Obama considers recommendation to suspend hundreds of millions in aid to Egypt

WASHINGTON – U.S. officials say President Barack Obama’s top national security aides have recommended that he suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in military and economic assistance to Egypt in response to the Egyptian military’s ouster of the country’s first democratically elected leader.

Such a step would be a dramatic shift for an administration that has declined to label Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster a coup.

The officials say Obama will not likely make a decision on the aid suspension or the amount until after Congress votes on his request for authorization for military strikes on Syria. The U.S. provides Egypt with $1.5 billion a year in aid, $1.3 billion of which is military assistance. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations.