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Bagram Theater Internment Facility
From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium
The Bagram Threater Internment Facility is the most recent name for a controversial American detention facility in Afghanistan. It originally was intended as a temporary location, but it now has lasted longer and accumulated more detainees than the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. When discussing these detainees the Bush administration avoids the label "prisoner of war," preferring the classifications of "enemy combatants," "unlawful enemy combatants," or "unprivileged belligerents." Many of these prisoners have not been formally charged, and some have been subject to severe abuse.
On May 16th, 2008, the Bush Presidency announced that it was planning to construct a new 40 acre detention facility to replace the makeshift facility in the old Soviet-era hangars.[1][2][3][4]
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Physical site
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the Soviets built a large military airfield outside Bagram.[5][6][7] 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 American's 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.[8] The other captives share larger open cells with other captives.
According to some accounts captives were provided with shared buckets for their feces and urine, and did not have access to running water. [9]
According to some accounts, although captives share these cells with dozens of other captives they are not allowed to speak with one another, or even to look at one another.[8]
During an interview on PBS, Chris Hogan, a former interrogator at Bagram, described the prisoner's cells in early 2002.[10]
"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."
New construction
The May 17th, 2008 plans to build a new facility were described as a reversal of earlier announcements that captives would be transferred from Bagram to Afghan custody.[1][3][4] The new facility is designed to hold 600 captives, or, over 1000 captives, on a temporary basis.
Plans include spending $60 million from the Department of Defense's emergency funds, this fiscal year.[4] According to the New York Times the facility will be built around a "complex of 6 to 10 semi-permanent structures resembling Quonset huts, each the size of a football field" with out-buildings for "administration, medical care, and other purposes".
The plans for the new facility include classrooms, and recreation areas -- features missing from the current facility. The new facility would provide sufficient showers and sanitary facilities for all the captives -- features deficient in the current facility.
Due to its role as a Soviet hangar, the current facility is contaminated with heavy metals, and asbestos, and has been posing a health and safety risk for the captives and their guards.[4]
According to Sandra L. Hodgkinson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, for Detainee Affairs[2]:
- "Our existing theater internment facility is deteriorating. It was renovated to do a temporary mission. There is a sense that this is the right time to build a new facility."
Torture and prisoner abuse
Two captives are known to have been beaten to death by GIs manning the facility, in December 2002.[11]
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.[12][13] Captives who have compared the two camps have said that conditions were far worse in Bagram.[14]
High profile escapes
When GIs who were implicated in the December 2002 homicides were about to face courts martial there was an escape, and at least one of the prosecution's witnesses escaped, and was thus unable to testify.[6]
Legal status of detainees
Although the Bush administration initially argued that detainees could not access the US legal system, 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 writes of habeas corpus.
Another consequence of the Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush was the authorization of the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants to convene Combatant Status Review Tribunals.
The DoD had to convene Combatant Status Review Tribunals for every captive in Guantanamo Bay. The Summary of Evidence memos prepared for the captives Tribunals all re-iterated that the Tribunals were merely reviewing the information that had lead to the catpive initially being classified as an "enemy combatant" during earlier determinations.
The combatant status of captives taken in other conflicts was determined through Army Regulation 190-8 Tribunals. Army Regulation 190-8 laid out the rules through which officers of the United States Armed Forces complied with the USA's obligations under the Geneva Conventions to convene a "competent tribunal" to determine the status for every captive whose status was in doubt.
An article by Eliza Griswold, published in the The New Republic, stated that the other captives the USA holds might have an Enemy Combatant Review Board convened:[15]
"But, for all these changes, the growing detainee population still lives in overcrowded cages. Prisoners don't even have the limited access to lawyers available to prisoners in Guantánamo. Nor do they have the right to Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which Guantánamo detainees won in the 2004 Supreme Court ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. Instead, if a combat commander chooses, he can convene an Enemy Combatant Review Board (ecrb), at which the detainee has no right to a personal advocate, no chance to speak in his own defense, and no opportunity to review the evidence against him. The detainee isn't even allowed to attend. And, thanks to such limited access to justice, many former detainees say they have no idea why they were either detained or released.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "US to build new detention centre in Afghanistan: report", Press Trust of India, May 17, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-17.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Pentagon to build new prison at Bagram", United Press International, May 16, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-17. “The planned construction represents a concession by the Bush administration that the United States will be holding prisoners in Afghanistan for years. Previously, officials had said the detention center at Bagram would be closed soon, with its inmates either released or transferred to an Afghan prison built with U.S. aid.” mirror
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Eric Schmitt, Tim Golden. "U.S. plans $60 million Afghan prison on military base", Seattle Times, Saturday, May 17, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-17. mirror
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Eric Schmitt, Tim Golden. "U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan", New York Times, Saturday, May 17, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-05-17. mirror
- ↑ Afghanistan — Bagram Airbase. Global Security. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Bagram: US base in Afghanistan", BBC, Tuesday, February 27, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
- ↑ Sanjeev Miglani. "Afghan air force ready for take off, just needs planes", Daily Times (Pakistan), Saturday, June 8, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1
- ↑ Moazzqam Begg v. George W. Bush. United States Department of Defense (July 2 2004,). Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
- ↑ Interview: Chris Hogan on U.S. Detention Facilities. NOW (PBS) (July 28 2006). Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
- ↑ "Army completes investigations of deaths at Bagram and forwards to respective commanders for action", United States Department of Defense, October 14, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
- ↑ Allegations and response (.pdf), from Abdullah Khan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 59-63
- ↑ Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Abdullah Khan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 14-20
- ↑ Tim Golden. "In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths", New York Times, May 20 2005. Retrieved on March 27.
- ↑ Eliza Griswold. "The other Guantánamo. Black Hole", The New Republic, May 2, 2007. Retrieved on May 5.
