Afghanistan neighbor opens airbase to U.S. military force

By Susan Glasser

The Washington Post

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Uzbekistan gave official permission Friday for unprecedented U.S. military presence on former Soviet territory, announcing it will allow American troops and aircraft to base operations here as the first wave of 1,000 ground combat troops was scheduled to arrive.

In a demonstration of how the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., have resulted in once unlikely partnerships to fight terrorism, Uzbek President Islam Karimov announced the deal to host U.S. ground troops after a meeting Friday with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The arrival of the troops will mark the first major deployment overseas since the attacks.

While stressing that "for now" he had not consented to use of Uzbek territory to launch strikes against neighboring Afghanistan, Karimov said the United States would have use of an Uzbek military airbase and freedom to launch humanitarian and combat search and rescue missions from his territory.

"We are not quite ready yet" to allow U.S. special forces to launch attacks from Uzbek soil against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban regime, Karimov said during a joint appearance with Rumsfeld. But a senior Bush administration official said Washington expects to receive such consent.

The U.S. troop presence here will eventually number in the "several thousands," according to the administration official, and Pentagon sources said about 1,000 troops from the 10th Mountain Division were en route here Friday to provide security for the American deployment. Although Karimov refused to say where they would be stationed, the administration official said they would operate out of the former Soviet airbase in Khanabad, a large military facility within easy range of Afghanistan.

Based in Fort Drum, N.Y., the 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry unit, called that because it has few vehicles or heavy weapons. It is a bare-bones unit designed to travel in borrowed transport or on foot. That lack of gear makes it able to deploy quickly, but also means that it wields less firepower than most Army units. Some soldiers in the division mock themselves as "too light to fight, too heavy to run."

The original unit first trained on the slopes of Mount Rainier in 1941.

In other developments Friday:

Taliban soldiers reportedly took heavy weapons into Afghanistan’s mountains to await any American assault.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta ordered airlines to strengthen cockpit doors within 30 days. Several, including United and American, already have begun the work.

The Coast Guard began clamping down on ship traffic on the nation’s inland waterways, adding gunboats and mandatory inspections.

New York held the first memorial service for the 23 police department employees killed in the World Trade Center attack.

Authorities said 4,986 people remain missing at the World Trade Center, with 380 confirmed dead. Death tolls were unchanged at the Pentagon (189) and at the Pennsylvania crash site (44).