WASHINGTON — It was Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s first meeting as secretary of state with President Hosni Mubarak , in March 2009, and the Egyptians had an odd request: Mrs. Clinton should not thank Mr. Mubarak for releasing an opposition leader from prison because he was ill. 
 
 In fact, a confidential diplomatic cable signed by the American ambassador to Egypt, Margaret Scobey, advised Mrs. Clinton to avoid even mentioning the name of the man, Ayman Nour, even though his imprisonment in 2005 had been condemned worldwide, not least by the Bush administration. 
 
 The cable is among a trove of dispatches made public by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks that paint a vivid picture of the delicate dealings between the United States and Egypt, its staunchest Arab ally. They show in detail how diplomats repeatedly raised concerns with Egyptian officials about jailed dissidents and bloggers, and kept tabs on reports of torture by the police. 
 
 But they also reveal that relations with Mr. Mubarak warmed up because President Obama played down the public “name and shame” approach of the Bush administration. A cable prepared for a visit by Gen. David H. Petraeus in 2009 said the United States, while blunt in private, now avoided “the public confrontations that had become routine over the past several years.” 
 
 This balancing of private pressure with strong public support for Mr. Mubarak has become increasingly tenuous in recent days. Throngs of angry Egyptians have taken to the streets and the White House, worried about being identified with a reviled regime, has challenged the president publicly. 
 
 On Thursday, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Mubarak as a partner but said he needed to undertake political and economic reforms. In an interview posted on YouTube, Mr. Obama said neither the police nor the protesters should resort to violence. “It is very important,” he added, “that people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances.” 
 
 It is not known what Mrs. Clinton said to Mr. Mubarak in their first meeting, at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik. But she set the public tone afterward, when she was asked by an Arab television journalist about a State Department report critical of Egypt’s human rights record. 
 
 “We hope that it will be taken in the spirit in which it is offered, that we all have room for improvement,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding that Mr. Mubarak and his wife, Suzanne, were friends of her family, and that it was up to the Egyptian people to decide the president’s future. 
 
 The cables, which cover the first year of the Obama presidency, leave little doubt about how valuable an ally Mr. Mubarak has been, detailing how he backed the United States in its confrontation with Iran, played mediator between Israel and the Palestinians and supported Iraq’s fledgling government, despite his opposition to the American-led war. 
 
 Privately, Ambassador Scobey pressed Egypt’s interior minister to free three bloggers, as well as a Coptic priest who performed a wedding for a Christian convert, according to one of her cables to Washington. She also asked that three American pro-democracy groups be granted formal permission to operate in the country, a request the Egyptians rejected. 
 
 However effusive the Americans were about Mr. Mubarak in public, the cables offered a less flattering picture of Egypt’s first lady, Suzanne Mubarak. During a visit to the Sinai, one reported, she commandeered a bus that had been bought with money from the United States Agency for International Development and that had been meant to carry children to school. 
 
 Egyptian state security was concerned enough about American activities in Sinai, according to another cable, that it surreptitiously recorded a meeting between diplomats and members of a local council. 
 
 Yet many more of the cables describe collaboration between the United States and Egypt. In her 2009 visit, Mrs. Clinton was trying to revive the moribund peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Mr. Mubarak was central to this: the cables detail his efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israelis and the militant group Hamas in Gaza, as well as American pressure on him to curb the smuggling of weapons to Hamas from Egypt through tunnels. 
 
 Mrs. Clinton was also laying out Mr. Obama’s rationale for engaging Iran — an overture, the cables report, that Mr. Mubarak predicted would fail. A May 2009 cable before Mr. Mubarak’s first visit to the Obama White House noted that Egyptian officials told a visiting American diplomat, Dennis B. Ross, that “we should prepare for confrontation through isolation.” 
 
 Like other Arab leaders, Mr. Mubarak is depicted in the cables as obsessed with Iran, which he told American diplomats was extending its tentacles from “the Gulf to Morocco” through proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. He views these groups — particularly Hamas, a “brother” of Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood — as a direct threat to his own rule. 
 
