As I said in a recent presentation at the Heritage Foundation, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, poses the greatest challenge to U.S. security. In the absence of a National Security Strategy, he virtually alone is setting the course of U.S. security policy, prioritizing threats, and determining how they shall be addressed. Without a national discussion, or even a debate within the government, he has decided to shift the emphasis in U.S. defense planning away from state-on-state conflicts and towards our current fights in Iraq and Afghanistan and towards the so-called Long War against violent extremism. He has also mortgaged the future of the U.S. military to a particular view of future threats.

As the Administration’s strategist-in-chief, he is acting as if he were the intelligence chief or secretary of state. Secretary Gates has based his decisions not simply on the demands placed on the military today, but his expectation of what they will face ten and even twenty years ahead. He is making judgments on the character and seriousness of potential threats based not on their military capabilities or even intentions but on demographics, economics and sociology. Thus, the Secretary dismisses the danger of Russian adventurism because of its economic and demographic weaknesses.

Yet, every U.S. military campaign of the past two decades has occurred in places and ways unforeseen by defense planners. Whether it was Panama, Somalia, Iraq (twice), the Balkans (twice), Afghanistan or Georgia, everywhere the U.S. military has been sent was a place that was not predicted even a few years before. Granted, the places in which the military had planned to fight have remained quiet, but that was and is due in large to the deterrent value of a force posture geared for precisely those contingencies.

Moreover, it is one thing to seek to fight and win the wars we are in. It is quite another to assert that these will be the wars of the future. Much of his argument rests on the fanciful belief that the U.S. has such overwhelming superiority in the means of conventional warfare that no adversary will take us on in this space. Of course this holds true only so long as that superiority is unassailable and the Secretary seems to be doing all he can to reduce it.

But even if true, many experts have assert that future opponents are investing in a range of so-called asymmetric capabilities designed to defeat areas of major U.S. advantage. The Secretary has focused on one of these, the IED threat. To counter this problem he has spent billions on MRAPs and MRAP ATVs and rightly so. But our enemies are pursuing other asymmetric technologies. These include ballistic and cruise missiles, advanced air defenses, fourth and even fifth generation fighters, sea mines, electronic warfare, anti-satellite weapons and cyber.

What has the Secretary done to address these other threats? He opposed procurement of additional F-22s, the only aircraft capable of day-night/all weather penetration of advanced air defenses. He essentially halted development of a new long-range bomber despite the growing threat posed by ballistic missiles to U.S. and allied airbases close to enemy borders. He cancelled the Airborne Laser and Kinetic Energy Interceptor and cut back on procurement of the Ground-Based Interceptors, the only systems able to deal with long-range ballistic missiles. His rationale was that the current threat consisted of short to medium ballistic missiles, However, every state that started with short-range systems, including North Korea and Iran, have steadily progressed to the development of longer-range missiles.

Moreover, is not entirely candid about what the investments the Department is making. Although, he claims to be investing more in defenses against shorter-range ballistic missiles, this is not the case. For example, the number of Standard Missile 3 Block IA/IBs, the missile defense variant, to be purchased over the next three years has been cut by nearly 40 per cent. Although he asserts support for the F-35 fighter, the Secretary’s future budgets will actually purchase fewer of these than had been planned. If the Secretary has his way, in a few years the only open military aircraft production lines in the U.S. will be for the C-130 and the F-35 (the KC-X will be a commercial derivative). Of course we should not worry, the secretary says, because we are investing heavily in unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Of course, not a single UAS in the inventory could last a minute in contested airspace. But that is what we have the F-22 for, right?

The damage Secretary Gates is doing to the future of the U.S. Air Force holds equally true for the Army and the Navy. He cancelled the manned ground vehicle portion of the Future Combat System, requiring g the Army to design a capability more exclusively centered on our current conflicts. He has cancelled or delayed every major Navy surface ship program from the DDG-1000, to the new aircraft carrier, the future missile defense cruiser and the LPD and MLPs.

Secretary Gates is taken the military back to the future. In contravention of everything we know about how post-industrial organizations should be structured, he is creating a military that is manpower heavy and technology poor. As a result, the military will be saddled with rising personnel costs for decades to come, even as budgets shrink and it becomes more difficult to acquire the systems and capabilities needed for future conflicts.

