Harper's has the story about a former Gitmo guard who tells all about the early days of Guantanamo, when guards with little training were turned loose for revenge on the newly captured alleged terrorists. This story focuses on the use of rape by instrumentality which was routinely performed for no particular security purpose, but rather to sexually humiliate the prisoners. Keeping in mind that this was just weeks after 9/11, revenge and torture seem to have been carried out indiscriminately. However, tellingly, when the Bush administration was working on criminal law as it applies to contractors, they were vehement in their resistance to criminalizing rape by instrumentality, implying that it was known to them and ongoing.
The Yahoo News version of the story focuses more on the earliest days of these encounters, before even the Red Cross had visited the facility. The particular guard who had come forward, Army Pvt. Brandon Neely, waited until now to make his statement, having feared retribution from the Bush administration for over 6 years. It is clear that this was not "bad apples", but rather systemic abuse of prisoners which were taken to Guantanamo specifically for the purpose of avoiding U.S. and Cuban law.
The full text of the testimony is at U.C. Davis. So far, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and so on have been roundly scooped on this story by Harper's. One hopes, as always, that this story will blow up and become bigger as other news organizations are made aware of it, and that this is not a case of the media ignoring it. Brandon Neely is a hero for coming forward on this, in direct contravention of a nondisclosure agreement he signed. It is unfortunate that he did not come forward earlier, but one understands his fear of the lawlessness of the Bush administration; yet more damage caused by Bush and the lack of whistleblower protection laws.
Update:
From the interview:
Brandon Neely: "It was not until later that afternoon that we were told that we would be starting and running a detainee facility, not an EPW (or Enemy Prisoner of War) camp. We were told that a detainee camp had never been ran before, and that this would be the first time in history this had taken place since these people would not fall under the Geneva Convention."
"We did not receive any kind of special training for working at Guantanamo.... But at Camp X-Ray, especially before ICRC (or International Committee of the Red Cross) arrived, I heard many times the IRF team being told (and telling each other before they went to get a detainee) that it was their time to "get some," which is to say inflict pain, get revenge."
This confirms that Geneva was specifically overridden by superiors (which had to go all the way to the White House, there's just no other way), and also that the guards were turned loose with no special training as to standards of conduct.