How U.S. reshaped Afghan prison's image

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How U.S. reshaped Afghan prison's image
By Alan Gomez - USA Today
Posted : Wednesday Aug 4, 2010 8:51:42 EDT

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — In an outdoor field, inmates at the Detention Facility in Parwan play soccer in the shadow of the transport planes, shipping containers and thousands of troops that cram this major hub of the Afghanistan war.

In another part of the prison, the men are being visited by their wives and children. Others whose families live far from the base talk on a videoconference system. In a vocational training wing, inmates use new sewing machines to make curtains for a meeting room.

"They jumped all over this," Army Maj. Ann Sampson said. "They all want to make suits and learn English."

Prison life at Bagram is far different today than the initial years of the war, say military officials who gave USA Today a rare tour of the facility. Before Parwan, suspected Taliban militants, sympathizers and abettors were squeezed into a windowless Soviet airplane hangar known as Bagram Theater Internment Facility. The Red Cross complained about the rudimentary conditions. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union likened it to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where inmates were abused by several U.S. troops.

Two Afghan inmates died at Bagram in 2002. A military judge found Army Pfc. Willie Brand guilty of abusing one of the inmates, and five U.S. guards pleaded guilty to abusing inmates there. Afghans were not allowed to visit, the Western media were refused entry, and the local press was full of dark accusations of hidden torture chambers and clandestine executions.