Inside Guantanamo Bay – the story in photos

GUANTANAMO Bay is a US prison squatting on a low bluff looking out over the Atlantic Ocean in Cuba. The cell blocks that might hold actual Al Qaeda terrorists are made from 40ft steel shipping containers – five cells to a container, eight containers to a cell block. One side of each container is replaced by wire. Each cell is about 7ft by 8ft. The beds are metal bunks. The toilet is in the squatting style. At night, the place is drenched in a white light. Inmates are subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques” or “aggressive questioning”. Around the camp, life goes on. There’s a school and recreation rooms for the site’s workers, support staff and their children. It’s not America. Gitmo is another world:

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** FILE ** In this Jan. 22, 2009 file photo, President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, and retired military members, gestures in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington where he began overhauling U.S. treatment of terror suspects by signing executive orders and a presidential directive aimed at closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center. That's what presidents do. They decide. Some do it better than others, but all do it. History does the grading. President Barack Obama, taking office with the economy crashing and two wars under way, barely knew his way around the Oval Office before he was neck-deep in critical decision-making. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)