Egypt military signals support for president

Egypt\'s military signalled its acquiescence Monday to the president\'s surprise decision to retire the defence minister and chief of staff and retake powers that the nation\'s top generals grabbed from his office. President Mohamed Morsi\'s shake-up of the military on Sunday took the nation by surprise. It transformed his image overnight from a weak leader to a savvy politician who carefully timed his move against the military brass who stripped him of significant powers days before he took office on June 30. A posting on a Facebook page known to be close to the country\'s military said the changes amounted to the \"natural\" handing over of leadership to a younger generation. \"A greeting from the heart filled with love, appreciation and respect to our leaders who passed on the banner. They will be in our eyes and hearts,\" said the posting. \"The armed forces is a prestigious institution with a doctrine of full discipline and commitment to legitimacy.\" Egypt\'s official news agency quoted an unnamed military official late Sunday as saying there has been no \"negative reaction\" from within the military. And a day after the orders, no unusual military movements were detected anywhere across the nation. The United States, Egypt\'s main foreign backer of 30 years, said it was unperturbed by the changes. Egypt receives some $1.5 billion in annual US aid. \"We had expected President Morsi at some point to coordinate changes in the military leadership to name a new team,\" US Defence Department press secretary, George Little, said in Washington. \"The United States and the Department of Defence in particular look forward to continuing the very close relationship with the SCAF [the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces].\" Morsi\'s moves could heighten fears in Egypt and abroad that the US-educated Islamist leader may have accumulated too much power in his hands and those of the Muslim Brotherhood. \"With [the] military stripped of legislative authority and in [the] absence of parliament, [the] president holds imperial powers,\" Egypt\'s top reform leader and Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed El Baradei wrote on his Twitter account on Monday. The Brotherhood won both parliamentary and presidential elections in the first free and fair votes in Egypt\'s modern history following Hosni Mubarak\'s ousting in a popular uprising last year. The group had been repressed under Mubarak, who ran a secular state. The military rulers who took power from Mubarak dissolved the Brotherhood-dominated parliament in June after a court ruled that a third of its members were illegally elected. If Morsi\'s decisions go unchallenged, it should end the power struggle that pitted him against the powerful military. That could mean the ushering out of six decades of de facto military rule since army officers seized power in a coup in 1952. But removing the defence minister and chief of staff does not necessarily mean that the military, Egypt\'s most powerful institution, has been defeated or that it would give up decades of perks and prestige without a fight. Days before Morsi\'s inauguration, the SCAF decreed constitutional amendments that gave them the power to legislate after they dissolved parliament, as well as control over the national budget. It also gave them control over the process of drafting a new constitution.  The generals had put themselves in charge of all defence and foreign policy, including the appointment of the defence minister. With his latest move, Morsi reclaimed the powers taken from him, seizing back sole control of the constitution drafting process, the national budget and the right to issue laws. The two men appointed to replace the top military commanders were also members of the SCAF — something that could indicate either the military\'s agreement to the shuffle or splits at the highest level of the armed forces. Egypt\'s first civilian president acted at a moment when the military was humiliated over a major security failure in Sinai. Several days before the killings, Israel warned that an attack was imminent. The intelligence chief was sacked after it emerged in Egyptian media that he knew of the Israeli warning but did not act. From JT