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WASHINGTON â It was a scary, raw time just four months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the military at Guantánamo Bay received its first prisoners from the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
The secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, had declared the isolated Navy outpost behind a Cuban minefield âthe least worst placeâ to hold suspected Taliban and foreign fighters, most of whom had been handed over by local allies.
I found myself sitting in the midday sun on a small dusty rise above the base airstrip watching pairs of Marines walk 20 captives down the ramp of a now obsolete military âStarlifterâ cargo plane.