Shorter version: Hurriedly building on a flawed foundation cannot but tempestuously compromise or topple any structure constructed thereon.

Update Feb. 21 8:30 p.m.: A highly related and important read from yet one more who was right in the thick of it:

Darrel Vandeveld is an attorney and former military officer, who, in civilian life is a prosecuting attorney in Erie, PA. In the military, he attained the rank of Lt. Col. in the Army Reserve, serving, among other places, in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa, as well as serving as a senior prosecutor for the military commissions prosecuting Guantanamo detainees. Last year, he became the seventh attorney to resign as a prosecutor from the military commissions.…

[snip]

…When I arrived in May 2007, the Commissions and their predecessor tribunals, had been underway for almost six years. I fully expected that in that lengthy period of time, the evidence against the detainees would have been collected and systematized, that prosecution packages or files would have long since been assembled, and that informed, prudential decisions would have already been made about which detainees had committed war crimes, and which detainees had not.

Instead, what I found was precisely the opposite: despite the best efforts of the Chief Prosecutor at the time, Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, and his deputy, who I will not identify in order to respect his personal privacy, the prosecution enterprise was a shambles, in a state of disorganization that had me reeling in disbelief. It became clear to me within weeks after I reported for duty that the various military services had not assigned officers with the experience, skills, and motivation necessary to conduct the vital mission of prosecuting the war criminals with the sense of urgency and diligence the task required. As I’ve explained elsewhere – and my assertions have been confirmed by “senior Bush administration officials” familiar with the Commissions – the evidence and, more importantly, the missing evidence, had neither been assembled nor sought after with any diligence after prosecutors and investigators had discovered the evidence to be missing. The prosecution office, after detaining supposed enemy combatants for as long as six years, seemed to have accomplished little more than to install a security door in order to separate the prosecution offices from where the convening authority’s offices had then been located.…

[snip]

…seven or eight years to bring the detainees to trial is a travesty; holding for those who should have been released long ago (the plight of the Uighurs is particularly repellant) is unbelievable. Source