Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay [Hardcover]

Gordon Cucullu (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 27, 2009

We have repeatedly been told that the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay - known to the public as Gitmo - is a scene of medieval horrors where innocent farmers and goatherds swept up in Afghanistan and Iraq have been sequestered, tortured and abused for years on end without access to legal counsel or basic medical services. Gordon Cucullu, a retired Army Colonel, was so appalled by these reports that he decided to make a series of visits to Gitmo to see for himself. He visited every corner of the camp and interviewed dozens of personnel from guards and interrogators to cooks and nurses. The resulting book is a clear and careful description of a well-run military installation displaying a high degree of commitment and professionalism at every level. While it is undoubtedly the case that some prisoners were treated harshly in the early days, when the hastily built camp was flooded with battlefield captures and fears ran high of another 9/11-style attack, Cucullu believes that these excesses were quickly corrected and treatment and oversight routines instituted that exceed the standards of any maximum-security prison in the world.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gordon Cucullu is a retired army colonel and the author of Separated at Birth: How North Korea Became the Evil Twin. He lives in St. Augustine, Florida.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (January 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006176230X
• ISBN-13: 978-0061762307
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #908,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I subscribe to the theory that you don't really know a place till you put your boots on the ground there. I lived for 13 years in East Asia, studied languages and sniffed around. That led to my first book, Separated at Birth.

Following that I visited the detention facility at Guantanamo five times preparing for Inside Gitmo.

In 2008 I embedded with military police in Iraq and in spring 2010 spent two months with Soldiers in Afghanistan and followed it up with a month-long embed in October-November. This was to be a research trip for my upcoming book, Warrior Police, co-authored with Chris Fontana, my skilled researcher for Inside Gitmo and wife.

St Martin's Press will publish it in September 2011.

Bottom line: whether you have the opportunity to visit them "on the job" or in the States, these fine men and women in uniform deserve all our support. They do a lot with a little and never say "mission impossible."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Why doesn't everyone get it..... February 27, 2009

By Midge Elias

Format:Hardcover

Gordon Cucullu has written such a perceptive and clear description of the situtaion, it's hard for me to understand why everyone doesn't enthusiastically agree with his conclusions. His credentials are impeccable, and he has writing skills worthy of this critical subject. Have you read it, President Obama, and Attorney General Holder?

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A tribute to balance and objectivity February 8, 2009

By Susan R. Quinn

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

After finishing the Colonel's book, I'm more convinced than ever that
the political polarizations we are experiencing are extremely
dangerous to the security and wellbeing of this country. And I also
believe that the Colonel's integrity and objectivity in style and
content demonstrate the high standard that I believe all of us need
to practice in our own communications.

I hope everyone considers communicating with others in this way.
Thanks, Colonel, for your excellent report on GITMO and for setting the bar high!
--Susan Quinn
The Islamist Report

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Biased but worthwhile June 10, 2012

By Peter

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is not a bad book for learning soemthing about Guantanamo, however you must understand its bias right from the begining. In this regard I'm referring to the author's self described, "almost complete access" to the prison. How is it that of all the authors and researchers in the world that would love to have this kind of access to write a book, he received it. The author does not discuss this. I believe it is important to note and understand a writers background as part of the context for understanding his/her work. In this regard, the book falls short. I suspect, but do not know for a fact, that his status as a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the US armed services was the reason for this access. While he states that his work was not edited in any way by the military or US government, it is hard to believe that his years of military service did not color his views and reporting of the facts as he saw them.
Despite the glaring conflict, I also think it would be wrong to totally dismiss his work and all that it contains. The issues at Guantanamo are complex legal, ethical, moral and governmental issues and its important that many differant voices be heard in the debate. To dismiss his work outright would be equally wrong as those that dismiss the work of the many Human Rights organizations that have published scathing reviews of Guantanamo. Both voices have validity and biases in a debate that the US body politic will have to make a decision on at some point.
I would recomend reading this book and perhaps a couple others from the other side of the debate in order to get a well rounded view. The difficulty in forming one's own opinion is that many works on the subject seem to come to drastically differant conclusions using the same data set. In my 20 years as a research analyst I always remembered a pithy but poignant saying that is worth bearing in mind when you read any of the guantanamo books. It is, "figures never lie, but liars alway figure". There is some of this figuring going on with both sides of the argument. For example, the anti-Guantanamo crowd will quote the number of innocents rounded up and released only years later as proof of the heinous crimes committed in the name of the Global War on Terror. They however do not cite the recidivism that has occurred from some of those released. Some of these innocent goatherders that were released have ended up back on the battlefield against us.

Lastly, when we read all about Guantanamo and the civil rights abuses and war crimes alleged, let us not forget the outrage, justified, by the american people in the wake of 9/11. As a resident of NYC during and after 9/11 it was hard to find someone that did not want blood. When a country in enraged, terrorized and fearful, the results are often something that all of us are less than proud of. In that regard, we all have our own chapter in these books as perpetrator, soldier, jailor, interrogator and legal circumventer.