The Pentagon says it is fully cooperating with a brand new investigation into allegations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay.The allegations come from a Marine Corps sergeant, 23-year-old Heather Cerveny, who spent a week at the base in late September as a legal aide to a military lawyer representing detainees.
In a sworn affidavit filed with the Pentagon Inspector General, Sgt. Cerveny says she met several Navy prison guards at a club on the base where, over drinks, they described harsh physical abuse.
She says she was "shocked" to hear several guards from different parts of the camp speak openly of mistreating prisoners.
"Everyone in the group laughed at all their stories of beating detainees," she recalled. "None of them looked like they cared. None of them looked shocked by it."
The sergeant's superior officer, Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, says in his opinion, "These are crimes. These are offenses. Serious abuse of power is what we're seeing here...This is not humane treatment."
He says Sgt. Cerveny was initially reluctant to report what she heard, but he told her to start writing up her affidavit on the flight home.
Sgt. Cerveny says, in the end, she felt a duty to report what she heard, even if she might be accused of betraying the ranks. "What it comes down to for me, morals and simple rights and wrongs. And I don't think a uniform changes that."
The investigation into these new allegations comes as the military and the White House insist any problems in the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo have long since been fixed.
President Bush has said, "Our troops can take great pride in the work they do at Guantanamo Bay, and so can the American people."
About 440 terror suspects from around the world are being held at Guantanamo, including some the Bush administration has designated as "high-value detainees.
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