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The Department of Defense and the FBI had enough information about the suspect in the 2009 Fort Hood massacre to have discharged him from the military before he killed 13 DOD employees and wounded 32 others, according to a new bipartisan Senate report.
The report on the Texas army base shooting, authored by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman and top Republican Susan Collins, says that both agencies were aware of suspected gunman Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan's radicalization to violent Islamist extremism "but failed both to understand and to act on it."
"Although both the public and the private signs of Hasan's radicalization to violent Islamist extremism while on active duty were known to government officials, a string of failures prevented these officials from intervening against him prior to the attack," it says in its executive summary.
The senators say their investigation found "specific and systemic failures" in the government's handling of the case and cited additional concerns about possible broader systemic issues. "The FBI and DoD together failed to recognize and to link the information that they possessed about Hasan" they write.
Hasan's move toward violent Islamist extremism "was on full display to his superiors and colleagues during his military medical training,” according to the report’s findings. One instructor referred to Hasan as "a ticking time bomb."
"Not only was no action taken to discipline or discharge him, but also his Officer Evaluation Reports sanitized his obsession with violent Islamist extremism into praiseworthy research on counterterrorism."
In a stinging charge against the Defense Department's handling of the matter, the report added, "DOD possessed compelling evidence that Hasan embraced views so extreme that it should have disciplined him or discharged him from the military, but DoD failed to take action against him."
While the inquiry credited one FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force unit for initially flagging Hasan because he was communicating with a suspected terrorist, it criticized a second unit's follow-through. According to the report, the second JTTF unit "failed to identify the totality of Hasan's communications" and didn't inform Army security about them.
"Instead, the JTTF inquiry relied on Hasan's erroneous Officer Evaluation Reports and ultimately dismissed his communications as legitimate research," the senators write.
The report suggests that because the two FBI units had different views of the severity of other unit's findings, the matter was eventually dropped "rather than cause a bureaucratic confrontation."
"The JTTFs never raised the dispute to FBI headquarters for resolution, and entities in FBI headquarters responsible for coordination among field offices never acted. As a result, the FBI's inquiry into Hasan ended prematurely,” it reads.
*** UPDATE *** The FBI responded to the report in a written statement, which reads in part: "The FBI recognizes the value of congressional oversight and agrees with much in the report and many of its recommendations. During the internal FBI review undertaken immediately after the attack at Fort Hood, we identified several of the areas of concern outlined in the report, and, as noted in the report, have implemented changes to our systems and processes to address them. We will review each of the report's recommendations and adopt them, as appropriate."
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This was political correctness plain and simple. The PC Police have blood on their hands...
rsmitchell13: My thoughts exactly.
Why is it that lately every time there is a domestic disaster (Hurricae Katrina, Gulf Oil Spill, the recent mining disaster in WV, the Wall Street near collapse), we find out that the government department that was supposed to be overseeing them (FEMA, Mineral Mine & Safety, SEC, etc.) is either asleep at the wheel, in bed with the companies they are supposed to be regulating, totally corrupt or just totally clueless???? And what is being done to change it to try to prevent the next disaster????
Another classic case of incompetence being rewarded. 13 people were killed, who is being held responsible??
The president's Bush or Obama are just a little to busy to be briefed on every case the FBI and the DOD conducts. The FBI and the US Army should have taken action on this matter long before the shooting at Ft.Hood ever took place.
wow, by the posts here, it's plain to see that there are too many cowardly paranoid old people that dominate the republican party. they mix up patriotism with jingoism and nationalism.
The article mentioned a systemic problem - that means, it's been going on awhile. turn off the wacky televangelists (g. beck et al) and open a newspaper. it would help the country.
