It's the most revealing account so far of interrogations at the secretive detention camp, where officials say they have halted some controversial techniques.
''I have really struggled with this because the detainees, their families, and much of the world will think this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even though it is not the case," the author, former Army Sergeant Erik R. Saar, 29, said.
Saar didn't provide the manuscript or approach the AP, but confirmed the authenticity of nine draft pages. He requested his hometown remain private so he wouldn't be harassed. Saar, who is neither Muslim nor of Arab descent, worked as an Arabic translator at the US camp in eastern Cuba from December 2002 to June 2003. At the time, it was under the command of Major General Geoffrey Miller, who had a mandate to get better intelligence from prisoners, including alleged Al Qaeda members caught in Afghanistan.
Saar said he witnessed about 20 interrogations and about three months after his arrival at the remote base he started noticing ''disturbing" practices.
One female civilian contractor used a special outfit that included a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra during late-night interrogations with prisoners, mostly Muslim men who consider it taboo to have close contact with women who aren't their wives.
Beginning in April 2003, ''there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door" of one interrogation team's office, he writes. ''Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors . . . on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk."
Some Guantanamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by ''prostitutes."
In another case, Saar describes a female military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December 1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.
