mubarak, and 
said that he looked forward to additional discussions on such 
security cooperation.  In addition, Adly noted that the 
deaths of the 27 Sudanese refugees on December 30, 2005 were 
"not the result of tactical police work," but rather were the 
unfortunate consequence of "a stampede" by the refugees after 
they were hit by police water cannons. 
 
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Justice Minister Aboul Leil 
--------------------------- 
 
¶13.  (C)  In a brief meeting with the Justice Minister, Rep. 
Wolf reiterated his central concerns about Ayman Nour and 
formally sought the Minister's permission and assistance to 
meet with Nour.  Rep. Wolf told the Minister that future 
codels would also seek to meet with Nour as long as he 
remained in jail.  The Minister demurred on providing Rep. 
Wolf with an answer immediately, saying that he had to check 
first with his subordinate, the Public Prosecutor Maher Abdul 
Wahed, about the modalities of any visit to Nour in jail. 
Note:  After a follow-up call by the Ambassador to Aboul 
Leil, MOJ officials told emboff late on January 16 that it 
would not be possible for Rep. Wolf to see Nour, "due to the 
shortness of time."  Rep. Wolf later meet with Nour's wife, 
Gameela Ismail, and Ghad Party Vice President Hisham Kassem, 
reported septel.  End note. 
 
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Minister of Trade and Industry Rashid 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶14.  (C)  In his meeting with Minister of Trade Rashid, Wolf 
received a candid but hopeful briefing about the prospects 
for reform in Egypt.  Rashid also asserted that the Ayman 
Nour case was in fact the result of an internal GOE battle 
between pro- and anti-reform elements, and the USG must 
remain steady in its support for the pro-reform elements. 
 
¶15.  (C)  Rashid told Rep. Wolf that the new cabinet, which 
brought in more business leaders as minister, was committed 
to "change, openness, and the free market."  The Egyptian 
economy was thriving, Rashid said, thanks to the pro-market 
stance of the GOE and due to the influx of petro-dollars from 
the Gulf.  Still, said Rashid, the remaining challenges were 
huge.  He offered as examples the bloated personnel rosters 
of the Ministries of Health and Agriculture, which have 
720,000 and 1.1 million employees respectively.  Senior 
physicians in the Health Ministry, said Rashid, only earn 
about USD 30 per month.  These conditions are a recipe for 
inefficiency and corruption, and a massive challenge for the 
GOE.  "It's like trying to fix a car while driving at 100 
miles per hour." 
 
¶16.  (C)  In addition, political reform challenges and 
regional security concerns combine to make the situation even 
more complex. The 2005 parliamentary elections, said Rashid, 
prove that Egyptian citizens "are not happy, and they have 
the right (to express this dissatisfaction)."  The success of 
the Muslim Brotherhood, Rashid continued, was largely due to 
the GOE's "terribly bad" policies. 
 
¶17.  (C)  Rep. Wolf reviewed for Rashid his basic points 
about Ayman Nour, and observed that a cynic might be forgiven 
for thinking that the decision to prosecute and convict Nour 
was the result of anti-reform forces consciously seeking to 
provoke the West.  After a rueful chuckle, Rashid replied, 
"that's a true story."  The decision to go after Nour, said 
Rashid, was the result of "people sitting around a room 
saying, 'How can we stop this?'"  Rashid argued that, "Our 
real battle, which we are fighting day and night is to push 
both economic and political reform."  Despite recent 
setbacks, like the Nour case, the pro-reform cause is 
winning, and indeed it must win, in order to forestall an 
eventual Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt.  In this 
context, argued Rashid, a Free Trade Agreement between Egypt 
and the U.S. should be seen not as a carrot or stick for the 
GOE, but rather as a way to lock in the reform mentality that 
is crucial to Egypt's political and economic success. 
 
¶18.  (C)  Rep. Wolf told Rashid that despite Rashid's 
persuasive presentation, "logic sometimes loses out to 
reality."  The Nour case and other apparent backsliding by 
the GOE on reform, said Rep. Wolf, are "pulling you down." 
Rashid, for his part, acknowledged that he understood the 
political realities that constrain USTR Portman and the rest 
of the USG as well as the Congress. 
 
¶19.  (U)  Rep. Wolf did not clear this message before he 
departed. 
 
RICCIARDONE