Associated Press
November 4
month after the United
States began bombing Taliban targets in Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld said Sunday that the anti-terrorist campaign
was showing ``measurable progress.''
Rumsfeld spoke to reporters after meetings with the leaders of Uzbekistan, a country that neighbors Afghanistan and is already allowing about 1,000 American soldiers to be based within its borders.
``The effort to deal with the problem of terrorist networks is proceeding. It is, we believe, proceeding at a pace that is showing measurable progress,'' Rumsfeld said.
As the United States looks to send more troops into Afghanistan to scout out targets and train opposition fighters, Washington has been turning its attention to Uzbekistan. Rumsfeld said he ``appreciated'' Uzbekistan's help, but he and the Uzbek defense minister said they had not discussed expanding the U.S. presence in this former Soviet republic.
Rumsfeld said the United States needed all kinds of assistance in the war against terror, but firmly insisted that he would not detail the contributions of any country and then abruptly left the joint news conference. He was to head to Pakistan later Sunday as part of a tour of the region.
Rumsfeld met with Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Defense Minister Qobir Ghulomov on Sunday on his second visit to this Central Asian nation in a month, highlighting its importance in the fight against terror.
Rumsfeld came to Uzbekistan late Saturday after conferring in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials on strategic arms cuts and U.S. plans for a new missile shield.
He then paid a quick visit to neighboring Tajikistan, but said he reached no deals on military cooperation with that country, which shares a long and volatile border with Afghanistan.
However, he said Sunday that the sides would form an ``assessment team'' to look into ways in which Tajikistan - currently allowing flights carrying U.S. aid to cross its airspace - could assist in the military campaign in Afghanistan.
Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov said assistance could be expanded to allow overflights of military planes or the use of Tajikistan's air fields.
Rumsfeld and Uzbek officials discussed stationing U.S. soldiers in Khanabad, a former Soviet air base about 90 miles from the Afghan border.
Experts say Rumsfeld is also interested in using Uzbekistan as a forward base for supplying U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld said Friday that he hoped to quickly expand the number of U.S. special forces in Afghanistan. An estimated 100 to 200 troops in the country now.
Although Uzbekistan has balked at allowing the United States to carry out strikes from its bases, it has agreed that soldiers for search-and-rescue and humanitarian missions can be based on its territory.
Rumsfeld and the Uzbek defense minister both said they had not discussed further deployment of U.S. forces in Uzbekistan or whether those already there would participate in combat missions. Rumsfeld said there had been ``no changes'' in the mission of the American soldiers in Uzbekistan.
While there have been protests in many Muslim countries against the U.S. bombings of Afghanistan, where the Taliban militia is sheltering suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, there is little outward opposition in tightly controlled Uzbekistan.
Many Uzbeks strongly oppose Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and believe that fundamentalist Afghans are harboring anti-Uzbek militants who carried out a series of bombings in Tashkent in 1999. The Uzbek government is also very quick to crack down against any dissent.
``Afghanistan should be wiped off the earth,'' said Nodir Maksumov, a 38-year-old government employee who fought in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. ``People have to fight terrorism and there is no sense in fighting there if the place continues to exist.''