I've included several interviews w/ Erik Saar:
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1479040,00.htmlSoldier lifts lid on Camp Delta
For the first time, an army insider blows the whistle on human rights abuses at Guantánamo
Paul Harris in New York
Sunday May 8, 2005
The Observer
An American soldier has revealed shocking new details of abuse and sexual torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in the first high-profile whistleblowing account to emerge from inside the top-secret base.
Erik Saar, an Arabic speaker who was a translator in interrogation sessions, has produced a searing first-hand account of working at Guantánamo. It will prove a damaging blow to a White House still struggling to recover from the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
In an exclusive interview, Saar told The Observer that prisoners were physically assaulted by 'snatch squads' and subjected to sexual interrogation techniques and that the Geneva Conventions were deliberately ignored by the US military.
He also said that soldiers staged fake interrogations to impress visiting administration and military officials. Saar believes that the great majority of prisoners at Guantánamo have no terrorist links and little worthwhile intelligence information has emerged from the base despite its prominent role in America's war on terror.
..more..
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* Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of
Life at Guantanamo *
We speak with former army sergeant, Erik Saar who served as an Arabic
translator at Guantanamo Bay for six months. Among the abuses he says he
witnessed was sexual abuse, mock interrogations, the use of dogs and a
female interrogator smearing what looked like menstrual blood on a Muslim
prisoner. He also says the military ordered them not to speak to the Red
Cross.
~~~
<snip>
ERIK SAAR: That day, a technique was used in the interrogation booth where sex was used as a weapon to create a wedge between the detainee we were speaking with and his faith. For example, more specifically, the female interrogator I worked with that day sought to sexually entice the detainee. The logic behind that was that if he would be sexually attracted to her, he would feel unclean, and therefore, she believed, in Islam, he would be unable to go back to his cell and pray. One thing she additionally did in order to humiliate him and also to make him feel unclean was wipe what was red ink on his face, but it was done in a way that he believed it was menstrual blood. All of this again was in an attempt to create this wedge between himself and his religion and not only was it ineffective, but I thought it was unethical.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you describe the events in detail? I mean, what happened? You were sitting in the room translating, and she walked in the room, the prisoner already there or brought in after?
ERIK SAAR: I walked in with her. The prisoner had already been there waiting for a good period of time before we arrived. He was shackled to the floor and forced to hunch over. We were asking him -- telling him to be cooperative. She was explaining -- saying that, you know, this is going to be unpleasant for you. After a break, we then returned to the interrogation booth, and that was when she started taking off her outer blouse, where she was wearing a tight t-shirt underneath, and she was touching herself and trying to arouse the detainee.
AMY GOODMAN: What was she saying to him?
ERIK SAAR: She was saying, you know, it doesn't have to be this way. We could sit across a table and talk like adults, but I could tell -- and then she went on to say -- I could tell that you're aroused by me. How do you think Allah feels by you being attracted to an American infidel?
<snip>
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/04/1342253-----------
From The 60 Minutes story:
'Sex-Up' Tactics At Gitmo?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/28/60minutes/main691602.shtml<snip>
He (Sgt. Erik Saar, a soldier who spent three months in the interrogation rooms at Guantanamo Bay) told 60 Minutes about one interrogation in particular, in which he translated for a female interrogator who was trying to break a high-priority prisoner — a Saudi who had been in flight school in the United States.
"As she stood in front of him, she slowly started to unbutton her Army blouse. She had on underneath the Army blouse a tight brown Army T-shirt, touched her breasts, and said, 'Don't you like these big American breasts?'" says Saar. "She wanted to create a barrier between this detainee and his faith, and if she could somehow sexually entice him, he would feel unclean in an Islamic way, he would not be able to pray and go before his God and gain that strength, so the next day, maybe he would be able to start cooperating, start talking to her."
But the prisoner wasn’t talking, so Saar said the interrogator increased the pressure.
"She started to unbutton her pants and reached and put her hands in her pants and then started to circle around the detainee. And when she had her hands in her pants, apparently she used something to put what appeared to be menstrual blood on her hand, but in fact was ink," says Saar.
"When she circled around the detainee, she pulled out her hand, which was red, and said, 'I'm actually menstruating right now, and I'm touching you. Does that please your God? Does that please Allah?' And then he kind of got pent up and shied away from her, and she then took the ink and wiped it on his face, and said, 'How do you like that?'"
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4631899good interview, too short though
Books
Guantanamo Tactics, 'Inside the Wire'
by Terry Gross
Fresh Air from WHYY, May 5, 2005 · Former Army sergeant Erik Saar and journalist Viveca Novak, a correspondent for Time magazine. The two have collaborated on the new book, Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo. Saar spent six months at the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from December 2002 to June 2003. He was a military intelligence linguist, translating Arabic for guards and interrogators. During that time, he saw female guards use sexual interrogation tactics on detainees as well as other disturbing practices.
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