It could have been a charter holiday flight bound for any Caribbean island. As we took off from Jacksonville, Florida, the captain announced the weather forecast was fine. Parents and children chattered as the sea slipped by below until we reached Cuba, a dry brown island outlined by white surf. But the passengers were mostly military families returning from this summer's leave and the flight was headed for the US naval station at Guantanamo Bay, where some 550 prisoners have come to symbolise the Bush administration's response to the attacks on New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Nearly 750 men from more than 40 countries have been jailed in Guantanamo since the US toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan at the end of 2001. Many were picked up in and around Afghanistan on suspicion of being tied to al-Qaeda. Others were seized hundreds or thousands of miles from the battlefield. Nearly 200 have been released, but the rest, says the Pentagon, must be detained because they are a valuable source of intelligence or pose a threat if released.