Bagram Theater Internment Facility

The Bagram Theater Internment Facility is a controversial American detention facility located at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/international/26bagram.html?pagewanted=all
title=A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo
publisher=New York Times
author=Tim Golden, Eric Schmitt
date=February 26, 2006
accessdate=2007-12-09] cite news
author=Eliza Griswold
url=http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070507&s=griswold050707
publisher=The New Republic
title=The other Guantánamo. Black Hole
date=May 2, 2007
accessdate=2007-05-05] It was formerly known as the Bagram Collection Point. While initially intended as a temporary location, this facility now has lasted longer and accumulated more detainees than the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Many of these captives have been subject to severe abuse.cite web
url=http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2005/d20050310exe.pdf
title=ISTF Final Report
publisher=Department of Defense
author=Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, III
date=Thursday, March 10, 2005
accessdate=2007-12-09
format=PDF]

Physical site

During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the Soviets built a large military airfield outside Bagram.cite web
url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/bagram.htm
title=Afghanistan — Bagram Airbase
publisher=Global Security
accessdate=2007-09-24] cite news
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4672491.stm
date= February 27, 2007
title=Bagram: US base in Afghanistan
publisher=BBC
accessdate=2007-09-24] cite news
url=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-6-2002_pg4_9
publisher=Daily Times (Pakistan)
date= June 8, 2002
title=Afghan air force ready for take off, just needs planes
author=Sanjeev Miglani
accessdate=2007-09-24] The airfield included large hangars that fell into disrepair when the Soviets were ousted.

When the Americans and their local allies ousted the Taliban, American forces took possession of the former Soviet base. The Americans didn't need the volume of hangar space, so a detention facility was built inside large unused hangars. Like the first facilities built at Guantanamo's Camp X-Ray, the cells were built of wire mesh. However, only captives held in solitary confinement have a cell of their own. The other captives share larger open cells with other captives.

According to some accounts, captives were provided with shared buckets to use as toilets, and did not have access to running water.cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/publicly_filed_CSRT_records_2869-2990.pdf#62
title=Moazzqam Begg v. George W. Bush
date=July 2 2004,
page=62
publisher=United States Department of Defense
accessdate=2007-09-24] Although captives share their cells with dozens of other captives, there are also reports that they are not allowed to speak with one another, or even to look at one another.cite news
url=http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/10/896ff3f4-f2df-4912-9276-ea4f9d69ab6a.html
title=Afghanistan: Kabul Seeks Release Of More Bagram Detainees
author=Ron Synovitz
date= October 5, 2006
publisher=Radio Free Europe
accessdate=2007-04-27]

During an interview on PBS, Chris Hogan, a former interrogator at Bagram, described the prisoner's cells in early 2002.cite web
url=http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/230/detention-facilities.html
title=Interview: Chris Hogan on U.S. Detention Facilities
date=July 28 2006
publisher=NOW (PBS)
accessdate=2007-09-24] quotation
"I can't speak to what the conditions may be like now. But in my tenure, the prison population lived in an abandoned Soviet warehouse. The warehouse had a cement floor and it was a huge square-footage area.

"On the floor of that, what must have been some sort of an airplane hangar, six prison cages were erected, which were divided by concertina wire ... Those prison cages had a wooden floor, a platform built above the cement floor of the hangar. Each prisoner had a bunch of blankets, a small mat, and in the back of each one of those cages was a makeshift toilet, the same type of toilet that the soldiers used, which was a 50-gallon drum, halved with diesel fuel put in the bottom of it and a wooden kind of seat to that platform ... It's very similar, incidentally, to the conditions that the soldiers lived in; almost identical."

According to an article by Tim Golden, published in the January 7 2008 issue of the "New York Times", captives in the Bagram facility were still being housed in large communal pens.cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/world/asia/07bagram.html?ref=asia&pagewanted=all
title=Defying U.S. Plan, Prison Expands in Afghanistan
publisher=New York Times
author=Tim Golden
date=January 7, 2008
accessdate=2008-01-07]

Torture and prisoner abuse

Two captives are known to have been beaten to death by GIs manning the facility, in December 2002.cite news
url=http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=6450
title=Army completes investigations of deaths at Bagram and forwards to respective commanders for action
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=October 14, 2004
accessdate=2007-09-24]

Captives who were confined to both Bagram and Guantanamo have recounted that, while in Bagram, they were warned that if they didn't cooperate more fully, they would be sent to a worse site, in Cuba. [http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/Set_52_3643-3869.pdf Allegations and response (.pdf)] , from
Abdullah Khan's " Combatant Status Review Tribunal" - pages 59-63] [http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt/Set_52_3643-3869.pdf Summarized transcripts (.pdf)] , from Abdullah Khan's " Combatant Status Review Tribunal" - pages 14-20] Captives who have compared the two camps have said that conditions were far worse in Bagram.cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?ei=5088&en=4579c146cb14cfd6&ex=1274241600&pagewanted=all
title=In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths
author=Tim Golden
publisher=New York Times
date=May 20 2005
accessdate=2007-03-27]

