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washingtonpost.com
By Scott Higham, Joe Stephens
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- The newest prison in the
war on terrorism is a multi-winged $31 million complex of gray concrete
and steel designed to hold 100 captives for years to come. It stands in
stark contrast to the original detention camp here, a collection of chain-link
cages used two years ago to hold suspected terrorists and Taliban fighters
caught when their sanctuary in Afghanistan collapsed.
Next week, officials will gather at the U.S. Navy
base on this parched crescent of land in the Caribbean to commemorate the
opening of the new facility, known as Camp 5. The new building signals
permanence. It also signifies a problem yet unsolved.
While U.S. officials continue to see this patch
of scrub encircled by brilliant blue water as the perfect place to hold
prisoners in a war seemingly without end, the facility has evolved into
a prison of sorts for the administration. It was easy to get in, but it
is proving vexingly difficult to get out.
Today, the government remains responsible for about
600 detainees at the base, half of whom Pentagon officials would send back
if they could obtain proper security guarantees from foreign governments.
One hundred forty-seven detainees have been returned to their home countries.
Six of the 600 have been designated to stand trial before military tribunals.
Many of the detainees have been in custody for two years. Only a handful
have seen a lawyer, and two have been formally charged.
The open-ended detentions have been condemned by
foreign governments and human rights groups and are now being weighed by
the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to rule by early summer. Some
government advisers involved in the evolution of the prison camp are questioning
the decision to indefinitely detain the men as enemy combatants, rather
than classifying them as prisoners of war.
There are strains with close allies, including
Britain. The Saudi government has carried complaints directly to President
Bush and has grown frustrated by the lack of progress. "They are in a bind,
and they don't know how to get out of it," said a senior Saudi official,
who requested anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.
U.S. officials counter that they are making changes
and releasing captives as quickly as possible, while trying to keep the
world safe from terrorist attacks. "We freely admit we're learning this
as we go along," said Paul W. Butler, who supervised detainee operations
and is now a special assistant to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"There were no blueprints for this."
The tale of how the Pentagon reached this point
is a chronicle of a cascading series of decisions, made on the fly in the
face of tremendous pressure. It is a narrative marked by bold moves and
false starts, psychological warfare between guards and inmates, threats
and incentives, allegations of mistreatment and pleas from families whose
loved ones have been gone for months or years without explanation.
Some of the released detainees contended they were
treated harshly and forced to falsely confess. But those reports remain
unconfirmed, and members of Congress who have visited the base praised
the humaneness of the captives' treatment and the professionalism of the
troops.
Much of what has happened at Guantanamo has been
shrouded in government secrecy, with most of the prison off-limits, detainee
interviews prohibited and the names of the captives kept confidential.
The Washington Post spent three months examining "Gitmo," touring portions
of the prison camp and interviewing the military officials in charge, U.S.
and foreign diplomats, congressional staffers, administration advisers
and others with firsthand knowledge of the prison camp.
Using news accounts and information from lawyers
and Web sites, the newspaper also compiled the largest public list of detainee
names, encompassing 370 out of the 745 or so men detained at the camp since
January 2002. Most of the detainees identified by name come from countries
where al Qaeda has its deepest roots: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen. The
largest contingent comes from the country that supplied most of the Sept.
11, 2001, hijackers: Saudi Arabia. Going to 'Gitmo'
The Guantanamo strategy was crafted in a hurry.
Twenty-six days after the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001, the United States began bombing attacks in Afghanistan, whose Taliban
government had sheltered Osama bin Laden and his followers. Soon, U.S.
troops were rounding up hundreds of ragtag soldiers and suspected terrorists
on the battlefield. Other captives were being turned over by Afghan warlords.
The Pentagon wanted to put the captives out of
circulation and find out what they knew.
Exactly how to do that raised novel legal questions
for lawyers at the White House, the Pentagon, the Justice Department and
the CIA. Should Taliban fighters be granted prisoner-of-war status? What
about suspected members of al Qaeda? And where would the military hold
the men?
There was little debate over how to classify those
suspected of fighting for al Qaeda. The terrorist group was not a country
and had never been a party to the Geneva conventions. Moreover, al Qaeda
members intentionally killed civilians. Suspected terrorists captured by
U.S. forces, the lawyers agreed, should be classified as enemy combatants
and not given legal status as prisoners of war.
The status of Taliban fighters was less clear.
Some lawyers reasoned that Afghanistan had signed the Geneva conventions
and that the Taliban was recognized by some nations as a legitimate government,
though not by the United States. These lawyers thought the Taliban fighters
should be granted prisoner-of-war status, entitling them to certain rights
and protections.