Arch I think that to say old people are cowardly is really reaching. Most of the older generation served this country in WWII and had more courage in one day that most people posting here will ever display in a lifetime. And no I am not one of those "old people"
WWII started 70 years ago. You had to be 15 to sneak your way into that war. You would be 85 now. 99% of 85 year olds are afraid they are going to fall down and not get up. Fear is almost the only thing they do know. And we are talking about the "heroes" who were lucky enough to come back relatively unscathed. Wonder how they avoided that problem.
i did not imply that ALL old people are cowardly. i am implying that far too many cowardly old people have found a home (and comfort) in the modern republican (tea) party. this is not a good thing.
The people who have found comfort in the Tea Party are also from the ranks of the Democrat party, which has morphed into something unrecognizable to people like my Grandfather, who was a conservative Democrat and union member his whole working career. I can totally understand how millions of conservative Democrats from yesteryear who were turned off by the Clinton era, which left them out to dry on the 3 G's that are staple issues for that demographic: God, Guns, and Gays. Regardless of what anyone believes, you are not going to change the minds of that generation on those issues. You can call them bigots, old-fashioned, or whatever, but they will not budge on fundamental principles that they hold dearly to-principles that were passed to them by their parents and grandparents.
Then, you have a Congress and Senate, along with several Presidents from both major political parties spending the Nation into exponential debt, and you wonder why former Democrats and Republicans swarm en masse to the only party that espouses the traditional American values that they believe in? The Tea Part does not equal the Republican party. When you see Senators like Bob Bennett not even make it into the primaries because he was considered too liberal, something else much bigger than your typical Dem vs. Republican campaign is going on.
We have a lot to learn from our older population-from their mistakes and their wisdom where the shoes fits. When the traditional political establishment tries to conduct business as usual, don't be surprised when people look elsewhere for real leadership, which is a very rare trait among people-especially in the Republican and Democrat parties, which are corrupt.
I don't usually get this insulting or use this kind of language, but I think this conversation calls for a good spanking for some of you brats.
Thank you , KSW, I'm so tired of hearing our older generations being disrespected as well by a bunch of douche bags who rarely see any action beyond what they watch others do on youtube. I don't care if they came from WWII, Veitnam, whatever.......to say that the generations before us were better people then we are today is the understatement of the century. To say that the older generations are causing us problems when it is the older generations who gave us...............who fought and died to give us.......... pretty much everything we have today is brain dead, typical spoiled college brat "I know it all but I've never done a damn thing in my worthless life" BS. You would have to really be a spoiled little piece of crap to not at least appreciate what you have today, despite all the nagging , whining and bitching we all do about Fox News, CEO's and the government. Hell, it wasn't that long ago since I graduated college, but at least I have some humility.
So Paul is implying that those who come back from war "unscathed" must not really be heroes or else they would have been scathed. I'm going to go ahead and assume you would apply that logic to any soldier from any generation as well. Only a real coward would make a statement like that. It's revolting to hear "men" like you insulting people whom you could never, ever hold a candle to.
Oh, and nice post, Little wolfe.
What is cowardly about it? A ninety year old who is living on the government dole and voting Republican doesn't deserve my respect even if he did "survive" WW2. He's one of the lucky ones.
Tell us why anyone who has survived to be ninety years old would want or need the respect of a shallow, narrow minded bigot.
No one needs anyone's respect.
Condonlences are sent to those being innocent killed and wounded and their loved ones.
Hope it will change the culture, which summarizes in one word "ignore".
Touch-feely does not belong in the military.
MomGrandma, Unfortunately because of the repeal of DADT, Those of us in the Military are going to see alot more Touch-feely.
Imagine government agencies not sharing information that could lead to saving lives. How far this goes back in history I have no idea but lets start at the Bay of Pigs. We were told just a few years back that the FBI was going to improve on sharing information with others so I guess that was just for public relations purposes. To many department heads need that pat on the back and career boost. That about sums the whole thing up.
Can this article use the phrase "violent Islamist extremism" any more?
Although I tired of the juvenile, celebrity inspired conduct of our representatives, reading these posts, I am reminded of Alsop's quote that we get the government we deserve.
arch-2019969 - Which paper exactly?? They're all as biased as the news agencies on the television!!
This was a terrorist attack. Plain & simple.
