[Egypt] National Security Council Meeting

[Naio90]

Cairo, early january 1995​

It was a mild morning in Cairo, a typical sunny day in the millennium old capital city of Egypt, with its dusty streets, colorful merchants and chaotic traffic. Newly appointed President Mando Safar was busy with meetings regarding all kinds of matters of state, from setting up the guidelines for the new industrialization process, to the designing of public health and education programs and the preparation of the new foreign policy of neutrality. Today was a sensible issue on the agenda: national security.​

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The Middle Eastern region was never known for its stability and security. Uncountable skirmishes and bigger conflicts had happened since the end of World War II, involving Egypt and most of its neighbors. One of the most sensible situations involved the relation with Israel, but thanks to President Sadat and the intervention of the US as a mediator in the final years of the 70s, peace was finally settled with Tel-Aviv, and the Government of Safar was determined to make use of this link to contribute "pacifying" the eastern neighbors. Contacts have already been opened with Israel, and while a response was awaiting it was time to begin working on the egyptian "african" neighbors and potential threats.​

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The state of permanent crisis and unrest that Sudan has been living on for decades resulted not only in hundreds of thousands of refugees storming into egyptian territory, but also in occasional border skirmishes with Sudan’s warlords and bandits. Khartoum was clearly unable to do anything in this.​

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Ministry of Defence​

President Safar's motorcade came to a halt at one of the side entry of the egyptian Ministry of Defence, a private meeting including only the President, the Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Director of the National Intelligence Agency, the Heads of the Army, Air Force and Navy and National Security Advisors were present to discuss the situation and propose potential courses of action.​

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After a brief introduction and welcome, President Safar would begin talking:​

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"Gentlemen, thank you for being all here present. I understand you all received the information paper explaining this administrations general point of view on the pending regional issues. The most urging one is the situation in Sudan...​

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Our southern neighbor has been at war for decades, with thousands of dead, injured and millions of displaced refugees. We do not believe this fragile "truce" signed on december 31st 1994 will hold or help improve the situation. On the contrary, it will only give more time to the Warlords to resupply themselves and bolster their forces before reinitiating their offensive against the helpless and useless Khartoum administration of the dictator Omar Al-Bashir. ​

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It is redundant to say that the conflict has had, has and will have dire consequences for our nation. First of all, the hundreds of thousands of refugees that wander into egyptian territory, escaping from the civil war, put a heavy burden on the finances of the southern Governorates, and also affect the public health and welfare systems. They also affect the labor market. Not even speaking of the human rights violations they have endured and the scarring violence they survived. The situation has to eventually stop...​

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Second, we have the previously mentioned past incursions of bandits and warlords into egyptian territory, often pursuing women and children that crossed the border, in other cases even raiding egyptian farms and rural settlements for their food and supplies, being the local police forces helpless against them. We have reminded Khartoum of their border responsibilities in the past, but they seem to ignore us or simply don't have the means to do anything.​

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Third, and this is a key strategic issue for our future as a society and development: water security. We all know how dependent we are on the waters of the life giving Nile. We all also know that the river flows all the way down from Ethiopia, through Sudan, to finally reach us. The waters are accessible to almost anyone who wants them, and having criminal bands, warlords and a mad dictator controlling our access to drinking water is not very assuring. The waters also feed Aswan Dam, needless to say how the modification of the flow of water could destroy our entire economy.​

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Fourth and last... The already mentioned dictator of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir. This corrupt former army official rose to power through scheming and a Coup d’état, and has clearly shown in his years in power that he has no intention to modify the dire reality of Sudan, only working for his own benefit and of his friends. We have seen how an indifferent or even ethnically speaking aggressive Government can carry out systematic human violations, such as the ones we saw only few months ago in Rwanda, to the indifference of the international community. This dictator is a danger to his nation and to Egypt.​

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With all this in mind... I urge you to propose plans to eliminate the threat to national security the situation in Sudan represents."​

 

[Naio90]

The newly appointed Minister of Defence, Khaled Naser, was a middle age politician, who had spent most of his career working with security related issues. He was involved in the reforms and modernization that were required after the disastrous six-day war with Israel in 1973 and make many contacts with officials from the egyptian armed forces. Many of which are among the high ranking officials today.

