Inside Gitmo

by Cucullu, Gordon

• ISBN13: 9780061775000
• ISBN10: 0061775002
• Edition: Large
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

The U.S. Military Detention Center at Guantnamo Bay---known to the public as Gitmo---has been called the American Gulag, a scene of medieval horrors where innocent farmers and goat herders swept up in Afghanistan and Iraq have been sequestered, tortured, and abused for years on end without access to legal counsel or basic medical services.

Author Biography

Gordan Cucullu is a retired army colonel and the author of Separated at Birth: How North Korea Became the Evil Twin. He lives in St. Augustine, Florida.

Table of Contents

Maps	p. x
Preface: Close Gitmo?	p. xiii
Introduction: Guantánamo: Myth and Reality	p. xvii
Why Guantánamo?	p. 1
Muhammad al Qahtani: A Terrorist Case Study	p. 17
In the Beginning: Camp X-Ray	p. 41
Camp Delta's Mission: A Work in Progress	p. 71
Meet the "Foreign Fighters"	p. 87
Maximum Security: Camps I, II, and III	p. 147
Compliance Rewarded: Inside the Camp IV Wire	p. 181
Segregation and Supervision: Camps V and VI	p. 196
Camps Echo, Iguana, and a "Secret" CIA Installation	p. 225
Daily Life at Gitmo	p. 245
Meet the American Military	p. 272
Hunger Strikes: Asymmetrical Warfare in Action	p. 296
The Value of Intelligence	p. 335
The Future of Guantánamo: Critiques and Recommendations	p. 356
Glossary of Military Terms	p. 385
Acknowledgments	p. 389
Notes	p. 397
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Inside Gitmo LP
The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay

Chapter One

Why Guantánamo?

"Long-term detention was definitely not a sought-after mission."
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Matthew Waxman, 2005

When you fly into Guantánamo, your pilot has to give Cuban airspace a wide berth. It is necessary to track south through the Windward Passage, skirting Cuba lying to your west with the deep green mountains of the Sierra Maestra Range, hideout for the young rebel Fidel Castro and his band, cloaked in semipermanent clouds. Off to the east it is easy to see the island of Hispaniola. The proximity of the country of Haiti makes clear why Guantánamo is a desirable haven for refugees from that dismal place.

At a predetermined waypoint called East Point on the Global Positioning Satellite system, the pilot banks into a 270-degree track. At South Point the pilot executes a sharp turn to the north, approaching Guantánamo's airport on a 360-degree course. The east-west–running airstrip is on the western or leeward portion of the U.S. military base. It is the smaller, 14-square-mile area of the facility. From your window you look across a mile-wide bay into the larger portion.

A white strobe light on a tower indicates that the boundary fence is nerve-wrackingly close to the airstrip. Without much room to maneuver, the pilot brings it in tight to the fence line, flips the aircraft over on its right wing, then quickly levels out and drops the nose. The aircraft bangs down on the asphalt.

Just adjacent to the landing strip at Guantánamo Bay Naval Facility, Cuba—-Gitmo to those who live there—is a four-foot-high cairn made of mortared round stones. As its brass plaque proclaims, it is a monument commemorating Christopher Columbus's landing on this very spot in his 1496 expedition to the New World.

Columbus, the legend goes, stepped ashore, took a good look around, and having found neither gold nor gems, nor fresh water, nor a particularly appealing landscape, mumbled the equivalent of "this place sucks" in Italian and departed the very next day to find a more hospitable spot.1 Every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, and coastguardsman who serves at Gitmo understands Columbus's reaction.

Here are not the legendary white sand beaches of northern Cuba. Nor will the visitor experience the mystery of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. The exotic hot spots of Havana are a long way distant. At Guantánamo Bay, on the extreme southeastern, leeward side of the island of Cuba, the terrain is arid, the vegetation an off-putting mix of desert-tropical, and the Caribbean laps against ancient, brown, eroded coral formations. Odd wildlife abounds. Banana rats, hutia, harmless vegetarian rodents the size of a toy poodle, are everywhere. Their carcasses, paws up on the roadway, feed the local bird, the turkey vulture. Iguanas are ubiquitous—though oddly, the iguana is considered endangered. Run over one and you can be facing a $500 fine. In the western part of the base the Guantánamo River empties into muddy, unattractive, rock-strewn beaches. Upriver, once weekly on Thursday, a Cuban abattoir dumps offal into the river. The bloody mass floats downriver to the bay, where it provides scores of sharks with a happy hour. The Coast Guardsman on the Viper boat, a 23-foot Boston Whaler configuration with twin 150-horsepower outboards, tells me that he has seen sharks so long that their bodies extend beyond his bow and past his stern. Nobody books a vacation here.

Guantánamo Bay Naval Station sits on the extreme southeastern tip of Cuba at the mouth of Guantánamo Bay, roughly at 75 degrees 9 minutes west longitude and 19 degrees 4 minutes north latitude. It is a 45-square-mile, semi-arid coastal leasehold that results from America's seizure of Cuba in the 1898 Spanish-American War.

In 1901 the United States, through passage of the Platt Amendment, granted Cuba independence with some provisos. Article I warned Cuba against "entering into any treaty . . . which would enable a foreign power . . . lodgment in or control over . . . the island." Article VII speaks to a continued U.S. presence. It says, inter alia, that to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the president of the United States.2

By December 1903, the United States leased the land and water for use as a coaling station. In 1934, a treaty solidified the relationship. It granted Cuba free access through the bay (which it maintains today) and an annual payment in gold then valued at $2,000. Though the gold payment is valued at about $4,000 or more today, and checks for that amount are sent to Castro's government on a timely basis, Cuban authorities have yet to deposit one. Why? Because to cash the check would validate the legitimacy of the lease.

Straddling the mouth of the bay, the Guantánamo base itself is divided into two land parts separated by a wide, island-plentiful bay. Oddly, it seems to the visitor, the airstrip is on the smaller, approximately 14-square-mile leeward side to the west. After arrival visitors must transit the bay by launch, fast boat, or ferry to get to the larger, windward portion. Here is where things are happening.

Offices, housing, and—since 2002—-detention facilities are all located on the 31-square-mile windward (eastern) side. Because relations with the Castro government are strained to say the least, you can't simply drive across the perimeter of the bay, enter into Cuban territory, then come back to the U.S. base. Barbed-wire fences, a cleared zone with mines, and Cuban guards on the far side prevent that. U.S. Marines man the gates on the friendly side. So transit to and from the air terminal is by boat.

Inside Gitmo LP
The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay. Copyright © by Gordon Cucullu. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay by Gordon Cucullu
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