Orlando Sentinel
November 5
rying to stave off a growing humanitarian crisis, the United States is pressing Uzbekistan to reopen a long- closed bridge that the Pentagon hopes to use to move food and medical supplies to starving Afghans, senior defense officials said Sunday.
In meetings in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told officials of the former Soviet republic Sunday that opening the Friendship Bridge would allow tons of humanitarian aid to reach desperately poor refugees.
The bridge spans the Uzbek-Afghan border about 20 miles north of Mazar-e Sharif, the key crossroads city in northern Afghanistan. It has been closed by Uzbekistan for four years, since Afghanistan's ruling Taliban moved into the northeast of the country and took control of the Afghan side.
But Uzbek officials told Rumsfeld that as long as the Taliban controls its side, the bridge will remain sealed.
Uzbek officials did not speak publicly about the negotiations. But a senior U.S. defense official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Uzbeks, already receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. economic assistance, "know it is in their best interest to do this.
"They're working on it. They really want this to happen," the official said.
The request to Uzbekistan came as the American bombing of Afghanistan continued for a 29th day. U.S. jets reportedly struck the front line about 30 miles north of the capital, Kabul, as well as the city itself.
At the same time, the Pentagon was confronting the onset of winter in the region. Severe weather has covered the Hindu Kush with a thick blanket of snow and has complicated efforts to route aid to impoverished Afghans.
"It's no walk in the park," said Rumsfeld, glancing out the window of his military transport plane as it briefly flew over the steep, snow-covered mountains of Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld was on the second leg of a whirlwind trip to Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and India to shore up support for the U.S.-led war on terrorist networks and Taliban forces.
He flew from Washington to Moscow on Friday in the military passenger jet he customarily uses. But on his visits to the countries bordering Afghanistan, he flew in a massive C-17 cargo plane loaded with equipment designed to repel heat-seeking missiles. The plane flew for about 10 minutes Sunday in Afghan airspace, crossing the country at its narrowest point on the way from Uzbekistan to Pakistan. The plane flew 39,000 feet above sea level, far too high to be in danger from enemy fire.
Rumsfeld traveled to Pakistan later Sunday, on his first visit to the Muslim-dominated nation, to meet with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and other senior officials. In remarks to reporters after the meetings, Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar minimized differences between his country and the United States over whether the bombing of Afghanistan should proceed during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-November. But he did emphasize Pakistan's desire to see the U.S. campaign end as soon as it can.
"The military campaign should be reduced to a time as short as possible consistent with the resolution of objectives," Sattar said.
Rumsfeld repeated his assertion of recent days that the United States cannot afford to cease bombing while the Taliban and leaders of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network are still at large.
"It is an issue all of us must be sensitive to," Rumsfeld said of Muslim concerns about fighting during Ramadan. "But the reality is that the threat of additional terrorist attacks [is] there. . . . Terrorists must be stopped."
Rumsfeld told Musharraf that the United States remains committed to the war, one senior defense official said.
"There's no doubt from our side that we're in it for the long term, no matter how long it takes," the official said.
In Uzbekistan, after meeting with President Islam Karimov, Rumsfeld said he was satisfied with the current levels of cooperation from the country, where about 1,000 troops from the Army's 10th Mountain Division have been using an air base in Khanabad, about 130 miles from the Afghan border.
Uzbek Defense Minister Kodir Ghulomov said he expects cooperation between the two countries to move to "higher levels," possibly including military aid. Uzbekistan not only fears incursions by the Taliban across its border but is concerned about a home-grown Islamic insurgency in the country's northeast that it says is supported by the Taliban.