miami -- The chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo military commissions has resigned, raising the prospect of further delays in the Bush administration's six-year effort to bring prisoners in the war on terrorism to trial.
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that Air Force Col. Morris Davis, a steadfast supporter of the controversial detention and judicial processes at the U.S. Naval Base in southern Cuba, had asked to be relieved of his duties. Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said a successor has yet to be named.
Davis' departure occurred amid reported disagreement within the Office of Military Commissions about how to proceed with war-crimes trials amid pending U.S. federal court challenges and pressure from the Bush administration to produce convictions.
Smith said the Pentagon was "taking measures to ensure a prompt and orderly transition." She declined to say whether the first trial, which had been expected to start next month would be delayed.
Asked why he was leaving his position, Davis said in an e-mail message that he was "ordered not to communicate with the news media about my resignation or military commissions without the prior approval of the Department of Defense General Counsel and the Department of Defense Public Affairs."
The Office of Military Commissions' spokeswoman, Lt. Catheryne Pully, said she had been ordered to refer all inquiries about Davis to the top Pentagon public affairs staff, an indication of the sensitivity about this latest setback. Two other top legal officials also left over the summer, ostensibly to pursue other opportunities but also reportedly frustrated by interference in the judicial process.
Davis, a veteran military lawyer who had served in the position for at least two years, lately had chafed under the second-guessing and micromanaging of Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who this summer became legal advisor to the tribunal convening authority, an attorney general-like post.
Hartmann has urged the prosecution to move forward with trials of the "high-value" detainees rather than try smaller fish in the pool for whom prosecutors have more convincing evidence and better-prepared cases. The prosecution was prodded to proceed on those cases before all the commissions' procedural codes were adopted and legal challenges had been worked out.
The 16 "high-value" suspects, including accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, were transferred there from secret CIA prisons a year ago.
