Update -13 Fatally Shot, At Least 30 Hurt At Ft. Hood

[samanthajane13]

Mourners asked to pray for shooter
Chaplain says it's time to draw together

Updated: Sunday, 08 Nov 2009, 7:54 PM EST
Published : Sunday, 08 Nov 2009, 5:23 PM EST

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - Mourners are being asked to pray for the man authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood.

An Army chaplain also exhorted his congregation on Sunday to draw together even if the gunman's motives may never be fully known.

Soldiers and others are attending church services at Fort Hood, Texas, and in neighboring Killeen to honor the victims of the shooting spree.

Col. Frank Jackson urged the congregation Sunday to "focus on things we know." Jackson asked the approximately 120 people gathered in the post chapel to pray for the 13 dead and more than two dozen wounded in Thursday's attack.

He also asked them to pray for suspected shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and his family "as they find themselves in a position that no person ever desires to be."


http://www.wivb.com/dpp/military/arm...r1257722743777

[samanthajane13]

Radical imam praises alleged Fort Hood shooter
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer Pamela Hess, Associated Press Writer – 59 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers is praising alleged Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as a hero.

The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the attacks on the Texas military base last week are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Two U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press the Web site was Al Awlaki's. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence collection.

Anwar said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091109/...t_hood_muslims

[samanthajane13]

Hospital: Ft. Hood shooting suspect awake, talking

SAN ANTONIO – A U.S. Army hospital spokesman says the man suspected in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, is conscious and able to talk.

Dewey Mitchell, a spokesman at Brooke Army Medical Center, says Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan remains in stable condition. Mitchell says Hasan has been awake and able to talk since he was taken off a ventilator Saturday.

Hasan is at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood.

Authorities say the 39-year-old Hasan opened fire at a processing center Thursday at Fort Hood, the country's largest military installation. Thirteen people were killed and 29 were wounded.

The rampage ended when civilian police shot Hasan.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — A U.S. Army spokesman says the man suspected in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood is in critical but stable condition at Texas hospital.

Col. John Rossi told Fox News early Monday that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's condition has not changed since he was taken off a ventilator Saturday.

Hasan is at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood.

Authorities say the 39-year-old Hasan opened fire at a processing center Thursday at Fort Hood, the country's largest military installation. Thirteen people were killed and 29 were wounded.

The shooting spree ended when a civilian police officer shot Hasan.

Rossi says the center remains a crime scene, but that the base is "working on healing."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_h...NwaXRhbGZ0aG8-

[samanthajane13]

Investigators: Military to charge Ft. Hood suspect
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – 1 min ago

WASHINGTON – The Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood massacre apparently acted alone and without outside direction in the attack, investigative officials said Monday evening.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan will be charged by the U.S. military rather than in a civilian court, they said.

Hasan communicated 10 to 20 times with a radical imam overseas who in the past came under scrutiny for possible links to terror groups, the investigative officials and a U.S. official disclosed. The investigative officials said the communications began last year and continued into this year and "were consistent with the subject matter of his research. The U.S. official said the communications were with the imam, Anwar al-Awlaki.

U.S. officials were aware of the communications since last year, but no formal investigation was ever opened based on them, the officials said.

The officials spoke Monday evening on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation on the record. Awlaki, who was released from a jail in Yemen last year, writes a blog that denounces U.S. policies as anti-Muslim.

Investigators tried to interview Hasan on Sunday at the military hospital where he is held under guard, but he refused to answer and requested a lawyer, the officials said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/..._hood_shooting

[One2Snoop]

Another waste of human flesh.

[deacon]

Originally Posted by One2Snoop

Another waste of human flesh.

Yes, it is.

[samanthajane13]

FBI reassessing past look at Fort Hood suspect
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – Tue Nov 10, 7:53 am ET

WASHINGTON – Nearly a year before Maj. Nidal Hasan allegedly went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, terrorism investigators conducted an "assessment" of him before deciding he did not pose a threat.

