Though access to these camps and inmates has been denied to the ICRC, it will at least be able to document and trace these detentions—mostly suspected terrorists and fighters—based on the information of their identities. This is indicative of an orientation that appeared when President Barack Obama announced the closure of the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention facility by next year.
While these prisons serve as transit interrogation points, typically housing suspects for a few weeks immediately after being captured, they are deemed crucial to the whole process. Run by the US Special Operation Forces, both at Bagram in Afghanistan and Balad in Iraq, they are also reported centres of harsh interrogation techniques. Further, many suspects have been detained for periods longer than the prescribed two weeks. After that they are to be transferred to long-term prisons that ICRC can access. It should be noted that these Special Operation Camps differ from the detention facilities run by the CIA that were ordered shut by the US government earlier this year.
Though Bagram and other less known detention facilities continue to both contradict and mock Obama’s other commendable initiatives, the latest development heralds a significant breakthrough in the murky darkness of the US led war on terrorism. It is a step towards enhanced transparency. Besides, the implications of continued abuse are now being realized across the military and political spectra in Washington.
A special investigation and study of US detention facilities, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, advises the military field commanders to give high importance to the treatment of detainees. It is contained in the recommendations of both, the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, It also warns that abuse and ill treatment would only provoke further recruitment by insurgents, thus undermining the basic purpose of the ongoing efforts.
While apologists in Washington may have found some redemption for the havoc wreaked in the Bush era, with both intent and revised policies, it is not enough. Blaming the bureaucracy and the system that raises obstacles at every point—as evident even from the closure of Guantanamo—are not enough. There is a lot more that needs to be done, especially for the 600 plus inmates at Bagram who await leniency in the existing law that denies them review and adjudication of their cases.
(Courtesy Khaleej Times)