 In a meeting with General Petraeus on June 29, 2009, Mr. Mubarak said the Iranian government wanted to establish “pockets” of influence inside Egypt, according to a cable. General Petraeus told him the United States was responding to similar fears among Persian Gulf states by deploying more Patriot missiles and upgrading its F-16 fighter jets stationed in the region. 
 
 Despite obvious American sympathy for Mr. Mubarak’s security concerns, there is little evidence that the diplomats believed the president, now 82, was at risk of losing his grip on power. The May 2009 cable noted that riots over bread prices had broken out in Egypt in 2008 for the first time since 1977. And it said the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood had prompted the government to resort to “heavy-handed tactics against individuals and groups.” ||||| U.S. diplomats repeatedly raised concerns with Egyptian officials about jailed dissidents and bloggers and followed reports of torture by police, according to cables released by WikiLeaks Friday. 
 
 A May 2009 cable also noted the Egyptian government's use of "heavy-handed tactics against individuals and groups" after riots over bread prices broke out in 2008, in the first major public disorder for 31 years, The New York Times reported. 
 
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 The cable, signed by Ambassador Margaret Scobey, said the response had been prompted by the growing strength of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood. 
 
 It described Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a "tried and true realist" and a survivor, someone who preferred to "let a few individuals suffer than risk chaos for society as a whole," according to the Times. 
 
 "During his 28-year rule, he survived at least three assassination attempts, maintained peace with Israel, weathered two wars in Iraq and post-2003 regional instability, intermittent economic downturns, and a manageable but chronic internal terrorist threat," the cable said. 
 
 Egypt is one of the most important U.S. allies in the Arab world but as the Mideast country sees the biggest anti-government protests in years, inspired by the popular revolt in Tunisia, the public support of the U.S. has become less assured. 
 
 In an interview broadcast live on YouTube on Thursday, Obama said that Mubarak has been "an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues." 
 
 But Obama added: "I've always said to him that making sure that they're moving forward on reform, political reform and economic reform, is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt." 
 
 WikiLeaks also published a U.S. diplomatic cable about a meeting between Senator John Kerry and Qatar Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who is referred to as HBJ. 
 
 The "confidential" cable, dated February 2010 and sent by Ambassador Joseph E. LeBaron, discussed Egypt's role in Mideast peace process. 
 
 Al-Thani is said to have claimed Egypt had a vested interest in dragging out the talks for as long as possible as their role as a broker was its "only business interest with the U.S." 
 
 It also discussed Mubarak's domestic situation, saying he was "thinking about how his son can take his place and how to stave off the growing strength of the Muslim Brotherhood." 
 
 "The Egyptian 'people blame America' now for their plight. The shift in mood on the ground is 'mostly because of Mubarak and his close ties' to the United States," the cable summarized al-Thani as saying. 
 
 The cable said Al-Thani told Kerry that Qatar was worried about "Egypt and its people, who are increasingly impatient." 
 
 "Mubarak, continued HBJ, says (Qatar-based) Al Jazeera is the source of Egypt's problems. This is an excuse. HBJ had told Mubarak 'we would stop Al Jazeera for a year' if he agreed in that span of time to deliver a lasting settlement for the Palestinians. Mubarak said nothing in response, according to HBJ," the cable added.
– Newly released WikiLeaks cables illustrate the complex relationship between Washington and longtime ally President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the New York Times reports. The diplomatic cables reveal that the US has privately pressured Egypt on imprisoned dissidents and other issues, though the two governments’ public relationship has improved under President Obama. The cables detail the first year of Obama’s presidency and show the two countries working together, with Mubarak a key supporter of the US against Iran; a mediator between Israel and Palestine; and a backer of Iraq’s new government. But they also detail US concerns: one from the American ambassador to Egypt points to “heavy-handed tactics against individuals and groups” during 2008’s bread riots, MSNBC notes.