Author: With no protocols, Gitmo became 'Dante's Inferno-ish'

[RamboLiberal]

According to the author of a forthcoming book, the problems that have beset the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay began when it was virtually thrown together in December 2001 to meet a 96 hour deadline and military lawyers were hurried down there without being given clear rules or protocols to follow.

Karen Greenberg, author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days, told Comedy Central's Jon Stewart on Wednesday that the decision to send prisoners from the invasion of Afghanistan to Guantanamo was so last-minute that some military legal personnel were pulled away from celebrating Christmas with their families or even out of a church service.

"They didn't tell them they were flying to Cuba," Greenberg explained. "Some of them showed up with gear for Afghanistan, they brought their heavy clothes. And they get on the plane and it's "guess where you're going to."

"They're told, 'Look, you don't have to follow the Geneva Conventions'" Greenberg continued, "'but it would be good if you could sort of, you know, be with the spirit of them.' And they look around and they're like, 'What does that mean?'"

"Make this prison Geneva Convention-ish," Stewart suggested.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Author_Under_Bushs_Pentagon_Gitmo_made_0205.html

From Amazon.com

Review

"If you thought Guantanamo held no more surprises, this remarkable and timely book will change your mind. Karen Greenberg has unearthed a history we did not know we had, somehow persuading scores of military and intelligence officer--and their former captives--to break a seven-year silence. Packed with revelations, this vivid story shows exactly how nods and winks from Washington led to lawless abuse. Just at the moment we need it most, with a new president vowing to find a way out, Greenberg gives the best account yet of where and how and why the troubles began."--Barton Gellman, author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency

"The consequences of Guantanamo on America's standing in the world have been well chronicled, but here, in heartbreaking detail, we learn the story of how it might have been different. Karen Greenberg's surprising and provocative history of the first hundred days of Guantanamo provides an invaluable comment on how the war on terror turned into a moral assault on our on values and institutions."--Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower
"Karen Greenberg's deeply researched account of the early days of Guantanamo shows the legal, political and moral questions that plagued the prison camp from the outset: its dubious legal authority, the uncertain status of the prisoners, and the doubts of key officials who tried to uphold American and international law. The Least Worst Place, which is so well written that it reads in places like a prose poem, is going to be essential reading for anyone who is trying to understand the legal morass surrounding Guantanamo and detainee policy in the 'war on terror.'"-Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. and The Osama bin Laden I Know

"Greenberg tells a gripping and vivid story of the first days of the Guantanamo detainee debacle. In a fast paced and well researched narrative, her characters come alive on this dusty island base as they struggle with the moral and professional dilemmas that are a microcosm of a bigger drama being played out in Washington. Policy was formulated by a small cabal of Pentagon and White House zealots who did not understand the fundamental nature of counterterrorism-and forced their ill-conceived policies on a reluctant but ultimately compliant military, judicial and diplomatic corps."-Michael Sheehan, author of Crush the Cell


Product Description
In January 2002, the first flight of detainees captured in the "Global War on Terror" disembarked in Guantanamo Bay, dazed, bewildered, and--more often than not--alarmingly thin. Given very little advance notice, the military's preparations for this group of predominantly unimportant ne'er-do-wells were hastily thrown together, but as Karen Greenberg shows, a number of capable and honorable Marine officers tried to create a humane and just detention center--only to be thwarted by the Bush Administration.

The Least Worst Place is a gripping narrative account of the first one hundred days of Guantanamo. Greenberg, one of America's leading experts on the Bush Administration's policies on terrorism, tells the story through a group of career officers who tried--and ultimately failed--to stymie the Pentagon's desire to implement harsh new policies in Guantanamo and bypass the Geneva Conventions. She sets her story in Camp X-Ray, which underwent a remarkably quick transformation from a sleepy naval outpost in the tropics into a globally infamous holding pen. Peopled with genuine heroes and villains, this narrative of the earliest days of the post-9/11 era centers on the conflicts between Gitmo-based Marine officers intent on upholding the Geneva Accords and an intelligence unit set up under the Pentagon's aegis. The latter ultimately won out, replacing transparency with secrecy, military protocol with violations of basic operation procedures, and humane and legal detainee treatment with harsh interrogation methods and torture.

Guantanamo's first 100 days set up patterns of power that would come to dominate the Bush administration's overall strategy in the war on terror. Karen Greenberg's riveting account puts a human face on this little-known story, revealing how America first lost its moral bearings in the wake of 9/11.