Gamal Mubarak is a perfectionist, idealistic and punctual, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is quoted as saying in a US diplomatic cable that was recently released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks.
"As a schoolboy, if I gave him [Gamal] a notebook with one line that was not straight, he would throw a fit and demand a new one," Mubarak is quoted as saying, adding that Gamal was both "idealistic" and "punctual."
"If he [Gamal] says, 'Meet me for lunch at 2:00,' he means 2:00. You can set your watch by it," added Mubarak in the cable.
The cable, dated 8 January, 2008, summarized a meeting between the senior Mubarak, former US Ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone, and US Republican Congressman Steven Israel.
Israel is a member of the US Senate Committee on Appropriations, which, in December 2007, froze US$100 million in aid to Egypt and demanded that then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice determine whether Cairo was working sufficiently to halt weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip, run by Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
The short, four-paragraph cable–entitled "Mubarak Discusses Back Surgery, Gamal as Perfectionist"–did not elaborate on proposed congressional resolutions to cut US aid to Egypt.
However, it did shed some light on the president's health following a June 2004 surgical operation in Germany to repair a slipped disc, which Mubarak insisted "was not a herniated disc," according to the cable.
During the lengthy meeting, Mubarak was "expansive and in fine humor. He rose easily from his seat several times to point out activity on the golf course and to be photographed with his visitors," the leaked cable notes.
The document goes on to note that the meeting took place at the “president’s golf course retreat in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh."
On a lighter note, the document points out that Mubarak's favorite dish is traditional Egyptian foule and taamiya (beans and felafel).
"He [Mubarak] engaged the visitors extensively on the topic of food, stressing that his favorite fare is Egyptian popular breakfast dishes, such as taamiya (felafel) and foule (beans). He ordered up a huge tray of freshly made taamiya sandwiches for lunch, and lustily consumed several," the cable said.
The cable went on to reveal that Mubarak, 82, "displayed one apparent lapse in memory," when he told "Congressman Israel that Gamal is forty-one years old; he is in fact forty-four."