After the shooting, the FBI is doing a new assessment — of its own conduct.

The Army psychiatrist is believed to have acted alone despite repeated communications — intercepted by authorities — with a radical imam overseas, U.S. officials said Monday. The FBI will conduct an internal review to see whether it mishandled early information about the man accused in the bloody rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 29.

President Barack Obama was joining grieving families and comrades of the victims Tuesday at a memorial service at the sprawling Texas Army base. Hasan, awake and talking to doctors, met his lawyer Monday in the San Antonio hospital where he is recovering, under guard, from gunshot wounds in the assault.

In Washington, an investigative official and a Republican lawmaker said Hasan had communicated 10 to 20 times with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam released from a Yemeni jail last year who has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Despite that, no formal investigation was opened into Hasan, they said.

Investigative officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said it was his understanding Hasan and the imam exchanged e-mails that counterterrorism officials picked up.

Officials said Hasan will be tried in a military court, not a civilian one, a choice that suggests his alleged actions are not thought to have emanated from a terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Hasan warned his medical colleagues a year and a half ago that to "decrease adverse events" the U.S. military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, made the recommendation in a culminating presentation to senior Army doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center, where he spent six years as an intern, resident and fellow before being transferred to Fort Hood.

"It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims," Hasan said in the presentation, a copy of which was obtained by the Post.

FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered the inquiry into the bureau's handling of the case, including its response to potentially worrisome information gathered about Hasan beginning in December 2008 and continuing into early this year.

Based on all the investigations since the attack, the investigators said they have no evidence that Hasan had help or outside orders in the shootings.

Even so, they revealed the major had once been under scrutiny from a joint terrorism task force because of the series of communications going back months. Al-Awlaki is a former imam at a Falls Church, Va., mosque where Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped.

In 2001, al-Awlaki, a native-born U.S. citizen, had contact with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and on Monday his Web site praised Hasan as a hero.

Military officials were made aware of communications between Hasan and al-Awlaki, but because the messages did not advocate or threaten violence, civilian law enforcement authorities could not take the matter further, the officials said. The terrorism task force concluded Hasan was not involved in terrorist planning.

Officials said the content of those messages was "consistent with the subject matter of his research," part of which involved post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A law enforcement official said the communications consisted primarily of Hasan posing questions to the imam as a spiritual leader or adviser, and the imam did respond to at least some of those messages.

No formal investigation was ever opened based on the contacts, the officials said.

They said the decision to bring military charges instead of civilian criminal charges against Hasan did not mean it wasn't a terrorism case. But it is likely authorities would have had more reason to take the case to federal court if they had found evidence Hasan acted with the support or training of a terrorist group.

Investigators tried to interview Hasan on Sunday at the military hospital where he is being held, but he refused to answer and requested a lawyer, the officials said.

Hasan's new civilian and military attorneys met him for about half an hour at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, said retired Col. John P. Galligan, who was hired by Hasan's family. Galligan said Hasan asked for an attorney even though he is on sedatives and his condition is guarded.

"Given his medical condition, that's the smart move," Galligan told The Associated Press on Monday night. "Nobody from law enforcement will be questioning him."

Galligan said both he and Maj. Christopher E. Martin, Fort Hood's senior defense attorney, met Hasan. Galligan questioned whether Hasan can get a fair trial at Fort Hood, given Obama's visit to the base and public comments by the post commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone. Galligan also said he plans to raise the issue of Hasan's mental condition.

The most serious charge in military court is premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty.

The Army has not yet appointed a lead prosecutor in the case, said Fort Hood spokesman Tyler Broadway.

___

Associated Press writers Angela K. Brown at Fort Hood and Pamela Hess in Washington contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/..._hood_shooting

[deacon]

Originally Posted by samanthajane13

FBI reassessing past look at Fort Hood suspect
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – Tue Nov 10, 7:53 am ET

WASHINGTON – Nearly a year before Maj. Nidal Hasan allegedly went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, terrorism investigators conducted an "assessment" of him before deciding he did not pose a threat.

