ryanjreillyHP

I couldn't say for sure, but detainees have alleged that the prisons are kept very cold and that guards make it difficult for them to sleep. Conditions have certainly improved since the infamous Camp X-Ray but we're still holding people who have been cleared for transfer regardless of how their living situations might have improved.

It was certainly very tense. They have pretty strict ground rules and you obviously only get the military's perspective as the detainees don't even really know you're there. As I explained in my story, Camp Six -- the communal camp -- was converted into a single-cell operation because detainees were covering the cameras in their cells and preventing the military from locking down their communal blocks for two hours each night. So you have detainees who were free to roam outside their cells for 22 hours a day now kept in their cells for 22 hours a day. I'd imagine the isolation makes it much more difficult to keep up with the hunger strike, though those who have been added to the list are able to eat a little bit and stay on the list.

Giving up would let the terrorists win.

The leadership is very dismissive of any complaints the detainees bring to their attention. "Captain John," the officer-in-charge of Camp Six, said detainees complain about the number of calories in their yogurt.

I was really struck by how young the guards were. Some of them are only 18, there may even be some 17-year-olds mixed in there. They were little kids when Sept. 11 happened. Last month, FBI counterterrorism officials hosted a briefing featuring 911 calls from 9/11 to remind them of the attack.

They're also not allowed to read WikiLeaks, so they can't really know everything about the people they're guarding. You don't get the sense that the fact that over half of the detainees in the prisons there -- 86 of the 166 -- have been cleared for transfer is always on their minds. They also occasionally get "splashed" with cocktails of feces, blood and semen -- ( here's some feces on the ceiling inside Camp Five). Not an easy gig. One former detainee told me that by the time they do form relationships with the guards they get transferred out and there's a whole new batch.

That term carries a lot of baggage beyond the strict dictionary definition, going to pass on weighing in on that.