While the corporations of the world are flattening their organizations and outsourcing all but basic functions, he is taking the Department in the opposite direction, seeking to add tens of thousands of new civilian employees. By doing so he threatens the progress made by programs such as Performance-Based Logistics in reducing costs and improving support to the warfighter. In his nostalgia for the bygone days when government employees ran everything, he seems to have forgotten that this also was the era of the $600 dollar toilet seat.

Taken in totality, the decisions Secretary Gates has made – and those he is expected to make in the near future – will bequeath to his successors a military that will be older and more costly to operate, have fewer technological advantages over potential adversaries and be less able to deal with high-end threats. Almost without exception, it has been the most advanced U.S. weapons programs that have been targeted for termination, reduction or delay. The only solace we can take is in the Secretary’s judgment that we can take risk in the medium-term. However long that lasts.

When smart and talented men and women talk about "hurting America's image" it starts to become clear why the past four administration's have run foreign policy on the basis of guidance provided by People magazine. One might ask -- flippantly -- how many divisions international opinion can field? More seriously, though, the question regarding Guantanamo conduces to the query: “Does it help to protect America and defeat the enemy?” For me, the answer is that it does both to a limited extent. But it is not a war-winner. It is rather another instance of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama administrations using programs that generally support a national military effort -- special forces, renditions, interrogations, cruse missiles, and armed UAVs -- as the national military effort itself. All five have ended up wearing out these adjuncts without winning the war.

Let’s be frank. The reasons that are most common for wanting to close Guantanamo are made because people believe either we can talk our way out of conflict with Islamists or that if Muslims like us more we will not be attacked -- the latter is being shaped into Obama’s grand strategy. Well most such arguments won’t hold water.

--Who cares if the Europeans do not like Guantanamo? Except for the British, the Europeans don’t want to defend themselves let alone help us defend America. And besides, who in their right mind would take moral or legal advice from people who have determined that holocaust-denial is a criminal/jail-able offense, that Salman Rushdie merits a knighthood, and that blasphemy against all regions is a peachy thing to do In other words, why we should take advice from people who oppose free speech -- unless it meets their standards -- and adore attacks on religions of all sorts, as well as on their own cultural inheritance.

--If Guantanamo has been a recruiting tool for al-Qaeda, it has been one of marginal use. Why? Because al-Qaeda and its allies do not need it when they have the Obama-reinforced example of the half-century American tradition of supporting and protecting the European-style, fascist police states that rule country-size prisons across Arab world. Wait until Muslims get a load of Obama standing next to Hosni Mubarak al Al-Azhar cheering freedom, and then see him meander on to Saudi Arabia to do some kissing of the Saudi king‘s buttocks. (I wonder if he will be as good at the latter as most recent U.S. presidents? Maybe he can throw in another bow.)

--U.S. soldiers and Marines are dead ducks whether or not Gunatanamo is being used. It is only the simple minded who think the Islamist will engage in the reciprocity of: If we close Guantanamo, they will treat U.S. captives according to the Geneva convention. If U.S. service personnel are captured they will be treated as dogs are treated in much of the Muslim world.

The compelling argument for closing Guantanamo -- and one I would support -- is because we are not holding criminals but rather soldiers without uniforms. These men are POWs who were captured in the course of fighting in a war declared on us -- twice -- by Osama bin Laden. Why not just face a harsh reality, and fight the war we have on offer and not the one fought in the golden days of World War II? Indeed, we should use the WW II experience to our advantage. You say there is no Geneva Convention protocol to cover such “soldiers”? Well, then, call the Europeans’ bluff and immediately offer to sit down with them and draft one. With that done, we could place these POWs in stockades much like we used for Germans and Japanese; let the Red Cross bring them Korans and cookies; and let them write letters to their mamas -- we could even use what Gates said is the world’s best prison at Guantanamo as a POW camp. We would then have the initiative; the POWs would be treated as POWs are traditionally treated; and we can let them go when we decide the war that was declared on us is over.