Let's be honest people, the reason he wasn't discharged was:
If the military had discharged him before he went berserk, he and the ACLU would have cried discrimination and racial profiling.
And the case would have been dismissed under the State's Secrecy SCOTUS precedent. Problem solved in one day.
T.H. - I'm not an Obama fan, but really.. who else was there to vote for? If everybody became educated on the candidates (first, their educations would all be lies since no politicians tell the truth), who's the real front-runner? It's the same process as going to a prison to try to find your new adoptive father! Which one do you pick? Are either worth the vote? If everybody voted for "the right one", would they be any better? Or are they just the best liar and thief?
The blame for this lies squarely on the shoulders of Political Correctness...no one wanted to rock the boat and seem like a racist...that is the problem...so, everyone crawled back into their little holes, and allowed a terrorist to murder those people.
If we criticize anyone, we are racist...even if what was said is overwhelmingly agreed to be the truth.
Political Correctness is the problem...and we are our own worst enemy, for putting up with it.
the card carrying koran loving camel eating muslim shouldnt have been enlisted in the first place
bobcat, sorry to burst your bubble, but their camel is worth more than their wife.
You wouldn't want to eat either of them.
This sounds like a case of, "let's keep this quiet so we don't have to give the boss bad news or a sticky situation that he doesn't want to deal with". I doubt that it ever got high enough that it would have reached either the Bush or Obama Administrations, so we can't blame them. The question is why did they feel that there was a need to suppress Hasan's very real beliefs and actions? Perhaps this societies long-time growing phenonomen of employing political correctness over common sense? Political correctness gave Hassan a pass and killed these people!
Bob...if that makes you sleep at night, then by all means use your lame excuse. Of course there are A LOT better choices than Obama. There were then and there are now!
Sadly, I suspected as much when it happened. I was in the military for more than 10 years and the original story just didn't sound proper to me. Now we know. Chalk another one up to Political Correctness.
The bickering evident here was also what caused or allowed 9/11. Does anyone want to remember? Osama gave plenty of advance warning about precisely how he intended to harm America. The FBI, CIA and everyone else supposed to protect America were too busy arguing amongst themselves and probably watching TV shows and movies about their onscreen counterparts to have any idea of reality.
On and on it goes. Why do these agencies exist and why are there so damn many of them?
And yet the ignorant keep trying to blame this on Political Correctness which they see as a form of reverse discrimination which jusifies their own incompetence and negligence when identifying obvious threats.
Political Correctness removes and replaces good judgement, common sense and failure to accept the obvious from the decision making process. That is not a form a reverse discrimination but simply a failure to use good logic!
AMEN to the ACLU yelling discrimination. I can be a pedophile, cannibal, axe murderer or anything else, all I need to do is play the discrimination card and it's supposed to be a "get out of jail free" card.
Also: contempt to the FBI for their mush mouth response to the perfectly valid charges against them. They have obviously been taking lessons from Obama - you don't have to admit guilt or incompetence, as long as you can profile and make positive sounding statements which say nothing.
The first mistake was letting a muslim, whos first and foremost responsiblity is to allah, and islam, into our government, and military.
islam seeks to overthrow all other governments, which is exactly what he did.
The epitome of federal government political correctness. Beginning with the leader of the regime, the messiah, no one has the guts to deal with well identified Muslim terrorists because they do not want to be accused of violating the religious "rights" of Islam. The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights is not a suicide agreement. Radical Islamic terrorists and their supporters have sworn to overthrow any and all governments, and kill any people that do not adhere to their Islamic beliefs. Period, end of conversation. This is a world-wide religious war. These usually end with winners and losers. It is time the U.S. government and Americans decide whether they want to be the winners or the loser. The shooting at Fort Hood demonstrates what happens when we cannot make that decision.
There is always "A String of Failures", when there is a major catastrophy! DUH!!
Sad story all around. Nobody in the Military has a chrystal ball to predict the future with. Am proud of our country and Miltary.