Other lawyers disagreed, arguing that the Taliban
fighters should also be classified as enemy combatants.
"They were basically a criminal gang," said a former
Justice Department lawyer who participated in the strategy sessions and
requested anonymity because of the confidential nature of the deliberations.
"They massacred civilians. They summarily executed prisoners. If people
violate the core notion of the law, they shouldn't receive prisoner-of-war
status. It's reserved for honorable warriors."
That argument prevailed.
The lawyers turned to identifying a detention site
that would be outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. legal system, safe from
attack and quiet enough for focused interrogations. Prison ships were considered.
So were remote Pacific islands and the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean, where the United States operates a military base under a lease with
Britain.
Diego Garcia would have required agreements with
the British, and Asian locations were deemed too vulnerable. Planners winnowed
their list to include a military facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and
Alcatraz, the infamous island prison turned tourist attraction in San Francisco
Bay, said Mark R. Jacobson, a former Pentagon official who helped devise
the detention operation.
A more attractive choice remained.
The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay is the country's
oldest overseas military installation. It dates to 1903, when the U.S.
government leased 45 square miles from Cuba to establish a refueling station.
Thirty-one years later, the two nations signed an open-ended agreement
granting the United States use of the land and waterways. The U.S. government
pays Cuba about $4,000 a year.
Over the years, Gitmo had served as a port for
Navy ships, a holding facility for Haitian and Cuban refugees, and an operations
base for U.S. drug interdiction efforts. The government lawyers reasoned
that the base was beyond the reach of U.S. courts and could be easily defended.
The remote location and the unlikelihood of escape or rescue could also
put psychological pressure on the captives, adding to their "desperation"
and compelling them to talk, said Jacobson, who is now a visiting scholar
at Ohio State University.
The Bush administration approved the plan.
On Jan. 11, 2002 -- four months to the day after
the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- a military transport
plane touched down at Guantanamo, taxiing alongside a cavernous hangar
resembling an old-style roller skating rink. Twenty suspected terrorists
and fighters were on board that day. Over the next 10 days, five more planes
would bring 140 more captives.
The men were taken to Camp X-Ray through two rows
of chain-link fencing topped with razor wire. Unpainted plywood shacks
on wooden stilts served as guard towers. A plywood hut doubled as a command
center and a place for soldiers to escape the Caribbean sun. The captives
were escorted to the cages, each 8 feet by 8 feet. Constructed on slabs
of concrete and covered with sheets of metal and wood, the collection of
padlocked cages looked like an oversize dog kennel.
A Navy photographer took pictures that were transmitted
around the world. Louise Christian, a human rights lawyer in London, recalled
seeing the images flash across her television screen.
"I was aghast," Christian said.
One picture showed the captives at Camp X-Ray,
shackled and clad in orange jumpsuits, kneeling in the dirt and gravel.
The military had strapped muffs over their ears, surgical masks over their
mouths and goggles spray-painted black over their eyes. Authorities described
the gear as necessary for security during the long plane trip from Afghanistan.
The photographs touched off international protests. A British tabloid declared on its front page: "Torture!" An infuriated Bush administration went on the offensive. "These are the worst of a very bad lot," Vice President Cheney said. Human rights groups pressured Britain and other
countries that had citizens held at Guantanamo to take a stand. The families
of men who went missing during the Afghan war began calling lawyers such
as Christian. "The outrage was sparked by those original images," she said.
