Army Officers To Be Disciplined for Fort Hood Shooter

Nidal Hasan, warning signs ignored

The military security failure was obvious from the early stories about Nidal Hasan, the only person charged in the killing of 12 people and wounding of 32 at Fort Hood in November 2009.

The questions asked in November were confirmed in the report. Fort Hood killing may be security failure : With billions on security why was this guy not picked up for posting sympathies with 9/11 bombers? Army missed obvious signals shooter was not loyal to US: Fort Hood suspect warned of threats within the ranks.

The Washington Post reports “A Pentagon review of the Fort Hood shootings has found that several officers failed to intervene in the career of the suspect, despite widespread signs of his religious radicalization and his shortcomings as a soldier. The review determined that supervisors of Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged in the Nov. 5 attack at the Texas military post, bungled his performance reviews by excluding instances of erratic behavior in treating patients and signs that he might be growing sympathetic to suicide bombers.”

The review was conducted by former Army secretary Togo D. West Jr. and retired Adm. Vernon E. Clark, former chief of naval operations under the leadership of Robert Gates, the US defence secretary. The report says that the military should investigate charges against up to 8 senior officers who passed over Hasan’s behavioral problems to maintain an arabic doctor in the armed forces.

”]“If a more thorough investigation had been accomplished, his security clearance might have been revoked and his continued service and pending deployment would have been subject to increased scrutiny,” the report concluded.

“Our counterintelligence procedures are mostly designed to combat an external threat such as a foreign intelligence service,” Robert Gates, the US defence secretary said in a news conference at the Pentagon on Friday.

Gates said the Pentagon report raised “serious questions about the degree to which the entire department of defence is prepared for similar incidents in the future, especially multiple simultaneous incidents”.

“I would ask all commanders and leaders at every level to make an effort to look beyond their day-to-day tasks and be attuned to personnel who may be at risk or pose a danger,” he said.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that “self-radicalisation” by individuals seeking out extremist views was of particular concern to the military.

“There is clearly more and more of that going on, and how much of it we have in the military is something that we ought to really understand,” he said.

“What we want is commanders’ awareness of what’s happening in their units and what’s happening with their people.”

Story and quotes from Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and Slate.