# Wikileaks



## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

This was leaked last year.

The Egyptian military under two decades of leadership by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has seen a decline in its professional readiness and its role within Egyptian society, and the elderly defense chief’s mindset has in some ways limited the U.S.’s ability to fully take advantage of the military-to-military relationship, according to cables released by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

One interlocutor told U.S. diplomats in Cairo in 2008, “One can hear mid-level officers at MOD clubs around Cairo openly expressing disdain for Tantawi.” These officers refer to Tantawi as “Mubarak’s poodle,” he said, and complain that “this incompetent Defense Minister” who reached his position only because of unwavering loyalty to Mubarak is “running the military into the ground.”

According to a 2009 cable, Tantawi yearns for U.S. aid to be spent on advanced tanks and fighter jets to fight old-fashioned, large-scale wars while U.S. officers, including Gen. David Petraeus, have for years pressed for upgrades in pedestrian but important areas, most notably border security and anti-smuggling operations on the border with Gaza.

Tantawi also appears an unlikely reformer. A 2008 cable summarized his views as being opposed to political or economic reform, willing to use the army to curb the Muslim Brotherhood, and bristling at U.S. efforts to condition economic aid on any human-rights refor


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## Eco-Mariner (Jan 26, 2011)

I bet Tantawi wishes he had never taken the job from Mubarak..... His army is a disgrace. 
God knows what his officers would do with more tanks and fighter planes ???? Shoot more women I expect. That's about their mentality.


Eco-Mariner


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