Inside "The Wire"

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ll new inmates at guantanamo start in Camp Three, the highest-security unit. (There is no logic to the camp names: Camp Three is tighter than Two or One, but Camp Four is the least restrictive.) Cells are 6 ft. 8 in. by 8 ft., with a squat-style toilet, a metal sink and a sleeping berth affixed to green steel-mesh walls. Each new detainee is issued a pair of shorts, a pair of long pants and two T shirts, all in orange, plus shower shoes, a towel and washcloth, toothpaste and shampoo, a prayer mat, beads, prayer oil, a prayer cap, a copy of the Koran and basic bedding, though no pillow.

Twice a week, detainees get 20 to 30 minutes to shower and exercise. The guards say inmates spend much of the day reading the Koran; an arrow in their cells points the way to Mecca, and there are five calls to prayer daily via loudspeaker—instituted after a five-day hunger strike by some inmates. Former Pakistani detainee Salahuddin recalls that the prisoners who spoke English would try teaching their U.S. guards about Islam. "Some of the soldiers were interested," he says. "They even learned to recite the Kalma, the invocation of the Koran."

Guards patrol the hall of each 48-cell unit constantly, on routes designed to have a set of eyes on each prisoner every 30 seconds. Female guards have a harder time than males. "It's stressful," says Sergeant Rebecca Ishmael. "Sometimes they won't look at females or will refuse their food if it's been handled by a female." Prisoners have sometimes thrown bodily waste at the guards. Detainees in turn tell stories of punishment for bad behavior.

Mohammed Sagheer, 52, a Pakistani preacher who has filed a $10.4 million lawsuit against the U.S. government for wrongful imprisonment, claims the Guantanamo wardens used drugs to control the prisoners. "They would give us these tablets that made us senseless," he says. "I'd hide the pill under my tongue and then spit it out when the guard was gone." Sagheer says he was twice put into solitary confinement in a dark cell for spitting at guards, who, he says, provoked him by throwing his Koran on the ground and beating him. A Guantanamo official said the task force doesn't address individual allegations, but she insists that the detainees are treated "humanely." With good behavior, inmates can move up to Camp Two, then One, in hopes of new privileges—bottled water and a cup, a checkerboard and checkers, more exercise time. There are three juvenile prisoners, ages 13 to 15, who live outside the gates of Camp Delta at Camp Iguana. Once an officer's cottage, it has a magnificent view of the ocean, which none of the underage detainees had seen before coming to Guantanamo. Inside are two bedrooms, each with two beds, and a room with a TV and a VCR. Videos with animals are popular with the kids; their favorites include White Fang and The Call of the Wild. The kitchen has a refrigerator where fruit and other snacks are kept.