Now Online, a Guide to Detainee Treatment

Josh White
Washington Post
Tuesday December 4, 2007

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments this week on the rights of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the public is getting another peek at how detainees have been treated there.

A leaked copy of a March 2004 manual of Gitmo's "Standard Operating Procedures" for Camp Delta was published yesterday by the Web site Wikileaks.org. It deals with everything a guard at Guantanamo would need to know, from how to remove detainees' clothing when they first arrive (cut it off) to what guards should do if they find a detainee's plastic foam cup with writing on it (confiscate it). Rolls of toilet paper are considered "comfort items" that can be given to detainees as rewards.

The manual also confirms previous reports about dogs being used at the facility and detainees spending time in "segregation cells," either as punishment or for intelligence gathering. The nearly 250-page document provides details about the daily operations at the facility in the days before the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal surfaced publicly. What happened at the prison in Iraq focused attention on the Guantanamo facility and its commander, Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller.

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Much of the manual deals with how to treat detainees, with one section discussing how to handle their personal items. If items are damaged, for example, guards are directed to punish the detainee. With regard to "linen items" such as blankets, clothing, sheets or towels, the manual says, "If a detainee tears, rips, or otherwise damages this item or makes it into a weapon or self-harm device, it will be confiscated and the detainee disciplined for damaging or destroying government property."

The manual discusses the facility's "behavior management plan" for the first two weeks after a detainee's arrival, when he has no access to the International Committee of the Red Cross or a chaplain: "The purpose of the Behavior Management Plan is to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process," the manual says. "It concentrates on isolating the detainee and fostering dependence of the detainee on his interrogator."

Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt, a Guantanamo spokesman, said officials received a copy of the manual yesterday and are trying to authenticate it. Wikileaks also published a copy of the 2003 Guantanamo manual last month. Haupt said the manuals are constantly updated and that "things have changed dramatically" in the years since.

Full article here.

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