Release of American Hostages

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I wish to add my gratitude and recognition of Ambassador Patterson and her whole team--the State Department team on the ground. They did a very good job making the case to the Egyptian Government. But we have to all realize Egypt is in transition. They have just had their elections for the lower house, the Parliament. The upper house has not been seated yet, and they have not elected a President. They have gone from a dictatorship to an emerging democracy, and this case comes along, the NGO prosecutions.

I think both of us--our entire delegation--think this is offensive. The IRI, the NDI are Republican-Democratic organizations funded by the government and the private sector that try to help emerging democracies all over the world. They have been in every country hotspot you can name--after the collapse of the Soviet Union--doing great work. So the accusations were the people involved in these organizations--and Senator McCain is the head of IRI--were involved in spying and espionage, and I wanted to take the floor to say I found the accusations offensive and without merit.

The Egyptian coworkers, Egyptian citizens who were working with the IRI and NDI, are still in custody in Egypt, facing criminal prosecutions for helping these fine organizations, and we will not take our eye off of that and we will keep pushing to make sure we get the right answer.

But how did this end? We know how it started. I think it was a political effort to try to justify Mubarak-era law that was used to oppress and keep out of the country people who were helping to bring about change. One of the bright spots of this engagement was that the army--and General Tantawi was as helpful as he could be, given the constraints of the army in this new government formation.

But when we engaged the Muslim Brotherhood, the Freedom and Justice Party, the largest bloc in Parliament, Senator McCain, in his first engagement, the first thing he said to the representative was this NGO situation and how damaging it was to Egypt-American relationships, how unfair it was, how out of bounds it was in terms of the law. The response was from this group that we find the NGO law unacceptable, unjust, and we are wanting to change it. Once that statement was made publicly, it allowed this momentum to withdraw or lift the administrative travel ban. The cases may still go forward, but our people are coming home.

I think the reason this happened is because of the collaboration between the State Department, the delegation, every aspect of the American Government, and the people on the ground in Egypt I think understood the value of the United States-Egyptian relationship, and the judicial system finally made a wise decision. To those left behind, we are certainly standing with you, and you will not be forgotten.

But this could have ended the United States-Egyptian relationship.

Senator McCain and Senator Hoeven, let me ask a question to you both. If this had not ended well, if they had insisted on prosecuting and having the American citizens questioned appear in cages before an Egyptian court based on an outlandish acquisition, what kind of reaction would we have had in the United States and what damage would it have done to United States-Egyptian relationships, in your opinion?

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Mr. GRAHAM. I think this is a very good topic to be talking about--the future--because this is an episode that could have destroyed the relationship before it had a chance to mature. What am I concerned about? I am still concerned about the development in Egypt. The Constitution will be written here in the coming months, by the summer. I want to make sure America's voice is heard about who we are. We hope that the Egyptian people embrace tolerance; that the Coptic Christians are going to be welcomed as they have been for centuries in Egypt; that religious minorities will be protected; that women will not be taken back into the darkness; that the Constitution will reflect an Islamic nation that understands the concepts of tolerance and free enterprise.

The Muslim Brotherhood will be the leading organization politically. It is up to them to create an environment where the world feels welcome. It is up to them to create an economy, working with their coalition partners. We will be watching. It is not what you say in politics, it is what you do. Apply that to all of us here. I think we are failing our people back in the United States by talking way too much and doing too little.

Between now and the summer can really be outcome-determinative for decades in Egypt. I am urging the Egyptian political leadership, the Muslim Brotherhood included, to write a constitution and create an environment where people believe they can come and visit Egypt and do business. Senator McCain is dead-on. There is a lot of money to be made interacting with the Egyptian people, and they are a proud people and smart people, and I want to get our businesses on the ground. I want to help the Egyptian economy develop through the private sector, not just the public.

I am the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, working with Senator Leahy, the chairman. We will be continuing to provide economic assistance, but the end game is to create a functioning society we can do business with where we can create jobs in America.

The main thing to do in the short term is maintain the military relationship. The reason Egypt did not become Syria when people were rising against the autocratic regime is because the Army stood by the people. The relationship we have had with the Egyptian military over 30 years really paid dividends. Egyptian officers coming to American military academies and schools has been invaluable.

As we go forward, maintain that relationship between us and the Egyptian Army, honor the treaty with Israel, make sure you write a constitution worthy of a bright future in Egypt, and to all the political leaders in Egypt: The world is watching, the Arab world is watching, and if you have a narrow agenda, if you have an exclusive agenda, you will be doing your country a disservice. We will be a willing partner but not under any and all circumstances. Maybe we have learned our lesson--that you cannot have partnerships without basic principles.

We look forward to working with the Egyptian Parliament and people. They have a chance to change the course of history in the Arab world and the Mideast. Don't lose the opportunity.

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