The Last Days of Guantanamo

An American Nightmare Could Soon End

By Matthias Gebauer, John Goetz and Britta Sandberg

Part 2: The Military Police Officer

Sean Baker's story began on Jan. 24, 2003. A military drill was scheduled to take place that day in the Oscar block at Camp Delta. Baker, 36, a member of the 438th Company of the US Military Police, was dressed in prison-issued orange overalls and was ordered to refuse to leave his cell. His fellow soldiers believed he was a real prisoner -- that was the point of the exercise.

Baker was instructed to cause a commotion in cell 27 and hide underneath a bed. The goal was to train soldiers in how to extract uncooperative prisoners, of which there were many at the camp. Baker was told to use the codeword "red" if he wanted to terminate the exercise, and a supervisor would intervene.

Baker ignored the guards' orders to come to the cell door and remained under the bed, as arranged. Then the door opened and soldiers rushed into the cell, pulled him out and turned him onto his back. Someone put two hands around his neck and pressed down, as if to strangle him. Baker said the safe word, but it came out so quietly that no one heard him.

He tried to say the word again, but not before the men began slamming his head against the steel floor of the cell, again and again, until one of the attackers yelled: "He's a US soldier, he is one of us." Perhaps someone heard the safeword after all or noticed the uniform underneath the orange overalls. Baker was taken away and given medical attention.

Almost six years later, he is sitting in the living room of his house in the Kentucky hills. He puts a box of medications on the table. He takes 42 pills a day on four days of the week, and 39 pills a day on the other three days. Doctors at a Veterans Administration hospital have certified him as being fully disabled. He has severe brain damage. Without the pills he would have regular epileptic seizures.

Baker, a patriotic man who voted for John McCain in the last presidential election, has now hired an attorney. He was once promised a full investigation into the incident, but that never materialized. Baker has since gone public with his case. He wants his fellow citizens to see what happens to an American who is mistaken for a prisoner at Guantanamo.