This blog takes no position on what happens inside the walls at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But as we tell people every day, there is often no substitute for talking to people when you want to find out facts.

The ability to locate Osama bin Laden appears to have come from interviews that revealed the identity of his trusted courier. No phone taps, no computer hacking, no bank records here. Just human intelligence. It’s been outlined here by the Associated Press, which quoted unnamed officials as saying that interrogations at secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe yielded the intelligence that got to bin Laden after 10 years of trying.

Earlier, Israeli security writer Yossi Melman wrote that the initial lead in getting to bin Laden came out of interrogations at Guantanamo Bay.

President Obama has let the closing of Guantanamo (promised in the first week of his presidency) slide indefinitely. Can we imagine any serious candidate promising to close it now?