Control of the Block By the time John R. VanNatta arrived at Guantanamo in May 2002, military contractors were constructing a new, more permanent prison complex called Camp Delta. The warden of a maximum-security prison in Indiana, VanNatta also served as a command sergeant major in the Army Reserves. The differences between the old and new camps were striking. "X-Ray was a very primitive camp. It was extremely hard on the soldiers. They were put in tents right next to it. They never had an escape from the wire. The chanting and name-calling continued into the night. They had no relief," he said. "It was also hard on the detainees. The location was further away from the shore, and the less air flow, the hotter it became." In November 2002, VanNatta was put in charge. By then, there were more than 600 detainees from 42 countries, and Camp Delta was experiencing difficulties. Military police officers were not trained to work in what had become a maximum-security prison. There was no classification system at the camp -- cooperative captives were commingled with hard cases. There were few consequences for bad behavior. Factions had also formed in the camp, and detainees were accumulating power. Leaders of the factions were intimidating other captives, threatening to harm their families if they cooperated, VanNatta said. Feces and mixtures of toothpaste and soap were flung at MPs and at detainees suspected of providing information. Detainees stopped up toilets and backed up sewage lines with clothing and pieces of plastic meal containers, creating fetid pools of waste that stewed in the heat of the sun. Detainees vowed to kill the MPs and their families. Name tags and unit insignias on the MPs' uniforms allowed captives to identify their home regions. The captives called out to the MPs using their last names, threatening to dispatch terrorists to their homes in the United States, VanNatta said. To bolster security, the chain-link fences of Camp X-Ray were replaced with thick, wire-mesh walls at Camp Delta. Each cell contained a squat-style flush toilet, a blanket, some prayer beads, a Koran and black, spray-painted arrows on the steel bunks pointing the way to Mecca. While conditions had improved, the captives could still communicate by talking through the open-air cages. They discussed who they believed was cooperating, and plotted threats and intimidation. The International Committee of the Red Cross had largely refrained from publicly criticizing the camp for fear of losing access to the detainees. But on Oct. 9, 2003, a series of suicide attempts prompted the organization to announce that it was troubled by the "deterioration in the psychological health of a large number" of prisoners. "One cannot keep these detainees in this pattern, this situation, indefinitely." By then, there had been 32 suicide attempts by 21 captives. The most serious involved a captive from Saudi Arabia last year, said Najeeb Nuaimi, a former justice minister of Qatar who is representing the families of dozens of prisoners. The Saudi was attending school in Pakistan when he was seized in a raid by U.S. and Pakistani forces, Nuaimi said. The man was interrogated and then flown to Guantanamo, where he told authorities he was not a terrorist and had not fought for the Taliban. "He tried to tell them he would try to kill himself, 'if you don't release me.' " Nuaimi said. "They didn't listen." The man wrote a letter saying goodbye to his family and tied a makeshift noose around his neck in his cell. MPs cut him down. But he suffered a brain hemorrhage and fell into a coma. The Pentagon considered sending him home, Nuaimi said, but the man's relatives decided that his best chance for recovery rested with the doctors at Guantanamo. He has since come out of the coma and has been slowly regaining his ability to talk and walk with the help of physical therapists. He can now dictate letters to his family, Nuaimi said. VanNatta said he was concerned by the growing number of suicide attempts. "If you have no idea what's going to happen to you, that's extremely stressful," he said. "But if the mission is to collect intelligence and get information that is beneficial to our side, then despair and depression may be a good thing." Some attempts were made by men who were truly despondent, he said. But the vast majority appeared to have been feigned, designed to curry favor with faction leaders. Other captives knew that they would be moved closer to an MP station on the cell block after a suicide attempt, where they could overhear conversations and possibly collect intelligence, VanNatta said. He said changes at the camp, coupled with a requirement that MPs enter cells during suicide attempts without waiting for response teams, lowered the number of attempts. Over time, the camp also borrowed tricks from U.S. prisons, such as swapping standard military blankets -- which can be twisted into garrotes -- with foam-like blankets that rip when they are twisted or stretched. 'A Tremendous Motive' The military worked to transform Delta into a modern-day
prison. MPs received better training and their uniforms were "sterilized"
-- they placed duct tape over their name plates, and some covered their
unit insignias. They fastened green fabric screens to fences throughout
the camp, blocking communication between cell blocks and recreation yards.
A reward system was established -- a "disciplinary
incentive matrix" that is used in many U.S. prisons. After 30 days of good
behavior, detainees could be moved to less restrictive camps that offer
perks, such as communal meals and soccer games. Cooperation could earn
games of checkers or chess, a religious-themed novel or two desserts at
dinner.
Allowing cooperative detainees to swap their bright-orange
coveralls with white ones, which look more like traditional Afghan garb,
became one of the most productive incentives. MPs make a show of carrying
the white clothing through a cellblock, then parading the newly outfitted
detainees through the facility.
"It's a big deal for them," said Jacobson, the
former Pentagon official.
The new system also improved the flow of intelligence,
VanNatta said. "We may have stopped some terrorist attacks."
But interrogation experts, psychologists and military
lawyers say promises of favors and better treatment can lead captives to
concoct tales. "It appears to create a tremendous motive to give the investigators
and interrogators what they want," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Philip Sundel, a
military lawyer assigned to defend a captive suspected of being a bodyguard
of bin Laden.
Sundel's client, Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul
of Yemen, has been in solitary confinement at what is called Camp Echo.
Sundel said he is concerned that detainees such as al Bahlul may fabricate
stories to obtain better treatment.
Camp Echo is off-limits to most visitors. Some
who have been there describe it as a collection of small, one-story "sea
huts" divided into two rooms. Inside each, a single captive is kept in
a cage, guarded by an MP 24 hours a day.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan has been held at Camp Echo since
December 2003, court records show. He allegedly admitted that he served
as a driver on bin Laden's farm in Afghanistan. His lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr.
