The Bush administration sites for detention, interrogation and torture of terror suspects are scattered throughout the world and not all of them are even known about. But we do know about Bagram, the site of aggressive torture, rape and murder of detainees under the command of George W. Bush. There are currently 650 inmates in the jail (pictured right). They have no rights to speak of, have been denied Geneva protections by the president, and may never be released. TNR has a chilling piece about the place, the secrets it may yet reveal, and the deep damage it has done to the cause of democracy and human rights in Afghanistan. Money quote:

Unlike the prison in Guantánamo, there aren't congressional junkets regularly touring the facility, let alone any reporters. Inside one of the low-slung, pale concrete buildings, on the Bagram_2 vast floor of what was once a machine shop, is a scene one former interrogator describes as a dungeon, full of "medieval sounds"--the dragging of leg shackles, shouts from military police. Most of its windows, initially installed by the Soviet army, are broken and boarded up. There are six large 60-foot-long cages ringed in coiled barbed wire where detainees are kept, 15 to 20 prisoners to a cage. Before the prisoners enter or leave these cages, they are transferred temporarily to cages large enough for only one prisoner called "sally ports," which are encased in coils of concertina wire and reinforced with steel beams. On a level above the machine shop floor, there are isolation rooms walled in plywood with chicken-wire ceilings.

The man had come to the guest house on bad information. The lawyers with whom I traveled represented prisoners in Guantánamo, and they weren't seeking new clients from Bagram. As the man took in this depressing fact, he grew irate and began pressing his case with even greater fervor. "There are more photographs," he exclaimed, turning to leave. "Someday, you will see them."

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