CBS News has a new report on the U.S. detention program at Bagram in Afghanistan:

Today, there are more than 3,000 detainees at Bagram, or five times the number (around 600) when President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. There are currently 18 times as many detainees at Bagram than at the U.S. military prison at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base, whose prisoner population has dwindled from a peak of 780 to 170.

The military has changed the name of the facility to the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP).

DOD is now reviewing bids from contractors to expand the facility to house up to 5,500 detainees. The project is expected to cost another $25 to $100 million when it is completed by the end of 2012.

In May, 2011, Human Rights First published this report on Bagram, Detained and Denied in Afghanistan. At that time, their were 1,700 detainees at Bagram. "The Department of Defense won't release the names of its Bagram detainees or its reasons for holding them indefinitely."

Carol Rosenberg of McClatchy reports on the cost of housing inmates at Guantanamo in the Miami Herald. It costs $800,000 a year to house one detainee, according to a letter Eric Holder and Leon Pannetta sent Congress this summer. There are 171 detainees still at Guantanamo.

Congress, determined to keep Gitmo open, authorized provided $139 million for its operation last year. Why isn't it under consideration for part of the $1.5 trillion budget cut?

Condoleeza Rice has written a 734 page memoir of her time in the Bush Administration (first as National Security Adviser and then as Secretary of State.) The New York Times has an advance copy. It says she recounts her clashes with Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and Rumsfeld. Rice describes the meeting with Cheney and Bush where Bush decided to move Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from an overseas secret prison to Guantanamo. As to Rumsfeld:

Ms. Rice writes that he tried to avoid such issues, at one point marching out of a meeting and saying, “I don’t do detainees.” [More...]

Three former detainees at Guantanamo and/or Afghan detention facilities, and one current Guantanamo detainee got a Canadian justice of the peace to file their lawsuit against George Bush alleging torture. A hearing date has been set for Jan. 12. The Complaint, called a Private Prosecution, and supporting sworn documents are here. The factual and legal basis for prosecuting Bush under the Canadian Criminal Code and Convention Against Torture begins on page 20.

The detainees are: Hassan bin Attash, Sami el-Hajj, Muhammed Khan Tumani and Murat Kurnaz:

[E]ach endured years of inhumane treatment including beatings, chaining to cell walls, being hung from walls or ceilings while handcuffed, lack of access to toilets, sleep, food and water-deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, sensory overload and deprivation, and other horrific and illegal treatment while in U.S. custody at military bases in Afghanistan and/or at the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.

More...

In Brussels, Attorney General Eric Holder said Obama remains committed to closing Guantanamo despite Republican opposition. If he doesn't get it done before the election, he'll keep trying after.

"We will be pressing for the closure of the facility between now and then - and after that election, we will try to close it as well," Holder said. "Some people have made this a political issue without looking at, I think, the real benefits that would flow from the closure of the facility."

He also said there will be no return to harsh interrogation techniques/torture:

Holder also said that the United States would stick to the "fundamental break" with some interrogation techniques that were criticized around the world as amounting to torture...."We have indicated that certain techniques that were used previously are in fact torture, and will not be engaged in again by the United States," Holder said.

A lawsuit between two private contracting companies that transported detainees between the U.S., Guantanamo and secret black-hole overseas prisons has revealed major new details about the Government's secret rendition program under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The company is DynCorp, now known as Dyncorp Internatiobal.[More...]

Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somalian man indicted in New York today was held for two months and interrogated on a U.S. Navy ship. The Obama Administration describes him as a militant with ties to AQAP and al Shabab, and says he was designated an "important target." My translation: He was on the kill or capture list and we decided to go for capture rather than kill this time. Next time could be different.

Obama officials say the new policy of holding detainees for interrogation on Navy Ships is much different than the previous Bush policy. The interrogations are more humane and they get Miranda warnings...after being interrogated. [More...]

The White House released this statement yesterday about its position on the House bill for Homeland Security funding. (H.R. 2017.)It strongly objects to the provision limiting funds for the transfer of detainees, calling the restrictions "a dangerous and extraordinary challenge to critical Executive branch authority."

The Administration also has a number of serious constitutional concerns. The Administration strongly objects to the provisions of section 537 that limit the use of funds to transfer detainees and otherwise restrict detainee transfers.

[More...]

Detainee Hajji Nassim, aka Inayatullah, committed suicide at Guantanamo yesterday. He is the sixth detainee to kill himself at Guantanamo.

