Enlarge By Dan Wilkinson, U.S. Embassy in Kabul The Detention Facility in Parwan opened with huge cells, recreation facilities, visitor centers, high-definition TVs and modern medical equipment. How the U.S. reshaped an Afghan prison's image 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. "Our first approach was, 'You know, we have to hold them.' It wasn't planned or intended," Vice Adm. Robert Harward, who oversees detention operations in Afghanistan, said of the early days of the war in Afghanistan. "We were in the reactionary phase of detention operations across the board. (Parwan) is a dramatic shift from what Bagram was about." POLL: Support declining for Obama as war leader CASUALTIES: Deaths in Afghan war rise with Taliban drive AFGHANISTAN: Success measured one step at a time SKEPTICS: Doubts about U.S. tactics shadow war effort Harward is the commander of Joint Task Force 435, which was created in September to revamp detention operations in Afghanistan. Parwan opened late last year, a $60 million facility with huge cells, recreation facilities, visitor centers, high-definition TVs, modern medical equipment and, more importantly, Harward says, a new attitude. U.S. military leaders believe that running a transparent prison is critical to ending the armed conflict in Afghanistan. They hope the openness will end the Taliban's use of the Bagram prison as a source of propaganda, make it easier to get military intelligence from inmates, and help persuade captured Afghans to reintegrate into the communities by working with coalition forces and the government of Afghanistan. Not all are persuaded of the effort. Air Force Lt. Col. David Frakt, a military lawyer who has defended former Bagram inmates, acknowledges that conditions have gotten better and cases are adjudicated faster. But he says the inmates still have few legal rights, such as being given a "personal representative" rather than lawyers. "All of their efforts to improve things and make things more fair still fall short when they refuse detainees to be represented by council," Frakt says. "Other than that, keeping detainees in Afghanistan, closer to home putting timelines, deadline requirements — all of those things are an improvement." A new review process The thinking behind the new facility originates from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who was replaced recently by Gen. David Petraeus. McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy stressed the importance of winning over the locals to deny the Taliban recruits and safe havens. In his August assessment of the war, McChrystal observed that captured Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders were operating within prison walls and creating future insurgents out of inmates. He blamed a lack of transparency. "The Afghan people see U.S. detention operations as secretive and lacking in due process" he warned. "Hardened, committed Islamists are indiscriminately mixed with petty criminals and sex offenders. They are using the opportunity to radicalize and indoctrinate them." Joint Task Force 435 was created in September to remedy the situation. The Pentagon said the purpose of the task force was, among other things, "to support the overall strategy of defeating the Taliban insurgents." One of its first tasks was shuttering Bagram, which closed in January. "Bagram represents those early years when conditions were quite horrifying and there were egregious human rights abuses," Frakt says. "A lot of physical abuse, it was extremely cold, people were placed in stress positions, they were handcuffed to doors or to overhead bars, people were hooded." Afghans say such reports fueled anti-American sentiment. "Where I come from, half the people thought the prisoners were being tortured by U.S. soldiers," says Mohammad Zai, 21, an eastern Afghanistan native who is training to become a prison guard at Parwan. Some think the problems at Bagram were cleaned up long ago. "When's the last accusation of abuse at Bagram? 2003?" asks Army Col. Thomas Cantwell, who is leading the training program that teaches Afghan soldiers the basics of being a prison guard. "So why are we still talking about it?" Afghans were suspicious nonetheless, says Col. Bhadur Shah Ahmadi, an Afghan commander training Afghan prison guards. He says the Taliban used the cloak of secrecy at Bagram to conjure up all manner of horrors taking place there against Afghan sons and husbands and fathers. The stories enraged Afghans and led many to take up arms against the Americans, he says. "The U.S. did not let people see the prisoners," Ahmadi says. "The enemy used that for their advantage." Army Maj. Andy Rodgers says about 100 visitors a week are making the trip to Parwan to see their relatives and about 50 more are using the videoconference links from locations in Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar. In the Parwan cell block, about 800 