Memo: Gitmo detainees often attack guards

updated 4:31 p.m. ET July 31, 2006

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, Pentagon reports say.

Incident reports reviewed by The Associated Press indicate 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.

Controversial symbol
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.”

‘Doesn’t make sense’
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.

“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 and reviewed by AP provide a rare chronicle of events inside the prison from the guards’ perspective.

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