just using your force to hold them down, but rather responding to it in a very professional way. you re encouraged that the military over this transition period towards elections and democracy is in charge. i m very confident on a temporary basis, we ll see as enevolutionary process whereby the egyptian people will expect this military to maintain control and stabilize situations until such time as the building blocks for a true democracy can be established. they re very confident with that military now. but they don t want to see a permanent hold by the military over the society. mona, before we talk politics, the future of egypt, go ahead and just express your thrilling feelings right now, all of us who know you, just want to hear what you have to say. i m ecstatic, wolf. i mean i was on a radio show when the news came through and one of my friends called me from boston and he was just crying. he was just saying, mona, he s
gone. mona, he s gone. i m going to start crying now remembering it and went back on the radio show and bawling my eyes out telling them i cannot express how ecstatic we are. there is a long road ahead no doubt but the happiest day of my life and stop and celebrate and salute the courageous egyptians who in 18 days in a beautiful and peaceful way brought down a dictator of 30 years, it s a wonderful moment. i cannot be hannier. so proud to be egyptian. and so what do you say about president now former president mubarak. was he courageous in his final act or basically had no choice and good riddance? what do you say to mubarak? well, first of all i ve got to say as an egyptian, it s wonderful to say former president because we have not been able to do that in a long time. i think when push came to shove, the armed forces and i got to say the egyptian armed forces, have great relationship with
united states, secretary cohen, right now to not only bask in the moment but take advantage of this moment and continue to promote democratic reform throughout the region. indeed. it started with promoting it in iraq. it hopefully will spread to iran and i would hope that the rulers in iran are worried about what has taken place here because they can see the power evof the people and perhaps the united states can continue to raise that lamp of liberty very high and they can sweep down that wall of oppression that exists in iran. a lot of us remember that speech president obama gave in cairo in 2009. i m not sure he expected that this would develop. i don t know if that was a result of this or what the impact was, but it was a dramatic speech at the time. now we re seeing what s happening on the streets of cairo. i suspect it will spread elsewhere. mona will be standing us later when we continue our coverage. secretary cohen, thanks to you. we re not going anywhere. hala, about an h
think are just beginning. william cohen, the former defense secretary from the clinton administration is joining us, also mona el tahiri, as well. the commander in chief of the egyptian military, field marshal tantawi, i assume you know him. i do. i worked with him while i was in the pentagon and he had served side by side with president mubarak. whether he will continue or passed on to a younger generation we will see. we had dealings with him and he was very helpful in terms of communicating our ideals, as well, to that military and one of the many benefits if you look at how this unfolded, the professionalism of the egyptian military i think also is a credit to our own military that had deep, deep ties with him and really inculcating those, not
egypt right now because there s high confidence and support for the egyptian military. the thought is if anyone can implement this transition away from dictatorship towards democracy, the military, which is highly respected can do it. we ll see if that is doable. in fact, we re not only getting reaction from inside egypt, you can see the flag waving, the celebratory events going on but getting reaction from all of our correspondents from around the world. anderson cooper is joining us in our coverage today, so is hala gorani. guy, a lot of us who watched egypt over the years, watched the middle east over the years can t really believe what s going on within 18 days, a dictator is removed. there was some violence but it could have been so much worse. thousands of people could have been killed. human rights watch says more than 300 were killed. there still are plenty of people in prison right now but at least this is a step forward and both of you were there, anderson. let me g