Impure Tactics

By Viveca Novak

The prisoner, held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, was believed to have taken flying lessons in Arizona before 9/11, just like one of the hijackers. The female Army interrogator repeatedly asked the shackled Saudi, "Who sent you to Arizona?" but the 21-year-old said nothing. The interrogator and the translator for the session took a break and stepped into the hall. When they returned, the interrogator shed the top of her camouflage battle-dress uniform, revealing a tight Army T shirt. The prisoner looked away. She rubbed her breasts against his back, taunting him about his erection. She stood in front of him touching her breasts. He spit in her face.

During another break, the interrogator said she wanted to shame the devout Muslim captive in order to break his connection with God, which was giving him the strength to stonewall. After asking advice from a different translator, this one a Muslim, she went into the bathroom, taking a red marker with her. When she and the first translator re-entered the interrogation booth, she told the detainee she was having her period. She stuck her hands in her pants, then withdrew a hand and showed the detainee what appeared to be blood on it. She asked again who had sent him to Arizona, and he glared at her silently. When she wiped the red ink on his face, he let out a shout, spit at her and lunged forward so forcefully that an ankle came loose from its shackle. The Saudi began sobbing uncontrollably, and the interrogator left, telling him the water in his cell had been shut off. He would not be able to wash, as Muslims are supposed to do before they pray.

Sexually loaded torment by female interrogators is the latest chapter in the prisoner-abuse scandals that will not fade away. This incident with the Saudi first came to light last month in a leak to the Associated Press of part of a draft book manuscript written by this TIME correspondent and former Army Sergeant Erik Saar, the Arabic translator for the 2003 episode. The leaked pages also described a civilian interrogator's habit of keeping a miniskirt and thong underwear hanging on the back of an office door ready to deploy in her sessions. The military has acknowledged some of this kind of abuse.

Initially, military officials tried to prevent disclosure of the Saudi's story. When Saar, who spent 61/2 months at Guantanamo as a linguist and intelligence analyst, submitted the early draft of his manuscript to the military, as the confidentiality agreement he signed requires, Guantanamo officials marked the section about the Saudi for redaction, stamping it SECRET. The account, they advised the Pentagon, revealed interrogation methods and techniques that were classified. The Pentagon wrote back that if the Guantanamo officials could not cite solid legal grounds for censoring the material, the document would be cleared. The memo from the Pentagon noted that the authors' lawyer had previously sued the Defense Department successfully over a manuscript that contained classified information and might do so again. The section was cleared for publication with very few changes. But last month the nine pages at issue were leaked, apparently by someone within the military, since the Pentagon memo, an internal document, was attached.

The military has acknowledged that two female interrogators were reprimanded in 2003 for improper, sexually tinged behavior at Guantanamo. In one case, an interrogator took off her uniform top, revealing a T shirt underneath, sat in a detainee's lap and ran her fingers through his hair. A supervisor monitoring the session immediately stopped it and gave the woman a written rebuke. Another female interrogator received a verbal warning after she wiped red dye on a detainee's shirt, saying it was blood.

How common such practices were at Guantanamo, a prison with a reputation for being more tightly run than those in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, may be partly answered in the reports of two formal Pentagon investigations that are expected next month. One is a review of U.S. detention and interrogation practices worldwide that is being conducted by Vice Admiral Albert Church. A separate report, on allegations of abuse at Guantanamo made by FBI agents present there, is being prepared by the Southern Command.

A Washington source familiar with the preliminary outlines of the Church report says that while it corroborates cases of abuse, including sexual humiliation of prisoners, it finds no fault with top military leaders at the facilities or the Pentagon. "Commanders get demoted or even fired for 'command climate' failures, but no top officer has been held accountable in these situations," says the source. "It is up to commanders in the field to make policies crystal clear, but a series of commanders allowed the lines to erode." --With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly/Washington

Erik Saar and Viveca Novak's book about Guantanamo, Inside the Wire, will be published by Penguin Press in May

With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly/Washington