January 11, 2007
The Nation
by Jonathan Hafetz

The first twenty prisoners arrived in hoods and shackles. American officials placed them in cages, surrounded by barbed wire, at Camp X-Ray at the US Naval Base at Guantnamo Bay. That was five years ago. More than 700 people have been detained at Guantnamo since.

These are not auspicious days for defense secretaries new and old. Incoming Pentagon boss Robert Gates must negotiate the gap between the Iraq Study Group's position and his boss's obdurate refusal to see the implausibility of current strategy for that war. While Iraq must loom large on the Pentagon's agenda for the foreseeable future, there is much more unfinished business from the era of Donald Rumsfeld.