Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Guillory. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB (also called GTMO because of the abbreviation of "Guantanamo" or Gitmo because of the common pronunciation of this word by the U.S. military), is a United States military base and detention camp located on 120 square kilometers (45 sq mi) of land and water at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which the U.S. leased for use as a coaling station and naval base in 1903. The lease was $2,000 in gold per year until 1934, when the payment was set to match the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp prison camp was established to detain extraordinarily dangerous people, to interrogate detainees in an optimal setting, and to prosecute detainees for war crimes. In practice, the site has long been used for enemy combatants. The Department of Defense at first kept secret the identity of the individuals held in Guantanamo but, after losing attempts to defy a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press, the U.S. military officially acknowledged holding 779 prisoners in the camp. The facility is operated by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Detention areas