Excerpt: 'Inside the Wire'

May 2, 2005 — -- Erik Saar, a former Arabic-language translator at Guantanamo Bay Detainee Camp, appeared on "Good Morning America" today to talk about his book, "Inside the Wire," which details explosive allegations of abuse against prisoners there, including sexual torment, brutality by guards and mock interrogations for visiting VIPs.

You can read an excerpt from "Inside the Wire" below.

Chapter One

My girlfriend Darcie and I spent my last night in Washington sleepless and teary. We'd been together for six months and things were going remarkably well, but she still didn't understand why I had volunteered for this duty. When I had broken the news to her back in late September over dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, it put quite a damper on the evening. But when is the right time to tell your significant other you're leaving for six months?

"Dar, I'm going to be going away for a few months starting sometime in December," I'd blurted out as she dipped a tortilla chip in salsa.

She looked up, surprised, and said, "Where ...why?"

When I told her I'd volunteered to go to Guantanamo Bay, she looked partly puzzled and partly pissed.

"Well, I figured this would be good for my career," I said, "and I think it will be the last time I have to go away while I'm in the army. Besides, I think it might be a good test for us."

Fumble.

"Why would you say that?" she asked me with a definite edge in her voice.

How to get out of this one? I had never loved anyone as much, never known anyone with such a passion for life, such energy. Still, I was a little freaked out about how fast I had fallen for her. She was coming off a divorce too, and I didn't want her to one day decide we were too serious. I figured that if this was the real thing, we'd be able to handle six months apart; it might even strengthen the bond. We talked the rest of the night.

Now that the day had come, I dreaded leaving her. She promised she'd wait for me. I hoped that was true.

At 600 we marched through our morning routine: Darcie showered while I made coffee and watched the news, and then I took my turn in the shower. Dar taught third grade in Fairfax County, out in Virginia, and she left for work early every day.By the time I walked her out to her car, tears were threatening her vision again. Mine came later as I drove up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to my condo to finish packing. I was afraid she might find life easier without me. I wanted Dar to go on living her life while I was away, but not effortlessly. What if she liked being single again?

My first flight took me to Norfolk, where I checked into the Navy Lodge, your basic Best Western-style box, for an overnight layover. I clicked through the TV stations, starting to wonder how I'd react to seeing terrorists in chains. The photos on the news of the first detainees arriving in Cuba, kneeling in the dirt and gravel in their orange suits, chains, and blackout goggles, hadn't bothered me as they had some people. I was just glad they'd been caught. Word in army circles was that some of the detainees were talking, but many were claiming not to know much. I was looking forward to finding out for myself, and hoping to get my feet wet quickly.

Camp Delta was being called a "legal black hole" by some critics. The Bush administration had designated the detainees as enemy combatants and had decided the suspects were not entitled to legal representation. Human rights activists were denouncing the camp as inhumane. Most in the intel community, including me, saw things differently. There were other things to worry about in our country as 2002 came to a close. We had still not found Usama, we were helping to shape a brand-new Afghani government, and President Bush had wanted the UN to make final demands for Saddam Hussein's unconditional compliance with weapons inspectors. War in Iraq seemed inevitable.

With military efficiency, I ordered a wake-up call in Norfolk for 0345. I didn't have to be at the airport till 0500 and it was just a fifteen-minute ride away, but I didn't want any glitches in the program. Rain was coming down in a cold, heavy curtain, so I was hardly delighted when the cabbie told me that for security reasons the lane closest to the terminal was off limits and I'd have a short walk before I got to cover. Short walk: a quarter mile in the pounding rain with 150 pounds of luggage at 0430. Maybe this inauspicious start should have told me something.

I checked six months' worth of bags, grabbed a cup of coffee at the snack shop, and settled in with USA Today next to a window to kill the hour before boarding. The first story that caught my eye was about preparations to send more troops to Kuwait to build up for the likely invasion of Iraq, and I wondered if my brother-in-law, a chaplain in the marines, would have to go.

Many in the IC believed overthrowing Saddam was fine, but there was a deeper, better motive for going into Iraq than the alleged WMDs. United States policy makers were well aware of the increasing hostility toward the American military in Saudi Arabia. It wasn't helping the royal House of Saud. Some, or perhaps most, of our troops would be pulling out of there, so the United States needed a footprint elsewhere in the region.Although many of my colleagues in intel hoped that Iraqi troops would throw down their weapons and welcome us with open arms, as promised by Vice President Cheney, even the bulk of the GIs I knew wondered what would be the endgame. Who, we wondered, would be the magician to pull off the unification of Shiites, Kurds, Chaldean Christians, and Sunnis under the umbrella of democracy? Even if democracy succeeded, it might be in the form of a Shiite government that would become a close ally to theocratic Iran.