He was captured in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo in 2007. He was represented by the Federal Defenders of Miami, who say at one point they arranged for a civilian psychiatrist to visit him.

Wikileaks has no documents on him, but his the pleadings in his habeas case, available on PACER, (Case No. 09-cv-01332-HHK) detail more than 60 interrogations, the first of which was on September 13, 2007. He was an Afghan national who co-owned a cell phone store in Iran. He was suspected of providing safe housing and/or transit from Iran to Pakistan to Turk/al Qaeda fighters. On one occasion he may have delivered a message. He had a wife and six children. He was very concerned about his brother Hidayatullah who he thought was imprisoned at Bagram. [More...]

McClatchy's Carol Rosenberg and Tom Lasseter have an analysis of the new Guantanamo documents released by Wikileaks to various news organizations. Shorter version: Bush and Rumsfeld's detention and interrogation policies were a flub.

a collection of secret intelligence documents from George W. Bush's administration, not meant to surface for 20 years, shows that the military's efforts at Guantánamo often were much less effective than the government has acknowledged. Viewed as a whole, the secret intelligence summaries help explain why in May 2009 President Barack Obama, after ordering his own review of wartime intelligence, called America's experiment at Guantánamo "quite simply a mess."

The information from detainee-informants was unreliable. [More...]

The New York Times and other media outlets have major reports tonight on leaked classfied documents regarding Guantanamo detainees. You can view several of the leaked documents, courtesy of Wikileaks, here. the Times reports some of the leaked files pertain to detainee suicides.

[A] collection of secret detainee assessment files obtained by The New York Times reveal that the threat of suicide has created a chronic tension at the prison — a tactic frequently discussed by the captives and a constant fear for their captors.

[More...]

A judge is Spain has dismissed the lawsuit against Bush administration officials for torture of detainees.

Judge Eloy Velasco said in a four-page ruling issued Wednesday that the United States has told Spain the U.S. government is holding investigations of its own. Velasco said for this reason, Spain cannot apply its doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which holds that, under some circumstances, crimes allegedly committed in other countries can be prosecuted in Spain's National Court.

Here is the letter the Justice Department submitted to Spain outlining its ongoing investigation into the Bush Administration actions. The Center for Constitutional Rights responds here. CCR's webpage on the lawsuit is here.

Jeh Johnson, the General Counsel for the Department of Defense, is urging Congress not to rule out civilian trials of detainees.

Jeh (Jay) Johnson said a Republican bill to virtually remove the civilian option would make it more likely that courts would step in when detainees challenge their detentions. He testified Thursday before the House Armed Services Committee.

Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald has much more on new Republican efforts to prevent closing Gitmo:

But the focus was the Republican draft legislation that would further thwart Obama’s efforts to close the detention center in southeast Cuba. It also would give the defense secretary rather than the attorney general final say on keeping a detainee in military custody. The bill imposes such tough requirements on transfers of the last Guantánamo captives that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he might not be able to approve any release.

Best line from the hearing:

They turn Guantánamo Bay into the Hotel California,” said the top Democrat on the committee, Washington Rep. Adam Smith. “You can check out any time you want but you can never leave.”

[More...]

President Obama issued an executive order today clearing the way for more military commission trials at Guantanamo. The ACLU says Obama has now "institutionalized indefinite detention." It calls Obama's new review process "window dressing."

Here's the Order. Here's the administration's Fact Sheet. From Obama's statement. [More....]

Via the Center for Constitutional Rights: The full panel of Judges of the Audencia Nacional (Spain’s High Court) rejected a Spanish prosecutor’s effort to stop an investigation into the role of US officials for torture on Guantanamo.

This is a monumental decision that will enable a Spanish judge to continue a case on the “authorized and systematic plan of torture and ill treatment” by U.S. officials at Guantanamo. Geoffrey Miller, the former commanding officer at Guantánamo, has already been implicated, and the case will surely move up the chain of command. Since the U.S. government has not only failed to investigate the illegal actions of its own officials and, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, also sought to interfere in the Spanish judicial process and stop the case from proceeding, this will be the first real investigation of the U.S. torture program. This is a victory for accountability and a blow against impunity. The Center for Constitutional Rights applauds the Spanish courts for not bowing to political pressure and for undertaking what may be the most important investigation in decades.

CCR's page on the Spanish lawsuits is here.