We would, of course, have to get the Israel’s permission first. For propaganda reasons, they are determined that HAMAS and Hizballah fighters should only and eternally be called “terrorists” and not insurgents or soldiers. This is so even though it is a fact that “terrorists” could never have driven the IDF out of southern Lebanon or Gaza or stymied them in the 2006 Lebanon war. Terrorists bomb embassies in Argentina, they do not drive a superb regular army out of territory it occupies. Still, there is no chance that we will get Israel’s approval to better protect America, so we will keep mis-defining the enemy and therefore heading toward disaster.

Guantanamo has become a kind of national Rohrschach test for the American people.

It is a place seen within the mind's eye as a projection of what is inside us. I have been impressed since just after 9/11 with the depth of the illusion of personal security within which most Americans lived before the attacks. A friend called then from across the country to say that "now we all live in your world," referring I suppose to the life I had lead in the security services. The caller was a well traveled international businessman. The "blue funk" level was incredible for months. People acted as though each and every one of them stood on the ramparts on watch against the Saracen hordes. I remember repeatedly being stared at with hostility on the DC Metrorail system by men who could not take their eyes off the modest beard I then had. Supposedly grown up people would say things like "Say Muzlim, not Muslim!" Why? They imagined that to pronounce words correctly made one a kind of collaborator.

Now, we have the media encouraged phenomenon of the masses' inability to deal with the idea of prisoners charged, tried and imprisoned on our soil. This is fear of the boogy-man come back once again. This is behavior for children who need a night light. I heard a member of Congress from Kansas say on the floor of the US Senate that prisoners could not be sent to Leavenworth because the "purity" of the post and Army school at Ft. Leavenworth would be ruined by their presence. No matter that the federal prison that adjoins Fort Leavenworth is full of some of the worst people who ever lived.

And then there is the issue of the actual guilt or innocence of some of those now held without charge by the United States. When people here are asked if they think that all those held in our prison in Cuba are guilty, they generally fall silent, unable to respond. Of those who do, many of them clearly do not care if the imprisoned are guilty of anything. They might be... They are Muzlims... Keep them there and then my children will be safe...

Boumedienne, the Algerian former prisoner now living in France is a good person to remember. He, clearly, had done nothing wrong, but was imprisoned by us without charge for SEVEN YEARS. Neverheless, most Americans do not care...

It is going to take a long time for us to live this down. We should get on with it.

Honesty is the crucial element for a mature discourse on the intricate and multi-layered issues raised by Guatanamo and related matters. Deep emotions and manipulative politics have stood in the way of candid, dispassionate analysis. That remains the case, unfortunately. Barack Obama’s speech last week advanced the cause of truth telling only in part. Indeed, in some important respects it perpetuated our collective failure to come to grips with what we have done and what we should do. So I ask the indulgence of forum participants as I try with unvarnished frankness to frame the issues of analysis and policy as I see them.

From the outset, the post 9/11 approach to the ‘war on terror’ has been marked by deceit, untruth (otherwise known as lying) and systematic hiding of information behind the screen of ‘national security.’ The macro deception was the calculated phrase ‘war on terror’ itself. The threat could have been labeled with greater validity as a multinational police problem writ large – as advocated by the head of Britain’s M.I.6 and France’sformer chief of counter-terrorism. By linking the words ‘war’ and ‘terror,’ the ground was laid for an indiscriminate, open-ended campaign against anyone associated in any way with an Islamic group hostile to the United States. That was, and remains, the governing conception of things. Thus, for example, anyone with even an oblique connection with the Taliban, Afghan or Pakistani, becomes by definition an enemy combatant – even if those organizations’ purposes are strictly local. In the case of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, such a connection could be as slight as an American citizen contributing to a charity in Saudi Arabia that allegedly provided some support in turn to an affiliate – the basis for an indictment and trial in Iowa. All those persons, groups and actions are freighted with the full passions and horror of the 9/11 tragedy. Moreover, since this ‘war’ by definition can never be concluded, pursuit and detention are open-ended for all manner of ‘combatants.’

