Senate report on shooting critical of FBI, Army

[February 03, 2011]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate report on the Fort Hood shooting is sharply critical of the FBI and its failure to adequately share information with the military about the alleged shooter's extremist views.

And it says the Pentagon has failed to make necessary changes to identify violent Islamic extremism as a danger so that commanders will more readily watch for it and discharge service members who express those views.

According to portions of the report obtained by The Associated Press, military supervisors had the authority to discipline or discharge Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 in the shootings at the Texas military post in November 2009.

But the report, which was being released Thursday, said the Defense Department did not inform or train commanders about how to recognize someone radicalized to Islamic extremism or how to distinguish that from the peaceful practice of Islam. The report was requested by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and its ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

The enemy -- Islamist extremists -- must be labeled correctly and explicitly, the report said, in order for the military to counter the extremism. Lieberman made a similar argument last year in a letter to the White House about the need to accurately identify Islamic extremists as the enemy.

President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism official, John Brennan, responded that while it is important to accurately define the enemy, using "Islamic extremist" and other similar phrases can lump a diverse set of organizations into a single group in a way that may be counterproductive.

Asked for comment on the Senate report's criticism, an Army spokesman said the Army will continue to make adjustments.

"We will closely examine the report's findings and recommendations," said Col. Tom Collins. "The Army has already implemented numerous concrete actions that have made our soldiers, families and civilian employees safer. There is still more work to do, but the Army is committed to doing all we can to learn from this tragic event."

A number of internal and outside reviews have examined the Hasan case and have come up with similar critiques about the lack of information sharing and the failure of Hasan's superiors to act on his reportedly poor behavior prior to the shooting.

One key finding identified early was that a joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late in 2009 of Hasan's repeated contact with U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.

The FBI has said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn't linked to terrorism.

Since then the FBI has looked at revising its procedures to make sure that when it does investigate a member of the military, it notifies the Pentagon. The FBI also said it will increase training for task force members to better search bureau databases when conducting investigations.

The Senate report also recommends that the Defense Department ensure that personnel evaluations are accurate, particularly in regard to any Islamist extremist behavior. And it says statements by Hasan expressing support for Osama bin Laden and charging that the U.S. was at war with Islam indicated his sympathy for extremists and could have been sufficient grounds to discipline or discharge him.

Hasan's psychiatry supervisors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center had expressed concerns in May 2007 about what they described as Hasan's "pattern of poor judgment and lack of professionalism."

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Online:

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/

[Associated Press; By LOLITA C. BALDOR]

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