Page 2 - John Wisner News Today

Christmas came early on Dec. 21 for the Hellsgate Fire Department when crew members picked up a new mostly paid for 2,000-gallon water tanker.

Pine-Strawberry Fire Chief John Wisner has nightmares after hearing about yet another California town burned to the ground last week.

Pine-Strawberry Health Services, Inc. oversees the building and general operation of the Pine-Strawberry Medical Clinic. This clinic came about by way of a dream. In 1979, the community was classified as a medically distressed area. With a growing population, the Pine-Strawberry Chamber of Commerce starting in 1980 spent considerable time and money to locate a doctor for the community. The days, then the months passed, and yes, years passed. In early 1983, a group of residents got together and ...

People who were very happy with barack obamas statement that the time for transition is now. >> so, fareed, we had a lot of translations on our side here on this show about what exactly ambassador wisner meant when he talked about how mubarak must stay. is that how you interpreted it? what else did he say in this interview about it? >> i think what ambassador wisner were trying to do, and i do think the administration needs to get its story exactly right. i dont think there is that much disagree...

Mubarak, please help facilitate the success of this transition. >> so where we saw former ambassador wisner seeming to say that mubarak needs to stay in office, you see a man saying find a good way to exit, sir. >> he made a reference to his legacy and the role he could play to ensure it just didnt end up in shambles. >> well come back. we want the ambassador to stand by. when we come back, we want to find out if there were warning signs about the size and scope of this crisis in egypt. fiber on...

We are back with former ambassadors john wisner and john negroponte. you get the feeling that the administration was caught by surprise when hundreds of thousands of people showed up in that square in cairo. why didnt we catch it? >> well, i mean, i think its cliche, but hindsight is 20/20 vision and any surprise you look at from pearl harbor to 9/11, when you reconstruct events, things look a lot more obvious and a lot more invefitiable, at the time they are happening what you get are signals, ...

And if i may just take a minute, i think the opposition groups in egypt are very interesting. they are not monolithic. they had some tactical differences in them. some personalities involved. they are also trying to figure out how to operate together. there is a desire i believe on behalf of some within the government to split the opposition, so that you have a variety of voices coming out of egypt. the united states i think cannot micromanage the process. what we have to do, however, is make cl...

Support constitutional reform. hes a man who has led his country for 30 years, and hes done a great many things, terrific things for the country and for us. we dont want to just see him discredited and all of his pasta publi accomplishments thrown down the drain. he needs to go out with honor. if we can help him with that, thats what we should be doing. >> in this goes back to what ambassador wisner says. a very distinguished diplomat. he knows the arab world and the middle east extremely well. ...

president mubarak is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, must be peaceful and it must begin now. >> for a while, it sounded like they wanted mubarak to go, until yesterday when secretary clinton seemed to suggest there is a way around mubarak. >> i think its important to support the transition process announced by the egyptian government. actually headed by now vice president omar suleiman. >> what does the u.s. want? today, standoff in egypt. we begin with former ...

Process, it has to be democratic and inclusive, and i think that were very clear that there has to be a transition process that represents the will of the egyptian people. >> which they have been saying, and i understand that, and then they have to be diplomatic, from the very beginning, it was like we cant insult mubarak. hes been an ally, albeit a flawed one. he might have survived. we didnt know what would happen in the beginning. now its pretty clear. its not going to run again at the very l...