President Obama’s Gitmo problem (that is, his inability to shut the facility down, even though he wanted to do so in just one year) is in many ways a Yemen problem. The Yemeni detainees accounted for roughly 40 percent of the Gitmo population when Obama took office. But his administration has repatriated only a handful of Yemenis since then.

In its Country Reports on Terrorism for 2009, released yesterday, the State Department explains why: