i'd gone to uzbekistan, met with karimov. he was a politburo member in the soviet union. he was an authoritarian post-soviet leader. and he had a terrorism problem in his country. there was an islamic movement that was anti the government and operated in that region. and there was a group that stormed a prison and released all the prisoners in andejan. and the government stepped in and put that down. when i met with president karimov, he agreed to let us use his base to put in our special forces people in afghanistan. we operated there. he was cooperative. we had overnight rights. it was an enormous advantage. to deal with a landlocked country. we couldn't get in there from the sea. we had to have that kind of cooperation from somebody. and particularly a country on the northern border of afghanistan. and he was catching the dickens from russia. russia puts pressure on all those central asian countries. so does china. and it makes their lives very difficult. so he stepped out and agreed to be of help. the united states, with our non-governmental organizations and our huma