Here are a few factual guideposts I offer to help navigate the tricky policy terrain. President Obama personally and Leon Panetta have gone out of their way to assure CIA officials from top to bottom that they have done a fine a job and definitely will not be held accountable for any actions that may look like misdeeds under the new rules. The evidence suggests that in fact some did a respectable job, some did not, and some did odious things under the old rules by following orders and making generous use of permission slips – that’s one. The Obama administration has not disavowed extraordinary renditions of suspect persons snatched outside the US to other countries for interrogation. See Mr. Panetta’s testimony before Congress on February 17 and confirmation of its execution in Sunday’s New York Times. He did assert that Washington would seek assurance that outsourcers would not torture. That is what I believe in called in the trade ‘plausible deniability’ - that’s two. The Justice Department has filed a number of briefs in federal courts aping the Bush administration by seeking dismissal of suits on the grounds that either national security would be endangered were there even a chance of classified information being revealed (the so-called State Secrets privilege) or that the Executive’s discretionary domain would be transgressed – that is three. Mr. Obama was disingenuous when denying that he had changed his position on military commissions by invoking some anonymous conversations in a Senate cloakroom two years ago as an offset to myriad firm campaign pledges. This rejection of much touted candor in addressing the American people is four.

Most seriously, Mr. Obama, in his address last Thursday, made an equivalence between the thinking of Dick Cheney and those who want an independent commission to investigate fully intelligence abuses. In so doing, he incorrectly depicted the latter as people who insist that “nothing should be kept secret”. The equivalence and the false attribution taken together are offensive to the many citizens who simply want to uphold the rule of law. For Obama to say that they pose the same magnitude of threat to the political health of the republic is not just an injustice to them. That is secondary. It is a calculated ploy to claim for his position an exclusive on probity and responsibility – that is five.

This attitude was apiece with the White House’s manipulation of the media by dividing the press into two groups, conservative and liberal, for unscheduled briefings just before his speech. The unwitting journalists were given different spin on what was coming. I hope that this is not what to expect by way of upfront, straight-from-the shoulder honesty from the President on these issues – going forward.

Obama, by this conduct, degrades further our seriously impaired public discourse by investing himself in half-measures, half-truths and contrived distortion. That is a harsh judgment; but failing to meet his own self proclaimed principles is a harsher reakity.

Michael Brenner

Gitmo has to go. No ifs, and, or buts. It is a stain on our national character around the world -- whether some on the right like it or not.

This so-called "war on terrorism" or whatever we are calling it these days is about more than killing people who want to kill us. These people are but the smallest of minorities among Muslims in this world. We must remember it is also a war of values. And while we find terms like "neo-colonialism" and "cultural hegemony" strange, those in the Second and Third World do not. Gitmo plays into their fears and our opponents propaganda.

The United States is the leading nation of the world and viewed as the bulwark of Western values. It has to act like it and that means remembering that our actions reflect these values to the rest of the world. If we look like hypocrites spouting off about liberty while holding people in internment camps and torturing them -- well we get what we deserve. And what we get are people who are increasingly sympathetic to our enemies.

So, yes, close down Gitmo now. Move them to a SuperMax in Colorado/Virginia, etc or recommission Alcatraz or whatever it takes. The US penal system has held worse characters than these guys. And, a brief historical reminder, during World War II, we held nearly 400,000 plus POW's at home and survived the experience with minimal damage.

For years the US Government has intended to close Guantanamo. The only difference between the Bush and Obama Administrations is that Mr. Bush talked about closing the prison while Mr. Obama is acting. Leading Republicans like John McCain and Lindsay Graham have agreed that closure is in the national interest.

Mr. Bush concluded that Guantanamo harms American national security; Mr. Cheney is merely re-litigating with the public something he apparently lost inside the administration, but was able to stymie through his skill in government process, and the enormous ambiguities involved.

Certainly the prison undermines national security. It's become a one-word symbol–something like "Watergate" for political scandal or "Auschwitz" for the Holocaust–for all that the rest of the world, and many Americans, have found wanting, self-defeating, or even outrageous in American behavior in the struggle against radical Islamic terrorism. The place recruits for our enemies, alienates our friends (and complicates their cooperation with us), shakes confidence in American support for the rule of law, undercuts American moral legitimacy, and dilutes support for national security efforts at home with the public. These conclusions range across the political spectrum, and are not the monopoly of “the left” (whatever that is these days) alone.

