important message from the president, in the name of god, the most gracious, the most merciful. dear citizens, these are difficult times which our country has sustained. president hosni mubarak has decided to give up and commission the high council of the armed forces to take over. the statement from vice president suleiman. sudden and brief, but that is how the world changes. it cost blood, lives and countless sacrifices. but in the end, the regime fell with the blink of an eye. here s what it looked like just seconds later. people hugging, chanting egypt is free. you re an egyptian, lift up your head. and they did, rich and poor, young and old. to the young google executive who took a leave of absence to organize the revolution, this was a especially sweet moment.
yet a democracy. these people may have liberated egypt, but the military now runs it. they ve always had a tight grip on the economy and a long history of wielding power. this is the man believed to be in charge, mohammed hussein, defense minister under mubarak, now head of the military council running egypt. the council, now ruling by decree, but promising to carry out constitutional reforms and respond to demonstrators demands. we ll talk about what happens next. but before we do, i just want to show you some of those remarkable moments today. as 80 million people in the world s largest arab country made history. last night at this time, the dictator mubarak and his henchman vice president suleiman dug in, patronizing protestors, unleashing their anger. we can only assume the military had had enough. just after 6:00 local time after a day of protests, right in the middle of evening prayers, the bulletin came on from state television. the same network the day before carried mubarak d
but the new day dawning is not yet a democracy. these people may have liberated egypt, but the military now runs it. they ve always had a tight grip on the economy and a long history of wielding power. this is the man believed to be in charge, mohammed hussein, defense minister under mubarak, now head of the military council running egypt. the council, now ruling by decree, but promising to carry out constitutional reforms and respond to demonstrators demands. we ll talk about what happens next. but before we do, i just want to show you some of those remarkable moments today. as 80 million people in the world s largest arab country made history. last night at this time, the dictator mubarak and his henchman vice president suleiman dug in, patronizing protestors, unleashing their anger. we can only assume the military had had enough. just after 6:00 local time after a day of protests, right in the middle of evening prayers, the bulletin came on from state television. the same network t
badly treated by colonial powers from the world over and the egyptians finally reached their dignity. the tragedy of hosni mubarak is that here is a man who in fact took the dreams of egypt and crushed them completely. he crushed all independent people in the country and insisted on his own primacy in the country and they were done with him. ben, at this point, do we know exactly what happened? because this hour last night, mubarak had gone on state television and dug in, treating the protestors almost like children. suleiman had also gone on state television. and all of a sudden hours later he s they re announcing that he s gone. was this a coup? did the military just say to him, you have to go? do we know? reporter: we don t really have the exact details, anderson. but i think it was a combination of factors. for one, i think president mubarak and the people around him miscalculated the reaction of egyptians to his speech last night.