jon: i guess the benefit here is that the egyptian military is still intact, as you mention has enjoys very good relations with the united states. the fact that the army or military chief of staff is traveling with president moubarak apparently on his way to the resort town in southern egypt, that suggests that the army is sort of with him in sending him off into retirement or exile or whatever you want to call it. yeah, i had breakfast with the senior u.s. military leader last week with and he said that in his conversations with the egyptian military and defense officials that they would side with the egyptian people. they would not fire on the egyptian people and i think that s what you ve seen. the military, they are in a role where they are king maker or king breaker but they don t want to be king and they are going to provide that hopefully peaceful transition, because you know,
it s about 6pm thursday night. remember in the arab world friday and saturday are the weekend. it would be the equivalent of a friday night speech in the united states if moubarak were to address the country some time tonight which is certainly a possibility. jon: state television there is reporting that the president, president moubarak may respond to the demands of the protesters. that is curious phrasing, because the protesters have been demanding that he step down immediately, not in september as he said he would earlier. reporter: well, that is the question. all of these reports seem to say something a little bit different, in terms of who what may happen, it could happen, there is also a report the military has told the protesters that their demands will be met, they will be very happy. the protesters have been very clear there is only one demand, that he steps down, so no one is really speaking as to whether that single demand is going to be answered. of course you ve got to
that the central point to lawmakers is that the intelligence community cannot be clairvoyant about what is going to happen or get inside the minds of these individuals like moubarak and others. they pointed to the example in tunisia with the tunisian president. they said when he went to work that morning he did not anticipate by the end of the day he would be getting inside an aircraft and flying out of that country. they are using the same analogy with moubarak. they don t know exactly what is going on inside his head. the cia director said there was a strong likelihood that he would step down from office. to put it in very simple terms from people. they like to say there are secrets and mysteries. sec raoets are through investigation and analysis you can come to understand but then there are mysteries. these are things that you cannot understand, for example getting inside the head of a leader like moubarak right now and what kind of decisions he may make in the next several hours, j
violence. what could happen if all these reports come out that say the president is going to step down and then he doesn t do it tonight. reporter: that is a huge question, jenna. everybody in the square knows about it, they have cell phones, emails, it may be called the nice book revolution. everybody is furiously texting and sending word to each other. the energy in this square is much, much, much bigger than anything in recent days. today one person walking into the square described it as a massive street party. there were families and kids and hundreds and thousands of people packing the bridges that lead into the square as they were getting ready for this protest tomorrow, so certainly the energy is huge there in the square. number two, of course, the issue of violence, we saw that over the past couple of weeks. that really has not been an issue for the past few days. it s been incredibly peaceful. there was certainly a concern that people have been talking
major topic at this hearing and catherine he herridge has been n the hearing. what can you tell us. reporter: it s really one of the most significant hearings for the u.s. national intelligence communities in terms of setting its priorities and look at budget issues. right out of the gate the discussion was on egypt and also tunisia. the nation s top intelligence official jim clapper the dni was asked whether the intelligence community had effectively dropped the ball or fumbled the ball when it had come to predicting some of the outcomes in tunis and egypt. in this particular case he said that the u.s. inteigence community had warned consistently that if the up rising in tunis spread to egypt that it had the potential in egypt of gaining momentum and perhaps toppling the government there. in the last few minutes the cia director has said that there was a strong likelihood that moubarak would step down tonight. i would preface that by saying