Charles Swift, argues that the planned military tribunals are unconstitutional
and that Bush needs congressional approval for them to proceed.
To help examine the case of his client, Swift brought
in Daryl Matthews, a psychiatry professor at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa who visited Guantanamo last year as part of a Pentagon medical team.
After reviewing a sworn statement by Hamdan, Matthews
wrote in an opinion filed in court that the captive was let out for exercise
only three times a week. Matthews added that Hamdan was becoming increasingly
despondent over his situation.
"The conditions of his confinement make Mr. Hamdan
particularly susceptible to mental coercion and false confession," Matthews
wrote.
U.S. Army Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who commanded
the detention operation until recently, dismissed speculation about false
confessions and bad information. He said that each piece of information
is vetted by a variety of domestic and foreign intelligence sources and
databases, and that 90 percent of the intelligence ultimately proves to
be valid. Miller is now in charge of the detainee operation in Iraq, where
8,000 prisoners are being held and six American soldiers have been charged
with mistreating some of the captives.
Establishing Rapport Intelligence at Guantanamo is collected by five-member
"Tiger Teams." They are composed of interrogators, analysts, translators
and representatives from agencies such as the FBI and the CIA. The teams
can question captives at any time, escorting them into interrogation rooms
in squat white buildings near the cell blocks. The rooms have tables, a
few chairs and one-way mirrors. In some, posters in Arabic tell detainees
that they are missed by their families and needed back home. The captives
can be shackled and chained to steel rings fastened to the floor.
The sessions are not videotaped or tape recorded,
Miller said. The interrogations are designed primarily to yield intelligence,
not evidence for a court, he said, adding that taping "causes us legal
problems." Detainees might gain access to tapes through court proceedings.
"Then, it becomes exculpatory," Miller said.
Tiger Team members may not hit or slap a detainee,
said Jacobson, the former Pentagon official, who has observed some of the
sessions. In fact, the most effective interrogations involve establishing
rapport, not intimidation. For example, Jacobson said, an interrogator
may praise a detainee's ingenuity in designing a particular bomb. "Interrogation
is not screaming at someone for hours," he said.
In one case, an interrogator used a blackboard
to list every counterintelligence technique employed by a particular detainee
-- such as staring intently at a wall to block out his questioner's voice.
Next to each technique, the interrogator listed the page number in a standard
al Qaeda manual from which the technique was taken. The detainee eventually
lost his composure and smirked, Jacobson said, and a tenuous bond was achieved.
"It is a game; you are playing back and forth,"
Jacobson said. "And some of these detainees are very tough."
Back in the United States, the value of the intelligence
has been met with mixed reviews. While administration officials said it
has been significant, some intelligence officers and others familiar with
the interrogation sessions said they are not impressed.
One former CIA officer, Peter Probst, said he believes
the Tiger Teams at Guantanamo have wrung the detainees dry. Probst said
the captives might be of more use after they are released because intelligence
agencies could monitor them.
"Even if they were marginal, they would be of interest
when released," Probst said. Some released detainees might actually have
been enticed into becoming double agents, he said, while others could carry
misleading intelligence back to al Qaeda leaders. That could create paranoia
and disrupt terrorist operations.
Another U.S. source familiar with Guantanamo said
Pentagon officials are in a lose-lose situation with the less-valuable
detainees. "After a while, intelligence gets stale and you begin to get
the sense that we're just holding these people forever," the source said.
"They weren't building cases against them. They were just holding them
and keeping them off the street because they were afraid that one or more
would do something bad."
The secrecy surrounding the operation has also
provided ammunition to critics of the administration. The military has
permitted hundreds of journalists to visit the base, but they must adhere
to strict rules and be accompanied by handlers at all times. Journalists
are required to sign contracts not to speak to detainees. Last year, a
detainee shouted to a group of visitors, asking if they were journalists.
When the visitors replied that they were from the British Broadcasting
Corp., military escorts quickly ended the tour.
Even members of the Senate have had trouble getting
responses from the Pentagon. Last December, Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.),
Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) visited the base and
asked Rumsfeld when the detainees' status would be resolved.
"We firmly believe it is now time to make a decision
on how the United States will move forward regarding the detainees," the
senators wrote to Rumsfeld on Dec. 12.
Two months later, Rumsfeld replied that a determination
on the status of the detainees was up in the air because "our nation continues
to be in an armed conflict. As with any armed conflict, no one can predict
when its end will occur."
© The Washington Post |
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