We were all unhappy about the continued ability of Usama bin Laden to evade capture. The president had lately been downplaying the importance of getting him, but everyone I knew in intel circles thought it should be on the top of our to-do list. Some of us believed he was receiving help from Pakistanis sympathetic to the cause, while others thought we simply needed more foot soldiers on the case. The problem had only been exacerbated by the shift of special operations forces from the mountains of Afghanistan to the oil fields of Iraq in preparation for invasion.

My transportation to Cuba was a regular Continental flight except that all sixty or so of us were either with the military or family members of troops. We made a pit stop in Jacksonville, then on to Guantanamo. Because we couldn't fly over the island, we had to go around it and come up from the south to the base. As we began our descent, I was glad I had a window seat as I twisted around to get as full a view as possible. I'd never been to the Caribbean, and I was amazed at the clear blue of the water. The beachfront was much rockier than I'd expected, with no vast stretches of silky smooth sand that I could see.

The airport runway came into view, with camouflaged military vehicles scattered around the grounds. There was no sign of the fencing and cell blocks of the camp. You'd never have known that one of the world's most formidable military installations lay just below. The base was spread over both sides of the mouth of Guantánamo Bay; the airport was on the leeward side, but I'd been told most of the action was over on the windward side.

Guantanamo wasn't supposed to be that bad a posting -- just a little too confined. I knew there would be a decent NEX, the military version of Wal-Mart, and a few fast-food places. I'd also heard there were plenty of pools for beating the heat on days off duty. The navy called Gitmo the least worst place. Of course, now that the other services -- mostly the army -- had rolled into town to help run the terrorist operation under what was being called Joint Task Force-Guantánamo, I would be surprised if the navy people still felt that way. The base had gone from barely having enough personnel to keep the lights on to being nearly as busy as it had been during the height of the cold war.

We taxied up to the airport and a group of MPs came to meet us. As I stepped out the door, I was hit by a wave of searing hot air -- a shock after the cool December weather of Washington. By the time I'd taken the last step down to the broiling tarmac, a drop of sweat had already run down one cheek. Clever of me to put on a long-sleeved shirt that morning. It had to be at least 95 degrees, and the air was thick and heavy.

As the MPs approached, I found myself inspecting their haircuts -- short enough to be regulation; their uniforms -- not neatly pressed but not a wrinkled mess either; their boots -- those of the specialist E-4, one rung below me, had a high shine, but those of the private first class E-3 hadn't seen Kiwi in weeks. An MP with a loaded M16 slung around his shoulder directed us to leave our bags on the ground and head to a waiting area about a hundred yards away. Our IDs were checked and an MP with a clipboard made sure no unexpected guests had arrived. Another, accompanied by a canine colleague, inspected our bags, making sure we had brought nothing explosive.

We spent an hour testing our deodorant in the sun, sitting around a hodgepodge of picnic tables waiting for the bus that would take us down to the ferry landing, where we'd catch a ride across to the windward side. I'd been told the leeward side had a foliage area that was occasionally used for training. My guess was that it was the navy's oasis away from us army types. From what I could see of this side, there would be no other reason to spend time here.

I started quizzing a young army specialist, who said he was coming back from a leave, about life at Gitmo.

"Do you drink?" he asked. I told him I did."Good. If you'd said no," he said, "I would've told you, 'You will now,' because there's not much else going on here. What people do is work and get drunk."

Though I was to end up finding a few other amusements during my stay, I'd soon learn that a good deal of beer was consumed most nights during long grousing sessions in the housing area.

The sun was blazing and the water glistened. There was an odd disconnect between the natural beauty of the place and everyone wearing their military camouflage. The island and sea were so beautiful you'd have thought you'd just arrived at a tropical vacation retreat. Yet this was where the United States had locked up some of the world's most dangerous terrorists. Welcome to Gitmo.

