No wonder GITMO is so hard to close

Shutting down the notorious Guantanamo prison camp is not proving as easy as Barack Obama had hoped. Even Robert Gates, the U.S. Defense Secretary, conceded this week that it will be "tough" to meet the president’s January deadline for closing the infamous jail, which now houses 223 detainees. Here’s a small part of the reason why: a Uighur man held at Guantanamo since shortly after 9/11 was approved for release after the Pacific island nation of Palau agreed to accept him. But Bahtiyar Mahnut turned down the offer because it would mean abandoning his older brother, a fellow detainee who has developed a severe mental illness during his years in U.S. custody. "Every day here is an eternity," Mahnut told his lawyer. "But I have to look out for my brother."

The Washington Post