After the shooting, the FBI is doing a new assessment — of its own conduct.

The Army psychiatrist is believed to have acted alone despite repeated communications — intercepted by authorities — with a radical imam overseas, U.S. officials said Monday. The FBI will conduct an internal review to see whether it mishandled early information about the man accused in the bloody rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 29.

President Barack Obama was joining grieving families and comrades of the victims Tuesday at a memorial service at the sprawling Texas Army base. Hasan, awake and talking to doctors, met his lawyer Monday in the San Antonio hospital where he is recovering, under guard, from gunshot wounds in the assault.

In Washington, an investigative official and a Republican lawmaker said Hasan had communicated 10 to 20 times with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam released from a Yemeni jail last year who has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Despite that, no formal investigation was opened into Hasan, they said.

Investigative officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said it was his understanding Hasan and the imam exchanged e-mails that counterterrorism officials picked up.

Officials said Hasan will be tried in a military court, not a civilian one, a choice that suggests his alleged actions are not thought to have emanated from a terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Hasan warned his medical colleagues a year and a half ago that to "decrease adverse events" the U.S. military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, made the recommendation in a culminating presentation to senior Army doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center, where he spent six years as an intern, resident and fellow before being transferred to Fort Hood.

"It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims," Hasan said in the presentation, a copy of which was obtained by the Post.

FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered the inquiry into the bureau's handling of the case, including its response to potentially worrisome information gathered about Hasan beginning in December 2008 and continuing into early this year.

Based on all the investigations since the attack, the investigators said they have no evidence that Hasan had help or outside orders in the shootings.

Even so, they revealed the major had once been under scrutiny from a joint terrorism task force because of the series of communications going back months. Al-Awlaki is a former imam at a Falls Church, Va., mosque where Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped.

In 2001, al-Awlaki, a native-born U.S. citizen, had contact with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and on Monday his Web site praised Hasan as a hero.

Military officials were made aware of communications between Hasan and al-Awlaki, but because the messages did not advocate or threaten violence, civilian law enforcement authorities could not take the matter further, the officials said. The terrorism task force concluded Hasan was not involved in terrorist planning.

Officials said the content of those messages was "consistent with the subject matter of his research," part of which involved post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A law enforcement official said the communications consisted primarily of Hasan posing questions to the imam as a spiritual leader or adviser, and the imam did respond to at least some of those messages.

No formal investigation was ever opened based on the contacts, the officials said.

They said the decision to bring military charges instead of civilian criminal charges against Hasan did not mean it wasn't a terrorism case. But it is likely authorities would have had more reason to take the case to federal court if they had found evidence Hasan acted with the support or training of a terrorist group.

Investigators tried to interview Hasan on Sunday at the military hospital where he is being held, but he refused to answer and requested a lawyer, the officials said.

Hasan's new civilian and military attorneys met him for about half an hour at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, said retired Col. John P. Galligan, who was hired by Hasan's family. Galligan said Hasan asked for an attorney even though he is on sedatives and his condition is guarded.

"Given his medical condition, that's the smart move," Galligan told The Associated Press on Monday night. "Nobody from law enforcement will be questioning him."

Galligan said both he and Maj. Christopher E. Martin, Fort Hood's senior defense attorney, met Hasan. Galligan questioned whether Hasan can get a fair trial at Fort Hood, given Obama's visit to the base and public comments by the post commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone. Galligan also said he plans to raise the issue of Hasan's mental condition.

The most serious charge in military court is premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty.

The Army has not yet appointed a lead prosecutor in the case, said Fort Hood spokesman Tyler Broadway.

___

Associated Press writers Angela K. Brown at Fort Hood and Pamela Hess in Washington contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/..._hood_shooting

That excuse is about worn out. It is always a "mental condition." Give me a break.