The base was surely a world all its own -- the oldest overseas American military installation, and the only one on Communist soil. The United States first leased the forty-five acres the base covers, in the southeastern corner of Cuba, as a ship refueling station in 1903. In 1944 the lease was revised to say that the arrangement could be terminated only with the consent of both parties, or if the United States abandons it. Castro's coup in 1959 set the United States on edge, but the lease held. During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, both sides of the seventeen-mile fence line that walls off Gitmo from its host were planted with land mines, and soldiers from each nation still watch each other through high-powered binoculars from guard towers. The United States pays Castro about four thousand dollars a year in rent, but he never cashes the checks.A massive industrial-gray ferry took us from leeward to windward. In that oppressive heat the breeze was as sweet as landing a hot kiss midway through a first date. When we docked, I was shuffled over to a van with about twenty other personnel reporting for first duty, and we were driven to an airplane hangar for orientation.

We crowded into a makeshift classroom where various officers regaled us with two hours of briefings about security -- a laundry list of dos and don'ts -- and all the base-specific info that fell under the heading MWR (morale, welfare, and recreation). The good news was that it sounded like the base did have a few diversions. Some spots of coast actually had some beach, and there was outstanding snorkeling and scuba diving. Still, the only departures allowed during your stay were for emergencies, and one short leave given to each soldier. Although the fence line wasn't far from any given point on the base, no one was ever permitted to head into Cuba proper. I was to find that the island had a way of shrinking the longer you stayed there, and that two-week leave was universally viewed as a respite from which it was tough to return.

A top security official on the base laid down the law that we were not to write or talk about various aspects of the camp and its operations to anyone, or take any pictures of certain parts and features of the base. You couldn't, for example, photograph the beach if the shot included any part of the coastline near the detention camp. I was used to being tight-lipped about my work, so nothing he said unsettled me, nor did the form we had to sign at the end, which barred us from disclosing classified information.

During one of the breaks in the briefing I heard a guy in the back of the room mention that he was an Arabic linguist. I turned and realized I'd seen him around DLI, another MI linguist, but I didn't know his name. I assumed we'd be working together, so I headed back to introduce myself. He must have recognized me too, because when he saw me coming, he beat me to the intro.

Mark Rivers was a gregarious guy, bursting with energy -- almost a little too much for my blood on first impression. He looked like an Irish import, about five foot ten with reddish-blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a ready smile, and so slim I figured he weighed no more than a buck fifty soaking wet.

The community of military linguists isn't large, so we soon figured out our mutual acquaintances and caught up on them. Turned out he had worked in England with a girl I'd dated briefly, before I met Darcie, who'd been more than a little unhappy with me when I broke things off. She'd decided she wasn't going to return some of my things, including a cherished Dallas Cowboys blanket, and had burned them in a little bonfire outside my barracks one night. Mark had heard the story, but he didn't seem inclined to hold it against me. He told me he'd been working with some high-tech tracking equipment in the UK, going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

We were both nervous about which linguist group we'd be assigned to. When I'd first heard about the job at Gitmo, I'd assumed that all of us would be involved in the interrogations. Then I learned that there were actually two separate linguist teams working in the camp: one for interrogations and intel analysis that was part of the Joint Intelligence Group, or JIG, and one for translating day-to-day communications with the detainees, a unit of the Joint Detainee Operations Group, or JDOG (J-dog). I'd volunteered specifically because I wanted to be involved in interrogations, but there was no bagging out once you'd put your name in. It was hit or miss as to which team you'd be assigned to, even if you had intel training, because it was entirely dependent on which team was most in need of a linguist the day you arrived.

When the briefing was over, a handsome six-foot Arab-American air force captain approached Mark and me, stuck out his hand, and asked, "So who is Mark and who is Erik?" Turned out we'd be in the same unit. The ease of his approach -- the use of our first names, the general friendliness -- wasn't the army way, but then the air force was less rigorous about military formalities.

He introduced himself as Captain Salim Mansur, our new commanding officer. He was a Sudanese-born graduate of MIT, an aerospace engineer, and a practicing Muslim -- one of the Arab Americans from all the services who had been asked to volunteer for duty at the camp because the military had so few Arabic speakers.Captain Mansur said he'd show us around the base and then take us to our housing unit. As we headed to his van, Mark immediately popped the question on both our minds. "Sir, which team of linguists are we going to be joining?"

"You'll be on the JDOG team," Captain Mansur said. Detainee Operations. Damn.We went silent, which no doubt conveyed our disappointment. For this I'd given up working with the NSA and left Darcie free at home to meet some new guy who might come along? I figured I'd have to see if there was any way I could work out a transfer.

As I hopped into the front seat of the van and Mark climbed into the back, Captain Mansur tried to lighten the mood. "Don't worry," he said, "I think you'll both be very happy with your new team. We have a great group of people who work well together. You'll have a great six months." We could tell he wasn't giving us the full story.

