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A look inside Guantánamo: detainees and interrogators

By Paisley Dodds
The Associated Press

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The manual is thought to contain prime intelligence information that officials want the suspect to help interpret. Interrogators refuse to say how they took possession of it or describe it further, other than to say it could play a key role in the fight against terror.

Next door, another prisoner in an orange jumpsuit pours tea from a Thermos, fingers a candy wrapper and takes a drag on a cigarette as he laughs with an interrogator and squints at a mug shot she hands him of a man with piercing ebony eyes.

A two-day tour

A two-day tour at Guantánamo Bay afforded access to some 50 detainees, including some in a new maximum-security prison. One detainee said he, too, was a reporter.

Through mirrored glass and with the sound turned off, three interrogations also were witnessed, including one in the part of the camp reserved for problem detainees and prisoners believed to hold information important to the fight against international terrorist groups.

Officers said armed guards are never used during these sessions. They said each detainee is generally questioned twice a week, with sessions usually lasting two to four hours, with a maximum of 15 hours a day.

Two interrogations sessions watched by The Associated Press were at Camp Delta's normal detention center. The other session viewed was at Camp 5, where alleged leaders, problem detainees and prisoners believed to have high intelligence value are held.

Measuring success

A problem detainee — a young man held since the beginning of the mission — had asked to see his interrogator, having clammed up in their last session. Although the detainee appeared silent much of the time, the interrogator viewed the session as a success, saying the man finally talked.

After the interrogator and linguist left the room, the bearded detainee began smiling, laughing and talking to what could have been another detainee, next door in the shower.
 
"Sometimes this detainee is very funny; other times he is not funny at all," said an interrogator. "Sometimes they are very pleasant at one moment, and then they tell you calmly and proudly about how they killed someone."

Officers said the primary focus of the prison always has been intelligence gathering.

"We've learned about recruiting, how terror cells are financed, their capabilities and plans that have been sitting on the table for attacks," said the senior interrogator, who along with other interrogators spoke on condition of anonymity.

The first detainees arrived strapped into a cargo plane 2-1/2 years ago, shackled, bound and blindfolded. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan, accused of links to the fallen Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Officials thought Guantánamo's remote location on foreign soil would put prisoners outside the reach of U.S. constitutional protections, but the Supreme Court ruled last week that the 595 prisoners from 42 countries — all but three held without charge and denied lawyers — have the right to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts.

Most detainees have not yet been told of their newly won right.

Three prisoners — an Australian, a Sudanese and a Yemeni — have been charged with crimes ranging from conspiracy to commit war crimes to aiding the enemy and have been selected to be tried by military tribunals that officials hope will begin in Guantánamo before the end of the year.

But the Supreme Court ruling could create delays, and lawyers plan a flurry of challenges.

Answering critics

Criticism of the Guantánamo camp started when it opened, with the first pictures of shackled prisoners being locked into hastily constructed metal enclosures that rights activists compared to animal cages.

Twenty-one detainees have tried to kill themselves in 34 incidents, the most recent attempt coming last January.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the only independent group allowed to visit the detainees, issued a rare public rebuke of conditions in October. It and other groups contend the prolonged detention has harmed detainees' mental health. Some critics, however, charge that is the result of harsh interrogation techniques.

Disputing reports that few detainees at Guantánamo still retain any value as sources of intelligence about terrorist activities, two interrogators said most prisoners have either killed someone or helped in an operational capacity.

They said about 20 percent are college-educated and most know some counterinterrogation techniques, making it more tedious to extract information. Despite that, the interrogators said, they don't mistreat the detainees.

"It's counterproductive," said the senior interrogator, who has worked at the camp for nearly two years.

Before moving this spring to the Abu Ghraib prison, the U.S.-run prison in Iraq where some troops are accused of abusing detainees, Guantánamo center's former commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, instituted a system of rewards to encourage detainees' cooperation.

One is a field trip for cooperative prisoners held in medium-security Camp 4, where detainees wear white uniforms, are allowed to exercise every day and get to keep more items, such as letters and books, in their cells.

Four or five of the 100 prisoners at Camp 4 are taken out about twice a week. Interrogators say the trips build trust with the men and prompt them to divulge more information.

AP journalists were allowed inside a room with four prisoners during a four-hour field trip to a part of the detention center known as Camp Iguana. The big lizards it's named for amble around a complex of trailers and buildings that housed a few juvenile prisoners before their release last year.

The area is screened from view by green netting, and the detainees are allowed to sit on a hilltop and look at the Caribbean or play soccer. Most opt for air conditioning against the 100-degree heat and watch movies in a trailer that also has a pingpong table. This day the movie was "The Color of Paradise," an Iranian film about a father learning to accept his blind son.

One prisoner asked a commander in perfect English if the visitors were journalists and if he could speak to them. When told the visitors were journalists but he could not talk to them, he smiled and said that he and his friend were journalists. The Arab satellite-TV station al-Jazeera has said one of its cameramen is wrongfully detained at Guantánamo.

Detainees are allowed to sit in the trailer unshackled. Guards stand outside.

The mood was less relaxed in the other camps, where open-air cellblocks made of chain-link fences allow detainees to see each other and chat. Most prisoners turned their backs to avoid being photographed. Some looked curious or nodded in greeting.

When a prisoner began criticizing American journalism, an officer hurried the visitors away from the cells, where angry detainees have been known to throw feces at guards.

Detainees in Camp 5 — which holds about 50 of 100 detainees considered uncooperative or of high intelligence value — stay in an air-conditioned concrete building in cells closed with metal doors and a strip covering an internal window.

A commander peeled back the tape to give a glimpse. In one cell, a man was curled up asleep, a prosthetic leg lying below his mattress.

Daily routines

The commander said the men — many with unkempt beards — have developed their own cell routines. Some clean their cells and wash their jumpsuits each day. Many read and reread letters from home or study the Quran, Islam's holy book. Most observe the ritual call to prayer that crackles over the loudspeaker five times daily.

A few look at the sunlight shining into cell windows, reaching their arms up and looping their fingers around the metal mesh.

One such photograph was censored by military officers who reviewed the AP's portfolio. They also would not allow publication of others they said might reveal the identities of detainees.

"The mission is, of course, more sensitive because we are under a microscope," said Army 1st Lt. Romel Santos, 25, a guard from San Jose, Calif. "But as long as we keep doing the right thing, we're good to go. I think we're doing that already."