From the beginning, the site was chosen very clearly to put the detainees beyond the reach of American law. By declaring the detainees “unlawful enemy combatants,” the Bush Administration put them outside international law, also–until the US Supreme Court rejected both evasions.

Then the interrogation of the detainees became conflated with all sorts of abuse or alleged abuse, some going back to the 1990s: rendition; dragnet secret CIA prisons; Abu Ghraib; the indefinite detention of American citizens who were denied legal representation or the right to challenge their incarceration; “enhanced interrogation techniques” that most of the world understands to be torture (despite the tortured legal interpretations of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, some later repudiated by the Office itself); and even secret wiretapping of Americans considered by most to be a violation of U.S. law.

At the same time, it became obvious that many of the prisoners had no connection to Al Qaeda, or weren’t terrorists, or weren’t guilty of making war on the U.S. or of committing any crime. Then it became apparent that the U.S. government lacked a credible legal process to determine their status, much less prosecute or punish them. In some cases, so uncertain was the evidence that the government lacked the facts to know if they were dangerous, since many of the hundreds released have returned to the fight–or were so radicalized by the experience as to take up arms against us.

Closing the prison and moving to the U.S. those inmates who cannot be released or sent to foreign countries will not pose much risk, and indeed little compared to the danger of keeping the place in existence indefinitely. Our maximum security facilities don’t lose prisoners. The sites provide no greater magnet for terrorist attack than do dozens, even hundreds of targets scattered throughout the country. The federal courts have a proven ability to try and convict terrorists. Those who are known beyond doubt to pose a real threat to commit crimes or make war on the United States, but who cannot be convicted because of tainted or coerced evidence, will simply have to be deported. If no country will accept them, then they will have to remain in Immigration and Naturalization Service jails (suitably upgraded) or be accorded prisoner of war status under internationally recognized protocols.

In his thoughtful book “Why the Allies Won,” the British historian Richard Overy argued that a primary factor in the victory in World War II was the moral superiority of our side, which helped to motivate soldiers and populations to endure the sacrifices, to have patience, and to persist, while disheartening our enemies and in some cases undermining their efforts.

Guantanamo has already demonstrated an ability to harm us and advantage our enemies. It’s time to end the embarrassment.

Closing Guantanamo and moving the remaining detainees to a location in the United States will not increase the danger of terrorist attacks in the United States, nor will it endanger nearby communities. Numerous dangerous terrorists are already being held in U.S. prisons—convicted assassins, bombers, hijackers, and those responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts. Not to mention the Alphabet bomber, the Unabomber, and other mentally disturbed serial murderers, most of them in maximum-security facilities. U.S. prisons also hold 145 persons who have been convicted in the United States of plotting terrorist attacks, supporting terrorist groups, or related charges since 9/11.

America’s prisons currently hold about 1.6 million convicts, 180,000 of whom are held in maximum-security facilities. About 170,000 are being held for murder. More than 3,000 are on death row. During World War II, more than 425,000 Axis prisoners of war were held in the United States. Their imprisonment was part of the war effort, an example of national commitment that seems to have been forgotten by those legislators now rushing to prevent any Guantanamo detainees from being held in their states. It hardly seems likely that in the continuing war against terrorist groups, the country would not be able to find a secure place to hold a hundred or so terrorists.

I would agree with former Vice President Cheney that it might not be wise to house the Guantanamo detainees in the general prison population. Concerns have already been raised about radicalization and recruitment to terrorism in America’s prisons. Mixing terrorists with ordinary criminals could increase the risk. It would also not be fair to detainees who have already been cleared for release but are awaiting a destination.

To determine what to do with Guantanamo, we need to determine what Guantanamo is. In brief, it is many things to many groups. To the far left and civil libertarians, it is a symbol of failed policy and torture. To the right, it is a necessary facility, one required by the exegencies of a dirty war. To many legislators in the Democratic party, Guantanamo now looks better than anyplace in their state or adjacent county for housing extreme radicals. To the technical observer, Guantanamo is a multi-purpose, well-run confinement facility with new facilities for both prisoner quality of life and for trials of any sort. Ironically, Guantanamo (or "Gitmo" to the in crowd) was not a hotbed of the most extreme interrogation techniques or torture. Today, prisoners there are regulated by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 --- soon to be again amended by the Obama Administration --- and the Detainee Treatment Act, which took the steam out of enhanced interrogations. The dreaded water boarding was never in vogue at Gitmo. To the best of my knowledge, no prisoner at Gitmo was ever legally water boarded.

