Red Cross to Get Data on Prisoners Held in Secret at U.S. Camps

The U.S. military has agreed for the first time to provide information to the International Committee of the Red Cross about prisoners held in secret at detention camps in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it will continue to deny the ICRC access to them, military officials said Saturday.

The facilities are "short-term places" operated by U.S. Special Forces for newly captured alleged insurgents considered to have valuable information or to be serious threats, according to an official familiar with the subject, who was not authorized to discuss it on the record. It is usually in "the early hours" of detention that interrogators "are able to gain the freshest and most valuable intelligence," the official said.

The military's agreement early this month to provide the ICRC with at least the names of detainees in the Iraq and Afghanistan camps was first reported Saturday on the New York Times's Web site.

The Red Cross has long requested information about, and access to, such prisoners held at the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan, and in Balad, Iraq. Only a few dozen detainees are believed to be at each location at any time, usually for several weeks until they are transferred to longer-term prisons.

In Afghanistan, that normally means the main prison at Bagram, where the military holds about 600 detainees. Although the ICRC has access to that facility, prisoners there have protested their continuing detention by refusing since last month to see Red Cross workers or participate in videoconference visits with their families.

Unlike the large U.S. military prisons that once operated in Iraq -- where military panels reviewed individual cases for release or transfer to Iraqi-run facilities -- there is no review or adjudication process at Bagram. The military has delayed establishing one because Afghanistan lacks a functioning judicial system.

ICRC spokesman Bernard Barrett declined to comment Saturday.

The Defense Department has refused to make public the list of prisoners held at the main Bagram base. The Pentagon last month denied a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to provide names and other information about the detainees, citing national security and privacy concerns.

Except for the Special Forces detention facility, all U.S. prisons in Iraq have been turned over to the Iraqi government.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.