High profile escapes

When the GIs implicated in the December 2002 homicides were about to face court martial, four prisoners escaped from Bagram. At least one of these was a prosecution witness, and was thus unable to testifycite news
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4672491.stm
date= February 27, 2007
title=Bagram: US base in Afghanistan
publisher=BBC
accessdate=2007-09-24] cite news
first =
last =
authorlink =
author =
coauthors =
title = Afghanistan: Manhunt Continues For Four Suspected Al-Qaeda Fighters
url = http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/07/a6ae2509-293d-4750-b82b-b459ac860440.html
format =
work =
publisher = Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
id =
pages =
page =
date= 2005-07-12
accessdate =
language =
quote =
archiveurl =
archivedate = ] .

Legal status of detainees

The Bush Administration avoids using the label "prisoner of war" when discussing the detainees held at Bagram, preferring to immediately classify them as "unlawful enemy combatants." This way, it is not necessary under the Geneva Conventions to have a competent tribunal determine their classification. (In previous conflicts such as Vietnam, Army Regulation 190-8 Tribunals determined the status of prisoners of war.)

The administration also initially argued that these detainees could not access the US legal system. However, the United States Supreme Court's ruling in "Rasul v. Bush" confirmed that captives in US jurisdiction did indeed have the right to access US courts. "Rasul v. Bush" determined that the Executive Branch did not have the authority, under the United States Constitution, to suspend the right for detainees to submit writs of habeas corpus.

Another consequence of the Supreme Court's ruling in "Rasul v. Bush" was the establishment of Combatant Status Review Tribunals to review and confirm the information that initially lead each captive to be classified as an enemy combatant. The Department of Defense (DoD) convened these tribunals for every captive in Guantanamo Bay, but they did not apply to Bagram. The current legal process governing the status of Bagram captives is the Enemy Combatant Review Board, described by Eliza Griswold in the "The New Republic"cite news
author=Eliza Griswold
url=http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070507&s=griswold050707
publisher=The New Republic
title=The other Guantánamo. Black Hole
date=May 2, 2007
accessdate=2007-05-05] :

Captives access to video link

On January 15 2008 the International Committee of the Red Cross and the US military set up a pilot project to allow American captives in Afghanistan to communicate with visitors over a videolink.cite news
url=http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/156921/1/1893
title=Visual chat facility for Afghan prisoners
publisher=One World South Asia
date=January 15 2008
accessdate=2008-01-17] The ICRC will provide captives family with a subsidy to cover their travel expenses to the video-link's studio.

Captives reported to have been held in Bagram

According to Tim Golden of the "New York Times" the number of captives held in Bagram has doubled since 2004, while the number of captives held in Guantanamo has been halved.cite news
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/world/asia/07bagram.html?ref=asia&pagewanted=all
title=Defying U.S. Plan, Prison Expands in Afghanistan
publisher=New York Times
author=Tim Golden
date=January 7, 2008
accessdate=2008-01-07] The Department of Defense stopped transferring captives apprehended in Afghanistan to Guantanamo following the Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush.

A graphic published to accompany Golden's article showed approximately 300 captives in Bagram, and approximately 600 in Guantanamo, in May 2004, and showed the reverse in December 2007.cite news
url=http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/06/world/07bagram.graph.190.jpg
title=Where the Detainees Have Been Held
publisher=New York Times
author=Tim Golden
date=January 7, 2008
accessdate=2008-01-07]

References

External links

*cite news
url=http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/10/896ff3f4-f2df-4912-9276-ea4f9d69ab6a.html
date= October 5, 2006
title=Afghanistan: Kabul Seeks Release Of More Bagram Detainees
author=Ron Synovitz
publisher=Radio Free Europe
accessdate=2007-09-24
*cite news
url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA16Df02.html
title=Bagram: The other Gitmo
publisher=Asia Times
author=William Fisher
date=January 16 2008
accessdate=2008-01-22
*cite news
url=http://www.sundayherald.com/international/shinternational/display.var.2356730.0.0.phpar
title=US military deny that new prison is planned as ‘Guantanamo Two’
publisher=Sunday Herald
date=June 21 2008
accessdate=2008-06-21
quote= [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sundayherald.com%2Finternational%2Fshinternational%2Fdisplay.var.2356730.0.0.phpar&date=2008-06-21 mirror]