Our reporter Keme Nzerem had rare access to Guantanamo Bay, where the US military keeps its prisoners in the War on Terror. Here's his account:
As our minders ushered us to the recreation enclosure in Camp 4 - where Guantanamo's most complicit detainees are being held - 4 or 5 them were playing basketball in the Caribbean sun.
Fantastic images for us - and a great PR coup for Gitmo's press team tying to mend America's sullied image. We'd been warned the detainees usually hide in the shadows when television crews show up.
But we never got to shoot a frame - because the Camp Guards shooed them away. My initial reaction - disappointment, this clear evidence of a disconnect between Gitmo's image consultants - and its workers on the ground.
We filmed on as the detainees chatted in the background, one of them riding an exercise bike. Our guide asked me what I thought of the scene before me.
We'd been so busy I really hadn't had a chance to think about it - so my answer just kind of came out. `Actually it feels like a zoo. I feel really uncomfortable'.
Enemy combatants or not (at least 100 of Gitmo's 460 detainees are currently authorised for release or transfer - 300 have already been set free - but the authorities here told me between 20 and 50 of those gone have been recaptured fighting against America in Iraq or Afghanistan) my presence felt intrusive. I felt like a voyeur.
The bigger question - should these men be treated as prisoners of war - and imprisoned until the cessation of hostilities? Are they enemy combatants whose lack of allegiance to a state and pursuit of asymmetric warfare requires an enitirely new category of soldier? Or are they in fact innocent men caught up by accident in the Global War on Terror?
Whatever the answer, watching them through cages cast them somehow as animals - with no rights and certainly no power.
For most of the guards here these issues irrelevant. They're here to simply follow their orders. But I also met those who, although they didn't question the mission, recognised the humanity of the detainees. Some even talked of building a rapport with some of them, even if it was just mundane conversation about the weather.
But the bottom line was summed up by one of the senior soldiers here - he told me 'no' is not a word allowed in their vocabulary. 'They are not allowed to say no to my guards'.
But another viewpoint put by a lawyer with several clients here - that in the wake of 3 suicides in June, the prison administration has decided that 'increased violence and harassment was the answer'... He goes on: 'Brutality in a world of legal limbo. Seems like they are trying to break the men mentally. And for some it is working. Some people are starting to come unhinged'.
You can watch Keme's report here.
Comments