WASHINGTON — Newly released Defense Department documents and memos about the first years of operation of the jail at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, portray a chaotic and sometimes violent operation that its own commanders described as dysfunctional.

President Barack Obama has ordered the detention facility closed next year. It holds more than 200 terror suspects whose cases are undergoing review for their potential release, prosecution or continued confinement.

The documents and memos were turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The ACLU has sued for release of all materials related to the government's interrogation program after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"These documents provide further evidence of the widespread and systemic abuse of prisoners conducted at Guantanamo Bay and other overseas locations," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "They further underscore the need for a congressional select committee to examine the roots of the torture program as well as an independent prosecutor to investigate issues of criminal responsibility."

One of the newly released documents, from 2005, is the statement of one of the first commanders of Guantanamo to another general who was investigating allegations of prisoner abuse lodged by the FBI. The now-retired Maj. Gen. Michael Dunleavy commanded the Guantanamo interrogation operation in 2002.

Dunleavy described the chaos he found when he arrived: a lack of security and control over detainees who would riot and throw food and turned items like spoons, magnets and welding rods into weapons. He said his interrogators were virtually inexperienced and that the military linguists "were worthless."

Dunleavy said he was brought in to bring "a commonsense way on how to do business." He had experience with more than 3,000 interrogations going back 35 years.

Dunleavy said he was initially told that he would be reporting to U.S. Southern Command, but that quickly changed.

"I got my marching orders from the president of the United States," he said.

He also wrote, "The mission was to get intelligence to prevent another 9/11."

Dunleavy said physical torture would not produce intelligence, but instead they needed to build rapport and create a "dependency relationship" with prayer beads and the Quran. He said he treated detainees "as human beings, but not like soldiers" and denied there was any torture.