<

Base Awaits 'the Worst of the Worst'
Thursday, January 10, 2002
By Esther Schrader
Times Staff Writer

"It is a little more difficult for us to keep the anger in the back of our mind with these prisoners," Marine Staff Sgt. Scott Bolman said. "When you start to think about these guys, you start to think about what actually has taken place since Sept. 11. This is real life."

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba
The cells are boxes of chain-link fence with concrete floors and thick-planked wood roofs. The beds are mats on the floor.

The jailers are gun-toting infantrymen, military police with attack-trained German shepherds and artillerymen in Humvees.

And the inmates are "the worst of the worst," said the prison's commander--the toughest of the Al Qaeda and Taliban members currently held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. "Our job here is to take these terrorists out of the fight by locking them up," Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert said Wednesday, two days before prisoners are expected to begin arriving at this remote U.S. naval outpost on the southeast corner of Cuba.

In two weeks, the military has transformed this somnolent naval base, established at the beginning of the last century, into a ferocious hub of activity, with more than a dozen giant cargo planes landing each day, disgorging military construction workers, police, jailers and scores of others.
(More: LATimes.com News Source)
2002 © The Los Angeles Times.

Dan