[samanthajane13]

Obama honors Fort Hood victims, condemns murders
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – 39 mins ago

FORT HOOD, Texas – One by one, President Barack Obama spoke the names and told the stories Tuesday of the 13 people slain in the Fort Hood shooting rampage, honoring their memories as he denounced the "twisted logic" that led to their deaths.

"No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor," Obama told the crowd on a steamy Texas afternoon. "And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice — in this world and the next."

He did not name Maj. Nidal Hasan, the military psychiatrist accused of the killings.

As for the victims and the soldiers who rushed to help them, Obama said, "We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes." He spoke at a memorial service before a crowd estimated at 15,000 on this enormous Army post.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama began an afternoon of consolation by meeting privately with family members of those killed last week and with those wounded in the attack and their families. Obama used his public remarks to put a human face on those who perished, victims ranging in age from 19 to 62. He also used his platform to speak indirectly to questions about whether the alleged shooter had ties to extremist Islamic ideology.

Thousands upon thousands of people, many of them soldiers dressed in camouflage, gathered to pay their respects and hear the president. The shooting killed 12 soldiers and 1 civilian, injured 29 others and left a nation stunned and searching for answers.

Below the stage where Obama spoke was a somber tribute to the fallen — 13 pairs of combat boots, each with an inverted rifle topped with a helmet. A picture of each person rested below the boots. After the ceremony, Obama walked solemnly along the row of boots, placing a commander in chief's coin next to each victim's photo in tribute.

Then soldiers and loved ones traced the same path to remember those lost and give a final salute, one woman nearly collapsing with grief.

Even as Obama honored the dead, there was government finger-pointing over what had been known about Hasan and whether he should have been investigated further.

U.S. officials said a Pentagon worker on a terrorism task force had looked into Hasan's background months ago and had concluded he did not merit further investigation. Two officials said the group had been notified of communications between Hasan and a radical Islamic imam overseas and the information had been turned over to a Defense Criminal Investigative Service employee assigned to the task force. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The revelation provided fresh evidence the military had been keeping an eye on the Army psychiatrist before the shooting rampage.

One soldier who attended the memorial said the mood at Fort Hood was turning from sadness to anger as soldiers learned more about Hasan's background.

"A lot of folks are angry because they feel this could have been prevented," said Spc. Brian Hill, a 25-year-old soldier from Nashville, Tenn., who was injured in Iraq and walks with a cane. "Somebody should have been paying attention."

Obama remembered the slain not as shooting victims but as husbands and fathers, immigrants and scholars, optimists and veterans of the war in Iraq. He cited one woman who was pregnant when she was gunned down.

The president spoke to loved ones left behind, saying: "Here is what you must also know: Your loved ones endure through the life of our nation."

"Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that is their legacy," he said.

He named and described each victim, including Chief Warrant Officer Michael Cahill, a physician's assistant back at work just weeks after having a heart attack; Maj. Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, who spoke little English when he arrived in the United States from Mexico but earned a Ph. D and helped combat units cope with the stress of deployment; Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, an Eagle Scout who signed up "to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the service — defuse bombs."

Later, the president and first lady went to a military hospital to meet with those still recovering from wounds incurred during the attack.

The ceremony unfolded in a field at the headquarters of the massive post, cordoned off with walls of steel shipping containers. Many soldiers in the crowd listened intently to Obama's speech, standing stoically, some with heads bowed.

Sheila Wormuth, whose husband is stationed at Fort Hood, came with her 3-year-old daughter to show their support. While her husband wasn't at the shooting site, she said, "what happens to my husband's brothers and sisters happens to us."

Bonita Childs, 46, drove 30 miles to attend the ceremony, even though she had no connection to Fort Hood.

"I wanted to be a part of it," she said. "Our soldiers give so freely of themselves for the freedom we enjoy, and I thought coming here today and showing my gratitude was the least I could do."

It was Obama's moment to take on the job of consoler-in-chief, a role that can help to shape a presidency at a time of national tragedy.

The president has tried to strike a balanced tone: He has promised a full investigation of the Fort Hood shootings but has said little about it as investigators search for a motive. He said Tuesday it was "hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy."