inmates are housed in large, open-air rooms that hold up to 20 men each. Sleeping on mats, the men create small personal areas to keep their limited belongings — the Koran, blankets, prayer beads, books, drawings and, sometimes, extra cartons of milk. Some have taken the straws from the milk cartons and used them to make paper flowers, hanging them on the walls and along the metal bars of the cells. Inmates are fed Afghan bread made outside the prison and other traditional food. Rodgers, the operations officer of the prison, says they gain an average of 37 pounds in the prison. "They really like chicken strips," Brig. Gen. Mike Martins says. "They're not big into gravies." Gone is the old process of reviewing each inmate's detention behind closed doors and deciding whether to release them by simply looking through their files. Now, inmates appear before a three-person Detainee Review Board to discuss the evidence against them, listen to witnesses and argue for release. When the new process began late last year, about 25% of the inmates going before the board wound up being handed over to Afghan custody or freed, according to the task force. That number is now up to 50%. Martins uses the example of Jamaluddin, an Afghan who was captured in May 2009 after coalition forces determined he was assisting an insurgent group to carry out attacks. When he met with his review board in February, several people from his home province showed up to vouch for Jamaluddin. He was released. Now, Martins says he is hearing reports that Jamaluddin is showing up unannounced to meetings throughout his home province, urging people to work with the Americans and telling them of the humane way he was treated. "You just can't get that from a news spot or a radio announcement," says Martins, a Harvard-trained lawyer and military judge who runs the day-to-day operations at Parwan. "What this new process allows us to do ... is end the war, detainee by detainee." When inmates are released, Americans transport them back to their hometowns and hold a "release shura" — a meeting at which local elders pledge to watch over the inmate. At a recent shura in Khost province, which borders Pakistan, three men were handed over to village elders at a government center. One by one, the men proclaimed their innocence, claimed there were more innocent men being held in Parwan and chastised Afghan government officials for allowing a foreign country to detain their countrymen. But they had kind words for their jailers. "Americans treated us OK," said Jumadin, who was arrested last year after coalition forces discovered a weapons cache on his property. "They treated us very humanely. They gave us hats. They gave us prayer rugs." Getting better intelligence Parwan is also a hub for interrogations, an intelligence-gathering practice that has not been without controversy. Intelligence personnel say they are using methods that are more effective than previous ways of getting inmates to provide information. When one is scheduled for questioning, guards go to his cell, place him into a wheelchair, blindfold him and take him to an interrogation room in a secret part of the prison. Guards do the same for inmates who are being taken to the medical clinic or to meet with families. The practice ensures that others being held don't know who is speaking with U.S. interrogators. "The detainees are very hard with each other if they even suspect that they're cooperating," said Col. Anthony MacDonald, the Theater Intelligence Group commander. "It's like they're guilty until proven innocent." MacDonald said the new facility has improved his ability to glean more information from the inmates. Before Parwan, they were only able to do about 100 interviews a week, confining their questions to very specific topics. Interviews are now up to 300 a week. "My sample set has grown threefold," MacDonald says. "I have a greater depth of information." Sen. Lindsey Graham, a former military prosecutor who has worked to reshape U.S. detention policy in Afghanistan, worries that the rush to hand over the prison could interfere with what's most important right now — a pending offensive against the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Harward wants to hand over all detention operations to the Afghans by Jan. 1. After touring the facility recently, Graham said the intelligence that U.S. interrogators are getting is too important to give up. "What we need to focus on, is the intelligence-gathering to help the surge be successful," Graham says, referring to the 30,000 additional troops President Obama has ordered to Afghanistan. Harward says the intelligence side of the operation could be the last to be handed over. "I would ... suggest the government of Afghanistan will always want us to be a partner," Harward says. "We will be partnered for a very long time in doing that." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more