At 12:01 P.M. on January 20, 2009, minutes before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, the first post went up on the Obama White House website. It included a reiteration of a campaign promise Obama repeatedly made: “President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history.”

Two days later, Obama ordered the detention facility at Guantnamo Bay closed. And two days after that, on January 24, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff wrote about a Pentagon study that will provide an early test of this promise: “The report, which could be released within the next few days, will provide fresh details about 62 detainees who have been released from Guantnamo and are believed by U.S. intelligence officials to have returned to terrorist activities.”

The report was not, in fact, released within the next few days. On February 2, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, the Pentagon spokesman who handles inquiries about Guantnamo, told us that the report would likely be released later that day. We were told to consult the website—defenselink.mil—that afternoon. No report. When we asked where it was, Commander Gordon wrote: “Nothing today, please check back with me in a couple days.” We did. No report.

This pattern has repeated itself for a month. So what explains this failure to produce the report? …

Second Thoughts
The ‘most transparent administration in history’ buries a Gitmo report.