Printed on August 27, 2007 National Geographic Channel

March 2009 Archives

Inside the Wire: Getting to Guantanamo

By Greg Chapman

March 31, 2009 7:56 AM

Kathryn Wallace

Producer, National Geographic Television

Explorer

You don't get to Guantanamo by calling a travel agent. You're ordered there by your commanding military officer or you're an enemy combatant, detained by the U.S. military in the war on terror. Or you're - like us - a guest of the military. I got a sense, after a few days in sunny Guantanamo (a climate best described as "Tuscon on the Caribbean") that of the thousands of people inhabiting the base, our film crew of six must have been the only people who felt lucky to be there.

It was a year-long negotiation to bring National Geographic cameras "inside the wire" - military slang for the detention center, separated by armed gates and concertina wire from the rest of the business of "Gitmo." The Bush Administration was torn about allowing cameras into the intimate spaces of the base - all the way to the last second. On the very day we were to fly to Gitmo, after background checks, online anti-terrorism training, two scouts and permissions granted all around, still we sat on a gassed and ready private plane on a tarmac in Fort Lauderdale as one last dissenter unexpectedly pulled access. And just as unexpectedly permission was re-granted. It was definitely a dramatic entrance to the island we'd studied for months.

"And the fight at Gitmo has changed a lot in eight years. The detainees are the only ones on island that know just how different life is - they've been there longer than anyone, and as commanding officers remind the troopers every day: they know the rules better than anyone."

The journey to Guantanamo - both philosophically and geographically - is complicated. Cuba is just 90 miles from Florida, but since American planes may not fly in Cuban airspace, it's a three-hour flight. Given the coldness between Castro and America, the first natural question is exactly how the US military came to house suspected terrorists from the Middle East so close but decidedly not on US soil. It's a good question. The only easy answer is about the territory itself; we've had a very generous lease for over a century for 45 square miles. We pay just approximately $4,000 - checks Castro has refused to cash - and the treaty cannot be resolved unless both parties are in agreement. Castro is stuck with us.

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March 2009 Archives

Inside the Wire: Getting to Guantanamo

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