In the week prior to the announcement, the Pentagon secured the rights to continue using a military base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and to refuel its aircraft at sites in Tajikistan following a round of visits to the two nations by U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

“We always think ahead. We’ll be fine,” said Rumsfeld, when asked what impact losing the base would have on U.S. military operations. Rumsfeld told airmen during a visit to the Manas Air Force Base in Kyrgyzstan that they should expect to be there for “a good while yet,” the American Forces Press Service reported. That facility is expected to shoulder some of the functions that the base in Uzbekistan filled.

In May the Uzbek army brutally repressed protests in the province of Andijan. Troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing an estimated 500 people or more.

For several weeks U.S. officials refrained from criticizing the government for the slaughter, but apparently they decided that the political price Washington was paying for its close relations with the Uzbek regime outweighed the military advantages of the airfield.

In June, U.S, officials joined calls for an inquiry into the massacre, prompting the Uzbek government to begin restricting U.S. use of the base.

“The United States…does not believe that its strategic interests and its interest in democracy are divisible in some way,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said July 26. “I don’t think the Uzbeks are at all confused by that.”

Over the past several years Washington has expanded greatly its military presence in Central Asia. In addition to its bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, U.S. planes are allowed to land and refuel aircraft at facilities in Tajikistan, which shares a long border with Afghanistan. U.S. troops are also stationed in Georgia, and talks are underway to establish a U.S. base in Azerbaijan. This is in addition to 18,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and use of military bases in Pakistan.

The Pentagon is negotiating with the governments of several other former Soviet bloc countries, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, to probe establishing U.S. bases.

These moves are part of Washington’s effort to situate its forces closer to regions where it anticipates greater need to use its military might. They aim to further reduce the influence of Moscow and weaken Paris and Berlin’s weight in Europe.

Moscow, for its part, has sought to capitalize on the frictions between Washington and the Uzbek government to buttress its steadily eroding position in the region. At a July meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Beijing, Moscow, and the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, the trading bloc called for a timetable on the withdrawal of U.S. bases from the region.  
 
 
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