Military personnel worried about isolation of enemy combatants

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Newly released documents show military personnel watching over at least two American citizens held in U.S. Navy prisons feared the isolation and austere conditions were threatening the detainees' sanity.

Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request quote an unnamed brig official writing about detainee Yaser Hamdi in June 2002: "I will continue to do what I can to help this individual maintain his sanity, but in my opinion we're working with borrowed time." The recipient of the e-mail also is unidentified.

The communication is one of several in which brig personnel expressed worries to superiors about the mental state of Hamdi, a dual Saudi/U.S. citizen who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2001.

By Carol Cratty
CNN Senior Producer