U.S. Blocks Independent Inquiry into Uzbek Massacre

By Matthew Clark, Christian Science Monitor
Posted on June 15, 2005, Printed on June 15, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/22226/

A report that U.S. defense officials helped block a NATO demand for an international probe into last month's killing of protesters in Uzbekistan is proving an air base there to be one of the more diplomatically costly "lilly pads" in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's new lean, mean restructuring of the U.S. global military presence.

Located in southeastern Uzbekistan near the border with Afghanistan, the Khanabad base is seen as key to the U.S. war on terror, as a Q&A on the website of the Council of Foriegn Relations, a prominent Washington-based think-tank, explains.