"This just doesn't make sense, especially since for Muslims this would be
something that was disgusting, something that just wouldn't be done," he said.
He added that some detainees told him they had mixed toothpaste and spit in the
cocktails to make it look like semen.
Begg, who has written a book and spoken frequently about his experience, said
most incidents he witnessed were spontaneous reactions "when word spread" among
prisoners that a guard had done something wrong.
"I rarely saw lone prisoners acting out on their own for no reason except if
they had some sort of mental illness or if they were on medication," he said.
Nonetheless, the incident reports released under the Freedom of Information
Act to a conservative legal group and reviewed by AP, provide a rare chronicle
of events inside the prison from the guards' perspective.
Entire wings of prisoners were reported to become riotous after complaints
emerged that guards mishandled a Quran or mistreated prisoners. On two
occasions, however, prisoners themselves were reported to have destroyed their
Muslim holy books, the reports state.
"Detainee residing in cell (redacted) block tore his Quran into small
pieces," a guard reported in May 2003. A month later, a prisoner "did
intentionally destroy his Quran and throw (it) out of his cell," another report
stated.
The reports detail more than 440 incidents between guards and prisoners from
December 2002 through summer 2005 that resulted in recommendations of
discipline, an average of about three per week. The names of guards and
prisoners as well as the final discipline were blacked out by the Pentagon.
Often, guards went weeks without reporting problems; other times incidents
were bunched together during times of frustration and tension.
For instance, nearly a quarter of the incidents occurred in July 2005, the
month dozens of detainees started an extended hunger strike.
Tensions likewise flared during Christmas week 2004, with inmates frequently
spitting on guards. On Christmas Eve, a prisoner who was angry that he couldn't
finish his meal was said to have used a plastic fork-spoon utensil ¡ª called a
spork ¡ª to attack a guard collecting his tray.
"Detainee stabbed the MP guard ... in the hand with his spork from chow
meal," the report said, adding the prisoner later "made a slicing motion across
his neck" and vowed to kill the guard.
With many nearing five years in U.S. captivity, the prisoners "have a Ph.D.
in being a detainee" and "know our procedures and they try to turn them against
us and try to make us question what we are doing," said Army Lt. Col. Michael J.
Nicolucci, the prison's executive officer.
"They'll take the smallest things, be it a piece of rust," he said. "They
told us they are going to take that piece of rust and they are going for the
jugular, they are going for the eye. They know what our vulnerabilities are,
anatomically speaking."
Meal plates, shower flip-flops, cleaning brushes and other items deemed
harmless in civilian life also are commonly turned into weapons, the reports
said. For instance:
- "Detainee in cell (redacted) grabbed the radio from an MP and then threw
the radio at the MP. The detainee then threw rocks at the MP," a Dec. 23, 2003,
incident report stated.
- A detainee "reached out of his bean hole and attacked MP (name redacted)
with a piece of metal foot pad from toilet striking him on the left hip area," a
July 15, 2005, report said.
- "Detainee broke off the top of his sink, subsequently broke out the window
then began throwing the sink and pieces of pipes at the Block Guard," a March
25, 2005, report said.
One of the most unusual incidents detailed in the four-inch stack of incident
reports occurred when a detainee in the prison recreation yard assaulted a guard
with a bloody tail torn from a lizard.
