Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guant'namo

In this account, Sergeant Erik Saar takes us inside the cell blocks and interrogation rooms, face-to-face with the captives. Suicide attempts abound. Storm-trooper-like IRF (initial reaction forces) teams ramp up for beatings of the captives, and even injure one American soldier so badly in a mock drill - a training exercise - that he ends up with brain seizures. Fake interrogations are staged when General Geoffrey Miller - whose later role in the Abu Ghraib fiasco would raise so many questions - hosts visiting VIPs. Barely trained interrogators begin applying their 'creativity' when new, less restrictive rules are issued by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. When Saar takes over as a cosupervisor of the linguists translating for interrogations and gains access to the detainees' intelligence files, he must contend with the extent of the deceptions and the harsh reality of just how illconceived and counterproductive an operation in the war on terror, and in the history of American military engagement, the Guantanamo detention center is.