The President, playing to his aspirations and the cheering galleries early in the first 100 days, announced that he would close Gitmo within a year. He has stuck to his guns, but he should not have done so. There are many problems. First, few inmates can be tried in federal courts. In fact, there is very little need to bring them near federal courts or prisons. Second, the best facility for military commissions for war crimes is located at Gitmo. Thirdly, foreign countries --- even our closest allies --- are reluctant to take back "their" inmates. To send them to the Continental United States (CONUS) would mean opening a virtual prisoner of war camp for both a) people awaiting repatriation, and b) extremists of various stripes who are not able to be dealt with by courts or by the soon to be revamped military commissions.

The same week as the debate between the President of Light and the former Vice President of Darkness on how to deal with detainee issues, the Defense Department revealed that one in seven inmates released to their home countries are back at war with the United States in one fashion or another. Senior Taliban generals and senior Al Qaeda leaders are counted among the Gitmo alumni released to their home countries. The issue of Gitmo is not just about rights and public relations, it is also about our security.

If changing his mind is politically feasible, the President should not close Gitmo. He should reform it. There is little to be gained by moving this problem set to CONUS. Pushing repatriation where he can, he should continue on the path that Gitmo is already on and make it a model prison. He should have two prisons at Gitmo: a hardcore one for those about to be tried or subjected to commission proceedings, and the other prison for the mere prisoners. The second prison should focus on reform and education. Many of the radicals at Gitmo are illiterates who were manipulated into terrorism or insurgency by quasi religious figures. They should be the subject of educational outreach and counseling. De-radicalization has progressed well (not perfectly) in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. We should develop it further in Gitmo, perhaps on a multinational level. Those radicals who resist the light side, can be sent back to the hard side of Gitmo. Those who become literate and who show progress can earn parole or repatriation.

After these programs are underway, the new Gitmo should be made the subject of tours and visits by foreign officials. Police and prison experts from Europe and the Muslim world --- as well as learned Imams --- should be invited to conferences at Gitmo to figure out how we deal with extremists and extremism. The new Gitmo shouldn't be a theme park, but it should be a showcase for the American creativity, American values, and commonsense security measures, fully compatible with the documents in our National Archives. If we abandon the "either Gitmo or CONUS" mindset, we can accomplish more by building on Gitmo than we can by tearing it down.

Guantanamo has to be closed as the end chapter for a failed counterterrorism program that has weakened the public image of the US among the masses in the Middle East and Asia. The publicized abuses conducted there has encouraged the cultural environment for religious and political extremists and the general tolerance of terrorism in key areas . In dealing with the intractable problem of incarcerated terrorists held in Guantanamo, the US has shaken the American posture as an influential leader in the struggle against religious and political violence both in allied Muslim nations and in parts of Europe, not to mention the domestic ramifications in the US.

The issue of Guantanamo has now degenerated into a political struggle with both Democrats and Republicans. None have accepted the few Uyghur detainees who have been selected for release in Northern Virginia, despite FBI judgment that the men whose tacit alliance with Islamic militants was directed at anti-Chinese government action and represent no threat to America. None have accepted the proposed movement of detainees with a terrorist background to US prisons, although the maximum security prisons in Colorado provide better security than Guantanamo itself. Several other US prisons are packed with serial killers, bloody domestic assassins and various other brain-curdling criminal activity. Why has no one proposed sending them to Guantanamo to lessen the threats here?

At the end Guantanamo will be shut down and its detainees distributed around the world although those floodgates have not yet opened. The Saudis and the Yemenis have dealt with some detainees with mixed results and some European governments are accepting a trickle. A few others will have to be imprisoned in the US and it can be accomplished securely according to federal law enforcement Eventually, the US must adhere to its promises and moral standards and become a bulwark among the people in contested areas whose support is essential in stopping the flood of violence. There is a lot of change important in rectifying the past abuses and strengthening the US battles in the continuing struggle against terrorism. Guantanamo is the first change essential.