It’s Friday, noon prayers are over in Cairo, and protesters are considering the risks of storming the Presidential Palace and taking over the State TV building right now. Military leaders are considering their options. Their constitutional duty is to protect President Mubarak. He did not make their job easy by refusing to resign yesterday and concede power to them. The people would support them in a move to seize control. According to Al Jazeera's English Live Blog, “Massive crowds in Tahrir are chanting ‘the people and the army are hand in hand’.” Others report that mid level army officers have joined the ranks of the protesters.

ABC’s Christiane Amanpour reported this morning that Mubarak left the palace after he delivered his speech yesterday, for parts unknown. Latest reports from AJ Live Blog, claim that “Mohamed Abdelllah, senior member of (the) ruling party, said that ..Mubarak was heading to Sharm el-Sheikh.”

It appears that the US may have brokered an honorable exit for Mubarak to undergo an extended hospital stay in Germany. Elke Hoff, security policy spokesperson of coalition partner Free Democratic Party, said she would welcome Mubarak's early departure for Germany if it helps to stabilize the situation in Egypt. "This is not a political asylum," she said. Earlier reports suggested that Israel had offered the beleaguered President asylum.

Where’s Mubarak? But what we all want to know, did he pack his money bags? The more interesting questions to consider are how big is the Mubarak family fortune, where did it come from and can it be returned to benefit the Egyptian people?

Al Jazeera, The Guardian and others have reported that the Mubarak family fortune could reach $70bn, with cash in British and Swiss banks plus UK and US property. Anti-government demonstrators have been chanting this number, while denouncing Mubarak’s lies and corruption. US new sources MSNBC and Forbes
are ridiculing this figure as highly exaggerated, since it would place Mubarak in first place, ahead of Gates and Buffett, as the world’s richest man, ignoring the caveat that the figure also includes the wealth of his sons and wife. MSNBC cites various unidentified US government agencies that offer a miserly estimate of the family’s wealth, between $2 and $3 billion, with very little of it likely to be recovered.

While the US has been delivering about $1.5 billion in annual aid to the Egyptian government, the source of Mubarak’s wealth is largely indeterminate. Continued US aid is sure to become a political hot potato in the US, while congressional conservative Ron Paul starts to rumble for a complete cut-off and Saudi’s Prince Abdullah offers to match US aid from his own coffers in that event.

The US has an interest in downplaying the looting of Egypt by Mubarak, since much of that loot can from the pockets of suffering US taxpayers. CNC offers a wide spectrum of possible sources, including a form a corporate tithing where “Foreigner enterprises that wish to do business in Egypt are commonly asked to give a free 20 per cent stake to prominent Egyptians.” Could the wealth that this practice would bring to the tables of Mubarak and his cronies during a 30-year reign rival that of that gained “legitimately” by Microsoft’s dictatorship of computer software systems?

But for a deeper look at hiding wealth, you must read the comments and counter arguments to Kerry A. Dolan’s observation that “(w)e at Forbes don’t claim to know how much Mubarak is worth, but it’s very unlikely to be anywhere near as much as $70 billion.” An Argentinean commenter offered the view that with only one Argentine billionaire identified on the Forbes list of billionaires, there are at least fifteen billionaires missing that he could count in his own experience there.

Commenter longliveegypt, who claims to be an American businessman born in Egypt, offered this view in reponse to Dolan and Forbes’ opinion:

“The MAIN source of funding is the USA military Aid. Mubarak family has and had exclusive contracts to transport the $1.3B of military equipment plus assortment of other service contracts for 30 years or maybe more. Mubarak is the only person in Egypt who controls the military budget (no monitoring by the parliament or central accounting office etc. In fact a brother of law (sic) of Mubarak (the brother of Suzanne Mubarak was indicted in Maryland for the same). But the paperwork was fixed to give it some legitimacy and the money still rolls in.

Finally watch Hussain Salem and the oil and natural gas investment. Mr. Salem operate as confidential agent for Mr. Mubarak. I know !!

Unfortunately many of these sources are shrouded in secrecy and your own statement that the amount of Mubarak riches is exaggerated is untenable either. Take your own view with a big grain of salt as well.”

In my view, we need to follow the money and keep peeling back the truth. Our tax dollars need to support the aspirations of the Egyptian Pro-Democracy Movement. We must demand that the US pursue the return of treasure Mubarak claims as his own, and put it to work for people struggling to live and be free, both in Egypt and in the US.

Echoing these sentiments, a video posted on Youtube shows a solidarity protest song titled Sout al Horeya, The Sound of Freedom, by Moustafa Fahmy, Mohamed Khalifa, and Mohamed Shaker.

"I went down and I said I am not coming back, and I wrote on every street wall that I am not coming back.

"All barriers have been broken down, our weapon was our dream, and the future is crystal clear to us, we have been waiting for a long time, we are still searching for our place, we keep searching for a place we belong too, in every corner in our country.

"The sound of freedom is calling, in every street corner in our country, the sound of freedom is calling..

"We will re-write history, if you are one of us, join us and don't stop us from fulfilling our dream.

The sound of freedom is calling.