DoD official in charge of closing Gitmo quits -

due to "personal issues". (I'm wondering if those personal issues mean a new job with the Al Qaeda Bar Association.)

The Defense Department official in charge of closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has resigned after only seven months in the job, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Phillip Carter, who was named deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy in April, resigned last Friday because of “personal issues,” a Pentagon official said. Mr. Carter could not be reached for comment and no other reasons were given for his departure.

Mr. Carter, 34, a lawyer and an Army adviser to the Iraqi police in Baquba in 2005 and 2006, was in charge of veterans outreach in President Obama's 2008 campaign.

Mr. Carter’s departure comes as the administration has acknowledged that it will not be able to close the prison by Jan. 22, the self-imposed deadline Mr. Obama announced immediately after taking office.

Mr. Carter has also left in the middle of the administration’s efforts to prosecute some of the Guantánamo detainees and find a location in the United States to house perhaps 50 to 100 terrorism suspects indefinitely.

I'm thinking good riddance to Mr. Carter - especially after reading this:

"...On his (Carter's) return from a tour of duty in Iraq), he shared some lessons he learned in a radio interview aired on National Public Radio.

One tip: ''Diplomacy is more important than force,'' he said. "Force creates more enemies than it removes. For every one insurgent you kill you create maybe 10 or 20 Iraqis with blood debts against the U.S.''

[...]

In October 2004, when the Pentagon said intelligence indicated that some former Guantánamo detainees had ''returned to the battlefield,' Carter blamed policy ''blowback'' from a White House decision to ``shred the Geneva Conventions.'''

Carter also used to blog at WaPo's Intel Dump. And can you tell who's side he's really on?

Mr. Carter wrote amicus curiae briefs in the landmark national security cases FAIR vs. Rumsfeld and Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld

To refresh your memory about Hamdam v Rumsfeld:

"The case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay lack "the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Military Code of Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949. Specifically, the ruling says that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions was violated."

And about FAIR v Rumsfeld?

"The Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), a group of law schools and professors, sued the Secretary of Defense, seeking to prevent the enforcement of the most recent version of Solomon Amendment, a federal law that requires schools receiving federal funding to give access to military representatives for recruiting purposes."

Like I said, good riddance to another Obama appointee who supports our enemies more than he supports the United States military.