Guantanamo operating manual posted on Internet

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - The U.S. military's operating manual for the Guantanamo prison camp has been posted on the Internet, providing a glimpse of the broad rules and tiniest minutia for detaining suspected terrorists.

The 238-page manual, "Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta," is dated March 27, 2003, and signed by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was then the commander of the prison that still holds about 300 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects.

It appears to be an authentic copy of the rules as they existed at the time at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, a spokesman for the Guantanamo detention operation, Lt. Col. Ed Bush, said on Wednesday.

It says incoming prisoners are to be held in near-isolation for the first two weeks to foster dependence on interrogators and "enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process."

Styrofoam cups must be confiscated if prisoners have written on them, apparently because prisoners have used cups to pass notes to other captives. "If the cup is damaged or destroyed, the detainee will be disciplined for destruction of government property," the rules say.

The manual was posted last week on the Wikileaks.org Web site, which invites whistle-blowers around the world to anonymously publish state documents containing evidence of government corruption and injustice.

The Guantanamo manual is stamped "unclassified," and "for official use only," meaning it was not secret but was never intended for mass distribution either.

The manual also indicates some prisoners were designated as off limits to visitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross, something the military has repeatedly denied.