SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear, and in one case smearing a Saudi man’s face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider’s written account.

A draft manuscript obtained by the Associated Press is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review for a planned book that details ways the American military used women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terror suspects to talk.

It’s the most revealing account so far of interrogations at the secretive detention camp, where officials say they have halted some controversial techniques.

“I have really struggled with this because the detainees, their families, and much of the world will think this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even though it is not the case,” the author, former Army Sergeant Erik R. Saar, 29, told AP.

Sergeant Saar didn’t provide the manuscript or approach AP, but confirmed the authenticity of nine draft pages AP obtained. He requested his hometown remain private so he wouldn’t be harassed. Sergeant Saar, who is neither Muslim nor of Arab descent, worked as an Arabic translator at the U.S. camp in eastern Cuba from December 2002 to June 2003. At the time, it was under the command of Major General Geoffrey Miller, who had a mandate to get better intelligence from prisoners, including alleged Al Qaeda members caught in Afghanistan.

Sergeant Saar said he witnessed about 20 interrogations and about three months after his arrival at the remote U.S. base, he started noticing “disturbing” practices.

One female civilian contractor used a special outfit that included a miniskirt, thong underwear, and a bra during late night interrogations with prisoners, mostly Muslim men who consider it taboo to have close contact with women who aren’t their wives, he wrote.

Some Guantanamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by “prostitutes.”

In another case, Sergeant Saar describes a female military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the September 11 terror attacks. Suspected September 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December 1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat,” Sergeant Saar writes, saying she repeatedly asked the detainee who had sent him to Arizona, telling him he could “cooperate” or “have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer.'”

The female interrogator wanted to “break him,” Sergeant Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner’s back, and commenting on his apparent erection.

The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.

The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner’s reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn’t wash.

Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man’s wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.

“The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her, he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength,” says the draft, stamped “Secret.” The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Sergeant Saar writes.

Sexual tactics used by female interrogators have been criticized by the FBI, which complained in a letter obtained by AP last month that U.S. defense officials hadn’t acted on complaints by FBI observers of “highly aggressive” interrogation techniques, including one in which a female interrogator grabbed a detainee’s genitals.

About 20% of the guards at Guantanamo are women, said Lieutenant James Marshall, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command. He wouldn’t say how many interrogators were female.

“U.S. forces treat all detainees and conduct all interrogations, wherever they may occur, humanely and consistent with U.S. legal obligations, and in particular with legal obligations prohibiting torture,” Lieutenant Marshall said late Wednesday.

But some officials at the U.S. Southern Command have questioned the formation of an all-female team as one of Guantanamo’s “Immediate Reaction Force” units that subdue troublesome male prisoners in their cells, according to a document classified as secret and obtained by AP. The summary warned that anyone outside Department of Defense channels should be prepared to address allegations that women were used intentionally with Muslim men.