The 600 detainees in Cuba have been held in a legal black hole. Are they 'the hardest of the hard-core' Al Qaeda terrorists, ruthless men 'involved in a plot to kill thousands of ordinary Americans', as the Bush administration has maintained? And has their continued imprisonment really been a necessary weapon in the war against terror, preventing further murders and providing an invaluable trove of intelligence?

In pursuit of the answers, David Rose has visited the camp and interviewed guards, officials and medical staff, as well as the prison commander. In a detailed investigation of the claims of the British detainees released early in 2004, he describes a suffocating atmosphere of isolation, harrassment, Kafkaesque accusation and physical brutality. Through this series of compelling and disturbing insights into the operations at Guantánamo - and set in the context of centuries of civilized thought about the treatment of prisoners - we come to understand that the first thing to go in the War on Terror will be human rights.