Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [341]
Some members of Congress began a campaign of condemnation of the Uzbek government. Two weeks After the events in Andijan, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham traveled to the capital of Tashkent to deliver a public rebuke. “[H]istory shows that continued repression of human rights leads to tragedies such as the one that just took place,” McCain lectured.12 Around the same time, I received a letter from McCain, cosigned by five other senators, insisting that America not pay the $23 million we owed the government from our military’s use of the Uzbek air base at K2. “[G]overnment security forces in the city of Andijan massacred hundreds of peaceful demonstrators,” they wrote. “We strongly object to making a payment to Uzbekistan at this time.”13
I replied to the senators, “The bills we have from the Uzbeks are for services rendered in the war on terrorism. Our national policy, as a general rule, is to pay legitimate bills presented for goods and services by other nations.”14 Paying our bills, though occasionally politically difficult, was the right thing to do.15 What’s more, failing to pay for the services we had requested and received and the goods we consumed would send a harmful message to all of the other nations helping us that the United States could not be relied on.16
After the facts were uncovered and eyewitness reporting was gathered, it was clear that Uzbek authorities had confronted an effort intended to overthrow the local government. The government’s security forces and public affairs officials functioned poorly, but this was not a simple case of soldiers slaughtering innocents, as had been widely alleged and misreported. At a principals meeting in the middle of the crisis, I argued for a more measured handling of Uzbekistan, to encourage Uzbek leaders to move in the right direction, toward freer political and economic policies. I did not favor berating them and shoving them back in the wrong direction—particularly when we lacked a clear understanding of what actually had taken place.17 Before calling for draconian sanctions and making public statements criticizing the government, I thought we needed to first find out the facts and then balance our clear interests in promoting freer political systems and human rights with national security interests. I argued further that if we handled the human rights issue incorrectly and damaged our relationship with Uzbekistan, we could make their human rights situation even worse, as the Uzbek regime would likely clamp down against those who had been closest to the United States and the West.* Any incentives Karimov once had to move toward a more open society would be undermined. Further, I knew that it would seriously damage our efforts in Afghanistan.
My arguments did not prevail. At an NSC meeting, Condi Rice responded to me by declaring, “Human rights trump security.” I wondered if she had really thought that through. She seemed to be saying that if a country didn’t behave as we did or as we expected, it would be shunned, even if turning it away from us took a toll on our nation’s security, and to make matters worse, it arrested their progress on human rights. If we took such a good and evil view of the world, we wouldn’t be able to count on support from any non-democratic country. “We made a clear choice, and that was to stand on the side of human rights,” senior State Department official Nick Burns echoed in the press.18
Karimov didn’t appreciate the recitation