WASHINGTON - The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror
have attacked their military guards hundreds of times, turning broken toilet
parts, utensils, radios and even a bloody lizard tail into makeshift weapons.
A cell in the Navy
brig at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Wed., April 13,
2005. The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror have
attacked their military guards hundreds of times, turning broken toilet
parts, utensils, radios and even a bloody lizard tail into makeshift
weapons, Pentagon reports say. [AP] |
Pentagon incident reports reviewed by The Associated Press show Military
Police guards are routinely head-butted, spat upon and doused by "cocktails" of
feces, urine, vomit and sperm collected in meal cups by the prisoners.
They've been repeatedly grabbed, punched or assaulted by prisoners who reach
through the small "bean holes" used to deliver food and blankets through cell
doors, the reports say. Serious assaults requiring medical attention, however,
are rare, the reports indicate.
The detainee "reached under the face mask of an IRF (Initial Reaction Force)
team member's helmet and scratched his face, attempting to gouge his eyes,"
states a May 27, 2005, report on an effort to remove a recalcitrant prisoner
from his cell.
"The IRF team member received scratches to his face and eye socket area," the
report said.
Since its creation in early 2002, the U.S. detention camp on Cuba's coast has
been a controversial symbol of the Bush administration's war on terror, bringing
allegations of prisoner mistreatment, debates over civil rights and a landmark
legal battle to win rights for the detainees.
At one point, more than 600 foreign men captured in the war on terror were
kept there. Many have been released to their home countries, reducing the
current population to about 450. Ten detainees have been accused of war crimes,
but no one has been tried.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the men are entitled to lawyers and access
to the courts and that the administration's original plan to give them justice
through military tribunals was illegal.
Guards currently stationed at Guantanamo describe a tense atmosphere in which
prisoners often orchestrate violence in hopes of unnerving their captors,
especially with attacks using bodily fluids.
"I mean, seeing a human being act that way, it's terrifying. ... You are
constantly watching before you take your next step to see if something is about
to happen," Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Mack D. Keen told AP in an interview
from Guantanamo.
"You see little signs. They kind of show their hand every once in a while.
They'll take their Quran and they'll cover it up," he said. "When you see a
group of detainees taking their Quran and putting it away, you know something is
about to happen."
Moazamm Begg, 38, a prisoner for more than two years at Guantanamo before
being released to Great Britain, said he was suspicious of the Pentagon's
description of incidents, especially allegations that Muslim men tore their
Qurans or used sperm in attacks. The Pentagon continues to publicly question
Begg's claim of innocence.