He drove us down the main drag, Sherman Avenue, past the NEX, a McDonald's, a Subway, and a KFC. There was also a small video store, a credit union, a bowling alley, a dive shop, and an outdoor movie theater with bleacher seating, like an aging high school football stadium. Off the main road and up a hill were the various housing areas, which were a whole lot better than I'd been expecting. Camp Delta, Captain Mansur told us, was down the road a bit, off on its own.

As we headed to the housing complex, we drove past a moonscape that resembled a golf course only in its dreams, a couple of gyms, and two pools. A place called the Tiki Bar was an outdoor setup on a concrete slab with white plastic tables and chairs. It was set back from the water about a quarter mile but seemed to have a decent view of the bay. The other main bar was the Windjammer; a sign said that Thursday was karaoke night.

Mark and I had both figured we'd be in barracks housing, with maybe eight beds in an open bay, but here we were pulling up to a group of small stucco houses. When Captain Mansur dropped us off at our neighborhood housing office, where we were to pick up our keys and linens, he invited us to a cookout for the JDOG linguists. It was starting at around 1900 just a few houses down from ours, where some of our teammates lived. By now it was past 1700 and I was glad to hear we'd be eating soon.

Our house was meant for eight occupants, but with the addition of Mark and me, it now had nine. Still, we were thrilled with our new digs, even if the MP in the living room, the only one of our new roommates who was home, looked like he'd just been given latrine duty when he saw us. Staff Sergeant Frank Patterson was about five foot eleven, with a shaved head and a worn look. You could tell he made his living telling others what to do; he had the swollen gut to show that PT wasn't his top priority.We had a kitchen, two and a half bathrooms, and a laundry room, but the highlight was cable TV with HBO. Sergeant Patterson told us to find open beds. We each found a room with a bed free and did some unpacking, then headed down the street to 19A for the barbecue. Christmas lights were strung loosely along the roof; it was the only house in the neighborhood acknowledging the coming holidays. Lawn chairs and cigarette butts were scattered around the carport and banana rats darted around the edges of the yard.

It wasn't a full day in Gitmo if you didn't see a banana rat, more likely a platoon of them. Take a rat, make it uglier and more possumlike, and there you have the unofficial mascot of Guantánamo Bay. They feared almost nothing and were so numerous that their droppings had to be the principal component of Gitmo soil.

About a dozen guys were hanging out, most of them clearly of Arab descent and all somewhere in their twenties. We spotted Captain Mansur at the grill, watching over the kebabs -- always kebabs at that house, I was to find, never burgers and dogs -- and he introduced us to the group. A short, pudgy, dark-haired guy who bore a striking resemblance to Jim Belushi came over, dug a couple of Miller Lites out of the cooler for us, and introduced himself as Turk. He was Turkish, most recently from Michigan, and had been working as an army mechanic based in Germany. There were probably even fewer fluent Turkish speakers than Arabic ones in the military, which is how he'd ended up at Camp Delta. I was intrigued because I hadn't been aware that any Turks were being held at the camp.

When Mark asked him what it was like working in the linguist group, Turk made no attempt to dress things up.

"This team has Christians, Jews, atheists, Muslims, and really conservative Muslims," he said. "All have their own opinions of this place. We spend a lot of our time together and usually end up arguing about the camp or religion -- sometimes both. We have a lot of good people, but as a team we're really fucked up."

Mark and I drank our beers and listened intently. This was not your normal army get-acquainted chatter.

"Between you and me, the camp is a disaster," he continued. "Every pissant agency under the sun has sent someone here to interview the detainees, and they all fight about who gets to talk to the guy first. Then they realize he doesn't know shit."

This soldier knew nothing about us but felt free to openly criticize his unit and the mission on first meeting. Very unmilitary. I caught Mark's eye and he seemed amused."Most of your intel-type comrades think the two-star infantry officer at the top is about as smart as that banana rat," Turk continued. He was referring to Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of all detainee operations on base.

"But then I'm going by what your people say. I'm just here to drink some beer, get out on a boat when I can, and head back to Germany."

An awkward silence set in as Turk took a long pull on his beer and swallowed. Then he raised his bottle to clink with ours, said "Welcome to Gitmo," and walked away.I could tell Mark was about to burst out laughing.

