Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2015 | Page 24

Business As Usual: The Egyptian–U.S. Intelligence Relationship
Evolution of Intelligence Relationship
The Egyptian intelligence service is the oldest-running Arab intelligence agency,
and started even before the British colonization in 1882. When Britain officially
occupied Egypt, it found a weak intelligence system in desperate need of
reform (Sharp 2014). The inherited intelligence system was basically a secret police
that investigated antiregime conspiracies and monitored foreigners. Its sources were
limited, and it consisted of a number of plainclothes policemen, informant networks,
and anonymous boxes where citizens could place petitions for the release of prisoners,
denounce neighbors, and report on antigovernment plots (Sirrs 2010). At the end of
the nineteenth century, Egyptian intelligence lacked sufficient resources and centralized
management to handle the emerging internal threats to the government (Sirrs 2010, 7).
After the assassination of Prime Minister Boutros Ghali in 1910, Britain realized
that the Egyptian secret police was in need of radical change. Subsequently, the British
amalgamated the secret police networks into one Central Special Office. Following this
consolidation, the British continued to work with the Egyptians over the next few years
to implement improvements and structural modifications (Sirrs 2010, 8). It wasn’t until
1942 that the Egyptian–U.S. intelligence relations started. In 1942, the U.S. Office for
Strategic Services (OSS) established an office in Cairo with responsibility for intelligence
collection, counterintelligence, and analysis (Sirrs 2010, 23).
In October 1981, Vice President Muhammad Hosni Mubarak came to power
after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. President Mubarak, Egypt’s fourth
president and its longest-serving ruler after Muhammad Ali Pasha, was Egypt’s president
and chief military commander for almost 30 years from 1981 until 2011. Following the
war, Sadat groomed Mubarak as his successor by giving him assignment in his ruling
party and eventually making him the vice president. During his time as vice president
in the 1970s, Mubarak was charged with coordinating Egypt’s intelligence community,
which gave him tremendous experience in intelligence that was useful to him during the
successes in his presidency.
Throughout his reign, Mubarak helped develop the Egyptian intelligence
community, which was built around three agencies with unique missions and
responsibilities: the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, State Security Investigations
Service, and Egyptian Homeland Security. The Egyptian General Intelligence Service
(EGIS) was created in March 1954 by a Republican decree from President Gamal Abdel
Nasser and is still active. This intelligence agency is considered the most important
intelligence service due to its foreign liaison ties, size, technical sophistication, and
history (Sirrs 2010, 43). It also distinguishes itself as a covert action player and a collector
of foreign intelligence, with historically known responsibilities for developing and
executing important foreign policies toward multiple key issues such as the relationship
with Sudan and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (Sirrs 2010, 44).
Competing with the EGIS is another of Nasser’s creations, the State Security
Investigations Service (SSIS), which is directly tied to the Ministry of Interior. SSIS
enjoys the distinction of being the oldest intelligence service in Egypt (Caroz 1978).
Roughly equivalent to the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the
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