In the most serious suicide attempt yet among the Guantanamo detainees, a prisoner in his 20's was found hanging in his cell. Officials would not say whether the man was on life support or would survive, however, the situation was serious enough that his home country (not revealed to the public) was notified.

The latest attempt comes at a time when commanders, grappling with despair among long-held detainees facing neither trial nor charge, are building barracklike compounds for some prisoners as part of a reward system for cooperation with their captors. More than 600 prisoners from 43 countries are now held in seven-by-eight-foot cagelike cells. An undisclosed number of them are under suicide watch.

Vienna Colucci, an international justice specialist at Amnesty International, confirmed the possibility of a link between the prisoners' detention and the suicide attempts.

'Prisoners' limited contact with the outside world and the uncertainty of their futures, combined with other conditions of treatment, may cause severe physical and psychological damage, particularly when imposed long-term or indefinitely,'' she said.

``That prisoners are repeatedly attempting to take their own lives indicates the human cost of the indefinite legal limbo into which they have been thrown.''

Medical personnel at one point last year reported that dozens of prisoners had tried to kill themselves. McWilliams later said fewer than a dozen episodes fit the strict definition of a suicide attempt and that others qualified as ``self-harm incidents.''

None of the earlier suicide attempts resulted in a prisoner's being declared in ''serious condition,'' a military spokesman said, adding that the hanging victim was the only detainee in custody at Guantánamo now in serious condition.

Why are we still holding these men in the absence of criminal charges and so long past the time when they would have divulged any helpful information to their captors if they had it? Given the increasing likelihood that U.S. troops are headed to war in Iraq, aren't we just providing that country's leaders with an excuse to cruelly treat any of our military personnel who are captured? We certainly think so.