Foreign troop withdrawal only when Iraq stable: Mubarak

MADRID (AFP) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) said he was not disappointed that a two-day conference on the future of Iraq (news - web sites), hosted by his country earlier this week, failed to set a date for the withdrawal of foreign troops.


"We cannot say we are disappointed," Mubarak said Wednesday following talks with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.


"No date was fixed owing to the current situation (in Iraq). Fighting is ongoing and the situation is not stable.


"When an Iraqi army is in place, when the situation has stabilised, we will be able to fix a set date for the withdrawal of the multinational force from Iraq," said Mubarak, who hosted the conference in Sharm El-Sheikh before heading to Madrid on a two-day visit.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&ncid=732&e=3&u=/afp/20041124/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_spain_egypt

eom

after Israel? Mr. Mubarak knows which side of his bread is buttered.



From the Camp David peace accords in 1978 until 2000 (the latest year for which figures are available), the United States has subsidized Egypt's armed forces with over $38 billion worth of aid. Egypt receives about $2 billion annually--$1.3 billion in foreign military financing and about $815 million in economic support fund assistance --making it the second largest regular recipient of conventional U.S. military and economic aid, after Israel. In 1990, the United States also forgave $7.1 billion in past Egyptian military debt in return for Egypt's support of Operation Desert Shield. In addition, Egypt receives excess defense articles worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the Pentagon. The announcement that 23,000 U.S. troops will be based in Egypt to conduct biannual military training exercises (Operation Bright Star) may have longer term implications for U.S. aid to the region, as might Egypt's willingness to support U.S. efforts against the Taliban.

www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/egypt.htm

Vietnam appears to have
A) become very stable, and
B) remained very stable
AFTER the Coalition left.

That's for damn sure.

Yet I wonder to what extent Arab "moderates" (i.e., Washington lackeys) secretly relish seeing the Empire bogged down in a hell of its own making.