Posted on 02/03/2011 11:02:10 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
(CNSNews.com) - Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) said on Thursday that his committee's review of the Fort Hood massacre that left 13 dead and 32 wounded demonstrated that the killings could have been prevented if the Defense Department and FBI had acted in an appropriate and timely manner, but that instead government officials had been guilty of "negligence."
“Throughout our investigation the victims of this attack and their families have weighed heavily in our minds because our report’s painful conclusion is that the Ft. Hood massacre could have and should have been prevented,” Lieberman said as he and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking member of the committee, unveiled a report on the Nov. 5, 2009 Ft. Hood killings.
“We have reached that conclusion,” said Lieberman, “because our investigation found that employees of the Department of Defense and the FBI had compelling evidence of Nidal Hasan’s growing embrace of violent Islamist extremism in the years before the attack that should have caused them to discharge him from the U.S. military and make him the subject of an aggressive counter-terrorism investigation”
In response to a question from CNSNews.com about whether any one in the government had been held accountable for the way they dealt with Hasan, Lieberman said he was not aware that anyone had been held accountable and that the handling of Hasan was an example of “negligence”
“I don’t believe anyone has been disciplined or terminated because of the failures mentioned in this report and that’s something that I want to hear about from both the Department of Defense and the FBI and the others who we’re sending the report to,” said Lieberman. “Look, it wasn’t evil intent on people in the federal government, it was just what I would call negligence, failure to perform the duties as we have the right to expect federal employees will do, and as of yet no one has been held accountable.”
Collins said it was “very disturbing” that no one has been yet held accountable.
“The Department of Defense has told us that they are waiting until after the legal proceedings against Maj. Hasan are completed and I expect and hope that we’ll see action at that time, but it’s a long time,” said Collins.
According to the Homeland Security Committee’s report, both the Defense Department and the FBI had evidence of Hasan’s radicalization and embrace of violent extremism, but that the agencies “failed both to understand and to act on it.”
“The FBI and DOD together failed to recognize and to link the information that they possessed about Hasan: (I) Hasan was a military officer who lived under a regimented system with strict officership and security standards, standards which his behavior during his military medical training violated; and (2) the government had [REDACTED] communications from Hasan to a suspected terrorist, [REDACTED], who was involved in anti-American activities and the subject of an unrelated FBI terrorism investigation,” said the report.
Lieberman said he had been asked by the FBI not to release the name of the suspected terrorist with whom Hasan had been communicating. However, Lieberman did note that media reports suggest the suspected terrorist was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who has ties with al-Qaeda
The government failed to discipline or discharge Hasan after two of his colleagues warned that he was a “ticking time bomb,” according to the report. Instead, the Defense Department saw his “obsession with violent Islamist extremism” as “praiseworthy research on counterterrorism.”
On the issue of Hasan’s communications with a suspected terrorist, the report said the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force “failed to identify the totality of Hasan's communications and to inform Hasan's military chain of command and Army security officials of the fact that he was communicating with a suspected violent Islamist extremist--a shocking course of conduct for a U.S. military officer.”
Instead, the report said, the FBI “relied on Hasan's erroneous Officer Evaluation Reports and ultimately dismissed his communications as legitimate research.”
The issue of Hasan’s communications was never referred to FBI headquarters therefore “the FBI's inquiry into Hasan ended prematurely,” said the report.
The report also said that the Defense Department had “compelling evidence” that Hasan had embraced violent Islamist extremis, but failed to take action against him.
“It is clear from this failure that DOD lacks the institutional culture, through updated policies and training, sufficient to inform commanders and all levels of service members how to identify radicalization to violent Islamist extremism and to distinguish this ideology from the peaceful practice of Islam,” said the report.
Lieberman said the Hasan case demonstrates that even after the 9/11 terrorist attacks the federal government still has not “adequately defined the roles and responsibilities of agencies of our government and other institutions of our society that must effectively counter radicalization to violent Islamist extremism in our country.”
“We will do everything we can to push the relevant federal government agencies to do everything they can urgently to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again,” later added Sen. Lieberman.
“Despite Hasan's overt displays of radicalization to violent Islamist extremism, Hasan's superiors failed to discipline him, refer him to counterintelligence officials, or seek to discharge him,” said the report.
“One of the officers who reported Hasan to superiors opined that Hasan was permitted to remain in service because of ‘political correctness’ and ignorance of religious practices, said the report. “That officer added that he believed that concern about potential discrimination complaints stopped some individuals from challenging Hasan. We are concerned that exactly such worries about ‘political correctness’ inhibited Hasan's superiors and colleagues who were deeply troubled by his behavior from taking the actions against him that could have prevented the attack at Fort Hood. However, none of the superiors cited ‘political correctness’ as the reason for not acting against Hasan.”
Ed Koch can be like that too.
They're both liberals through and through. Not crazy though, like so many others who let the idological prism through which they view the world make them blind.
Senator, haven’t you noticed that this government does not act against muslims.
This same "negligence" is attributable to government policies and actions to "dumb down" our entire country over the past thirty years. We have diversity training, EEO quotas, lowered job requirements, and elevated subordinate positions. What happens when you elevate an office (EEO) to equal stature as the head of an agency, with a seat at the table?
The clerk at the airport failed to stop the 9/11 terrorists because he or she did not want to be accused of bias and discrimination against a minority. His or her supervisor chain had to deal with a high level official of equal rank in charge of "diversity and fairness." In a similar manner, the military officials failed to raise the concern about the terrorist. They would have had to argue what he could have done before it happened. Since he had not yet taken action, the accusers were vulnerable to criticism. Our system is geared for failure after failure as it stands.
What happens, when, year after year, you select not the best person for the job, but one who satisfies your quotas for women, blacks, minorities? What happens when you select people for positions not on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin? Do you always the best person for the job?
We have a seriously flawed management structure in both the private and public sectors because of the lack of common sense among our lawmakers, like Mr. Lieberman, IMO.
fascinating; thanks for the link
Yep! And not too long after an angry gay soldier with mental problems steals intelligence and gives it to WikiLeaks!
Great Post in context of the subject of this thread.
The political correctness rampant within the bureacracy is dangerous.
Fort Hood is just the tip of this iceberg. Look at our intelligence failures since Clinton.
This will be our undoing.
Read the whole column, (and comments), but be warned it will make you sick.
And mad!
How does Obammy the Muslim respond after he showed distain for those who were outraged by the mass murder of his jihadi brother?
He leaves the borders wide open knowing of Islamic terrorists entering the US and knowing they have access to nuke and biological weapons.
He cracks down hard on innocent Americans - domestic terrorists all; sexually molesting them at the airports and then he threatens to strip his political enemies of their free speech and second amendment rights.
As if he were on a jihad against the constitution, he refuses to obey court order, even when found in contempt and politicizes the justice department claiming the infidels don’t have equal voting rights to the Islamic brothers of the Nation of Islam.
Finally, he is threatening the lives of everyone by working with the Muslim Brotherhood and American radials to destablize the Middle East for a bloody attack on the US and Israel.
Everything he does shows he is a Muslim on a jihad against America from the White House and no one in the Republican party says squat about it. You have McLame kissing his butt.
I think Americans are going to have to hit absolute rock bottom before their heads can be set straight. Too many people either shrug with indifference or are to distracted with wordly things. Sigh!
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