Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006. -- (House of Representatives - June 20, 2005)

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AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, this Defense bill has many good aspects, but I believe that it does contain at least one soft spot that undermines the high level of security that our families demand.

The safety of our families is just too important to be dependent on the word of a terrorist. Unfortunately, that is what this administration has done in a little known corner of the world called Uzbekistan. In a desperate search for allies against terrorism, the administration has actually teamed up with the chief terrorist in that far away land, its President Islam Karimov.

Before the Bush administration befriended him, Mr. Karimov was known for his rather peculiar habit of boiling alive some of the local opponents to his police state. In what President Bush's own State Department described in February as an atmosphere of repression, where torture was common, other favored methods of dealing with differing opinion in Uzbekistan includes suffocation, electric shock, rape, sexual abuse. However, beating, according to the State Department, is the most commonly reported method of torture.

Another tactic that perhaps Mr. Karimov learned through his earlier tenure on the Soviet Politburo is the practice of having local political and human rights activists declared insane to stop their activities. A woman in Tashkent, for example, was committed to a psychiatric hospital, apparently in part for asking that her neighbors' taxes be reduced. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty reported that torture, and the fear of it, may even serve as the primary tool of controlling society in Uzbekistan.

Most recently, the Uzbek dictator participated in what is known as "Bloody Friday," where hundreds of men, women and children were murdered on May 13. Since then, he has successfully led efforts to thwart any independent investigation.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that "Uzbek Ministries in Crackdown Received U.S. Aid." The United States has provided extensive aid to the very Uzbek ministries and the types of units that took part in this murderous May 13 crackdown.

To those who say, well, "he is a thug but he is our thug," I would say that this is no way to ensure the protection of our families. Even to those in this administration whose interest in human rights has waned significantly in recent years, I would say that when you place the future of our families in the hands of someone who can cling to power only by killing, maiming, and boiling his opponents, you place our future in very unreliable hands, and we already have another example of this thug's unreliability.

Mr. Karimov's decision recently to deny nighttime flights and heavy cargo flights into our K-2 air base in southern Uzbekistan. Apparently, these restrictions result from the fact that Mr. Karimov is peeved at the Bush administration because they have not yet spent all the $42.5 billion appropriated for the K-2 base, and they just soft-pedaled international criticism of the latest round of murders, instead of fulfilling his desire that they remind the world what a big buddy of America he is.

Undoubtedly, he will be happier with the decision of Secretary Rumsfeld, reported last week in The Washington Post, to squelch a call by all the other defense ministers of NATO for a transparent, independent, and international probe of the Bloody Friday murders.

During the Memorial Day recess, three Republican Senators took an uninvited trip to Uzbekistan where they received firsthand reports of the shocking increase in Mr. Karimov's violent repression. All three of these Republicans have called for a fundamental change in our dealings with the Uzbek people and have suggested that we should reconsider long-term commitments. This amendment will accomplish just that.

As to the form of the amendment, our House rules, as we just saw with the amendment offered by the minority leader when she was thwarted in an effort to get information about Iraq, severely limit our ability to address this concern. Therefore, this particular amendment is simply worded, "Stop all expenditures immediately."

I have another version I would be pleased to offer, giving the administration more of the flexibility that it is always so eager to have, but whatever the specific language, I am confident that the conferees, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) and the people from the Senate can make any modifications they deem necessary to this amendment to ensure the orderly removal of what was supposed to be a temporary presence in Uzbekistan and to provide emergency reentry should this be absolutely necessary in the war on terrorism.

My only goal is the recognition that the United States cannot lead in the fight on terrorism by funding a terrorist. Our association with thugs like Karimov in Uzbekistan does not enhance our security. It jeopardizes that security. We should adopt this amendment because, in short, the Bush administration's terrorist in Tashkent is a security risk. We risk our security by the bad company Mr. Rumsfeld is keeping.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I would just note that even those individuals, who may be concerned more about that air base than whether hundreds of people were murdered, raped, suffocated or boiled alive, I think the point here is not just about human rights, it is about the security of American families.

When we rely on a thug like Karimov, we end up with him squeezing us, just like he is doing now by not letting us have nighttime flights at the K-2 base, not letting heavy cargo planes come in. His limitations are imposed not on the basis that we have criticized him, but that we have not done enough to praise him. We have a base in Kyrgyzstan, we have bases in Afghanistan. We have other ways of continuing the war on terrorism, but we make a mistake when we put the security of our families in the hands of someone who is a terrorist himself.

And how ironic that we would be doing this at the same time the recent elections in Iran were criticized by the administration for not being fair enough. There is no danger that Uzbekistan will ever get to the level of Iran. At least Iran has elections, however deficient they may be. We do not have that in Uzbekistan.

In short, the administration says democracy is on the march, but in Uzbekistan it is democracy that is getting marched on. I believe we jeopardize our security by contributing to what is a boiling pot. That pot is, Mr. Karimov's method of dealing with his opponents. When that pot eventually boils over, we will lose more than an air base. We will be burned by the injustice that he has been a part of and that is why I offer this amendment.

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