"Mr. President, your assessment of the situation is very precise. At the Ministry of Defence we could not agree more with Document that was submitted. I took the liberty to order my specialists and analysts to design multiple potential plans and courses of action on how to tackle the Sudan Affaire.

We cannot count with the collaboration of the dictator Al-Bashir, therefore we must help the sudanese people stabilize their country by removing first the subversive and corrupt elements from the society. By that I mean an intervention not only to neutralize the warlords, but also to replace Al-Bashir with a less corrupt candidate... and perhaps a more suitable to the egyptian interests.

The Sudanese armed forces are no match for our army, air force and navy, a quick coordinate strike would give us a decisive advantage, but it would require a good load of intelligence work to determine the strategic nodes to attack. As for the warlords.. that is a more difficult task. They use guerilla-tactics, have no clear HQ and often blend in into civilian population. It would take much longer to disband those criminal groups and also a lot of intelligence and counter-insurgency work.

Perhaps the solution would be to take effective control of Khartoum, and while working with a local Government, remain there until the situation is cleared. This could take up to 2 years..."

 

[Naio90]

Murat Kaliz was, the Director of the Mukhabarat, was a man fit for his position. With multiple contacts both in the public and private worlds, he lived many years abroad and mastered the art of listening. His cunning and contacts had served him the present position as head of Egypt's intelligence agency.

"Gentlemen, as we know, the last Governments here have not been very smart in planning into the future. Gathering of intelligence in neighboring nations has been limited to central and immediate targets, basically Israel, and neglected secondary targets such as Sudan. While there were operations, they would not be enough for the scale of operation we are planning here. I would strongly suggest considering the possibility of planting multiple of our best agents in Khartoum and around other strategic targets in the south. Let them get us data on infrastructure targets, airfields, military bases, movement of high ranking officials etc. Once we get them, we can begin assessing the situation and devise the best procedure in accordance to our national security interests.

On the other hand, we should have the military assets to conduct such pinpointed operations with the highest efficiency."

 

[Naio90]

President Safar would once again speak:

"Well, I think we have some general guidelines presented here. Intelligence and then, a swift operation and taking control of Sudan until we have rooted out any force that could pose a threat to our national security.

There is nevertheless a very important issue that we have to address here, and it would be the international repercussions. Minister Aswad, would you care to elaborate please."

Minister of Foreign Affairs Sadiki Aswad would take out some notes and begin talking.

"Thank you Mr. President. There is no doubt there will be international repercussions. On a regional and continental level, there is nothing that could concern us. Zaire and Madagascar are unable to effectively operate internationally at this moment, while South Africa is widely considered an outcast within the international community due to its racist policies. The Middle East in turn is completely absent in terms of international policies.

On a more global level, we have to consider the major powers of the USA, UK and Russia. Currently they are verbally engaged in a discussion surrounding ideological issues, like the resurgence of communism in the eastern bloc. This however does not mean that they are completely devoted to that, therefore we would have to pay attention to their reactions, which surely will at least be reflected in public declarations, given the history of intervention and meddling in extra-regional affairs they have. The GA could also try to take the topic to them, but given we are not a member; we are not subject to their laws and regulations.

Even so, Egypt's current military forces are not to be underestimated, and they act as a very potent dissuasive element for any potential unwanted participant. But we have to try not to get to that point. We have to make clear to the international community how big of a threat the events and situation in Sudan is to our national security: our entire economy depends on the waters of the Nile, and we have terrorist, separatists and a dictator playing with them and swarming our borders with refugees. We also have to make it very clear that once the situation is stabilized, we will withdraw from Sudan, but this make take 1 or 2 years. The US and Russia will know how it is to fight against insurgents...

I would suggest, before any open operation in Sudan, to privately and bilaterally contact Washington, London and Moscow to give them equal heads-up for them not to be caught off guard."