An American Witness

For 6 1/2 months starting in December 2002, Army Sergeant Erik Saar served as an Arabic translator and a military intelligence specialist at the detention facility for suspected terrorists that the U.S. operates at its naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He recounts his experiences in a new book, Inside the Wire, co-written by TIME correspondent Viveca Novak. In the following excerpt, Saar, now retired from the Army, deals with the issue of suicide attempts among the detainees and the military's use of the Initial Reaction Force (IRF). An IRF team, Saar explains, is a five-person unit responsible for subduing an...