As Turk left us, someone named Khalid came over, a muscle-bound air force airplane mechanic who obviously spent most of his free time in the weight room. He was known as Rambo. We exchanged the usual pleasantries -- he had come from Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, had family in Chicago, and was an Iraqi Christian who'd emigrated to the United States after the first Gulf War. In fact, he'd gained U.S. citizenship as a reward for the help he'd given American forces during the hostilities. His English was close to perfect.

After what Turk had said, I couldn't wait to ask him: "What do you think of this place?"

He didn't bite.

"People have a lot of very strong opinions about it," he said. "I'm not a very political guy. I'll let you two form your own views. Me, I'm halfway through a ninety-day assignment and hoping I go to Iraq when I'm done."

"If either of you ever needs a lifting partner, just let me know," he said as he walked away. "It's great to have you here."

Then Captain Mansur came over to introduce us to Ahmad al Halabi, who he said was perhaps the best linguist in the group. The captain pointed out that Ahmad could be extremely helpful to us, especially with some of the strong dialects we'd be hearing.

"Tasharrafna," Ahmad said. An honor to meet you. We replied in kind.

Ahmad looked to be in his mid-twenties. Born in Syria, he and his family had moved to Dearborn, Michigan, when he was a teenager. He was so light skinned you'd never know he was an Arab. An air force supply clerk, Ahmad was asked to volunteer for Gitmo service, like Turk and Rambo, purely for his language skills. He'd been at the camp for about a month.

"How comfortable are you with your Arabic?" he asked.

"So-so," I answered. "I'm hoping it quickly improves a lot."

My recent work in intel had involved reading and listening, but not conversing. Mark was a little more confident in his reply.

Ahmad spoke in flawless MSA. He was warm and open; we liked him immediately.Ahmad said we should speak from then on only in Arabic, but within a few minutes we had reverted to English. Mark asked our new favorite question: what Ahmad thought of the camp after his first month there.

"I'm not going to influence you two with how I feel about it," he said. "You can decide for yourselves starting tomorrow. There are some really great people on our team and we're glad you guys are here."

With that he said he was heading home.

"Massalama," I said to him. With peace.

Mark and I called it a night around 2030. As we said our good-byes, our teammates told us to be back there by 0645 for the ride to Camp Delta.

As soon as we were out of hearing, Mark said, "Well, that was odd."

"Yeah, really," I said. "I just have to wonder if these people actually get along."

"Are you nuts?" Mark said. "There is no way that group gets along. You did study Arabic, right? Erik, after fifty years the Arab world can't even get along well enough to get rid of Israel, whom they all hate! How do you think they are going to get along in a place like this?"

All I knew was that we were going to be in close quarters with these people for the next half a year, and the group dynamics seemed terrible. We were about to find they weren't going to be any better back at our new home.

When we walked through the door, we met the rest of our new housemates, who were scattered around the living room watching TV. Mark and I, two military intelligence guys, had somehow been assigned to live with seven MPs. They openly shared their pure delight with this scenario.

Sergeant Brian McNeil, a tough-looking, wiry white guy, wore a military high and tight haircut and seemed especially pleased to see us. As soon as we walked through the door, he said, "Patterson told us you guys are MI; we moved your shit. You have your own room now."

"Um ...all right." I stuttered. We hadn't even met this a*****e yet.

Sitting on the best chair the house had to offer, a powder-blue recliner whose wooden handle was prone to falling off, was Sergeant Jim Wilkinson. As soon as McNeil finished, Wilkinson chimed in without taking his eyes off the TV. "Don't eat anything that isn't yours, and touch my beer and I'll f*****' kill you!"

Wonderful. Intros no longer necessary, we were now as close as brothers. I started to head upstairs to put my stuff away, but Mark hung back and tried to engage them in conversation. He managed to get out of them that three were part of a canine unit at the camp, including Wilkinson, who led the canine group.

"So what do you guys do with the dogs here?" Mark asked.

"We can't tell you that," Wilkinson replied flatly, continuing to stare at the TV.

"Sure you can," said Mark, being a smartass. "I'm in intelligence."

Wilkinson looked up from the TV and locked eyes with Mark. "Well, if you're MI, then you'll find out soon enough."

As Mark walked away, he saw me listening from up on the stairs and mumbled, "Nice guys."

I brushed my teeth in a bathroom that I was pretty sure had never seen the business end of a scrub sponge and slid into bed. I should have enjoyed it more. I was about to get the best night of sleep I would have for six months.

Excerpted by permission from "Inside the Wire," by Erik Saar and Viveca Novak. Copyright © 2005 by Erik Saar and Viveca Novak. Published by The Penguin Press HC.