CAMP DELTA

That kind of contact would be reduced under the Pentagon plan to replace Camp Delta, which was projected to last five years when it opened in May 2002.

Built by KBR, a subsidiary of Pentagon contractor Halliburton, Delta's cells were welded from steel shipping containers by laborers brought in from South Asia.

"Camp Delta is comprised of temporary facilities that are rapidly reaching the end of their design life, and therefore a more permanent facility is needed, " said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Leon Sumpter. The new mortar-and-steel prison, called Camp 6, should cost $25 million. Commanders hope to consolidate most Camp Delta prisoners into "these hardened facilities, " he said.

Pentagon officials are still crunching the prison project's overall cost in response to a 2-month-old Herald request. A Senate tally, as of April 2003, estimated building costs only at $104 million. Virtually all expenditures have come from post-Sept. 11 emergency funding rather than line-item appropriations by Congress.

A Pentagon spokesman said it was still unclear how the military would pay for Camp 6. "There's a lot of unknowns about the project, " said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Alvin Plexico.

Begun as a short-term detention and interrogation solution to relieve overwhelmed troops in Afghanistan, the prison on the Navy base in southeastern Cuba has had a nearly nonstop three-year building boom.

CAMP 5 \ Besides the 1,000-cell Camp Delta, the Pentagon has also built Camp 5, a 100-cell version of the new prison being proposed; a new command center, a laundry, fitness center, movie theater, and extensive dining and recreation facilities - all sprawled across an area called Radio Range, that overlooks the Caribbean. Reporters got a glimpse of the future in November in a brief tour of Camp 5, which commanders called efficient, effective and humane despite repeated allegations that U.S.-approved interrogation techniques are tantamount to torture.

The designs for Camp 5 and 6 copy a medium-security prison in Indiana, the Miami Correctional Facility at Bunker Hill.

Changing Places

The Pentagon has built a series of prison camps at Guantánamo Bay since it opened its offshore interrogation center for terror suspects in January 2002. They include:

Camp XRay: The first camp, with 320 cells made of chain-link fencing. A maze of kennel-like cages, prisoners lived there for about four months, an arrangement that allowed them to chat and pray communally, and at one point organize a hunger strike. Now abandoned.

Camp Delta: The first improvement, for 1,000 prisoners, has rows of box-car style steel and mesh cells, welded from metal shipping containers by Halliburton workers from the Indian subcontinent. It opened in May 2002 with a projected five-year life and today houses most prisoners.

Camp Echo: Now a site for prisoners to meet lawyers, it was set up as special segregation site for detainees facing war crimes trials. Its has 38 cells that prevent captives from speaking to or seeing each other.

Camp 5: A maximum security building modeled after a state prison in Bunker Hill, Ind., the $15 million 100-cell jail can hold up to 100 prisoners monitored by guards using closed-circuit cameras and a central locking system. It also has special interrogation cells. Only 50 so-called high-value prisoners were held there in November.

Camp 6: Not yet funded by Congress, the blueprint proposes a $25 million, 200-cell, centrally run prison along the lines of Camp 5. It was designed in consultation with an Indiana prison superintendent, John Van Natta, during his reserve Army duty at Guantánamo more than a year ago.

Camp Iguana: Now empty, this concrete-block beachfront building housed three teenaged detainees from Afghanistan until they were sent home in January.