It wasn't even two weeks ago that Obama stood in the dark of night at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, honoring the remains of 18 troops killed in Afghanistan. Now he led the mourning for 13 men and women who were working in the one place, as Obama put it, that "our soldiers ought to feel most safe."

When Obama returns to Washington, the cost of war will still be with him.

His agenda Wednesday: another war council meeting on Afghanistan, and laying a Veterans Day wreath at Arlington National Cemetery.

___

Associated Press writers Angela K. Brown and Jeff Carlton at Fort Hood contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_...FtYWhvbm9yc2Y-

[samanthajane13]

DOD worker assessed Fort Hood suspect months ago
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – 14 mins ago

WASHINGTON – A Defense Department investigator on a terrorism task force looked into Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan's background months ago, officials said Tuesday — providing fresh evidence the military knew worrisome details about the Army psychiatrist before last week's deadly rampage.

Two officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case on the record said the Washington-based joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI was notified of communications between Hasan and a radical imam overseas, and the information was turned over to a Defense Criminal Investigative Service employee assigned to the task force.

That worker wrote up an assessment of Hasan after reviewing the Army major's personnel file and the communications. The assessment concluded Hasan did not merit further investigation, in large part because his communications with the imam were centered on a research paper he was writing at the time, and the investigator had concluded Hasan was in fact working on such a paper, the officials said.

The disclosure came as questions swirled about whether opportunities were missed to head off the massacre — 13 dead and 29 wounded — and the FBI launched its own internal review of how it handled the early information about Hasan. Military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are all defending themselves against tough questions about what each of them knew about Hasan before he allegedly opened fire in a crowded room at the huge military base in Texas.

Within hours after the role of the defense investigator on the task force was disclosed, a senior defense official said "based on what we know now, neither the U.S. Army nor any other organization within the Department of Defense knew of Maj. Hasan's contacts with any Muslim extremists."

This defense official was not authorized to discuss the case on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hasan, awake and talking to doctors, met his lawyer Monday in the San Antonio hospital where he is recovering, under guard, from gunshot wounds in the assault. He has not been formally charged but officials plan to charge him in military court, not a civilian one, a choice that suggests his alleged actions are not thought to have emanated from a terrorist organization.

Investigators still believe Hasan acted alone, despite his communications with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam released from a Yemeni jail last year who has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Despite that, no formal investigation was opened into Hasan, they said.

Investigative officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case on the record. Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said it was his understanding Hasan and the imam exchanged e-mails that counterterrorism officials picked up.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Hasan warned his medical colleagues a year and a half ago that to "decrease adverse events" the U.S. military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims. Hasan made the recommendation in a culminating presentation to senior Army doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center, where he spent six years as an intern, resident and fellow before being transferred to Fort Hood.

"It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims," Hasan said in the presentation, a copy of which was obtained by the Post.

FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered the inquiry into the bureau's handling of the case, including its response to potentially worrisome information gathered about Hasan beginning in December 2008 and continuing into early this year.

Authorities revealed the major had once been under scrutiny from a joint terrorism task force because of the series of communications going back months. Al-Awlaki is a former imam at a Falls Church, Va., mosque where Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped.

In 2001, al-Awlaki, a native-born U.S. citizen, had contact with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and on Monday his Web site praised Hasan as a hero.

Military officials were made aware of communications between Hasan and al-Awlaki, but because the messages did not advocate or threaten violence, civilian law enforcement authorities could not take the matter further, the officials said. The terrorism task force concluded Hasan was not involved in terrorist planning.

Officials said the content of those messages was "consistent with the subject matter of his research," part of which involved post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A law enforcement official said the communications consisted primarily of Hasan posing questions to the imam as a spiritual leader or adviser, and the imam did respond to at least some of those messages.

No formal investigation was ever opened based on the contacts, the officials said.

The most serious charge in military court is premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty.

___

Associated Press writers Angela K. Brown at Fort Hood and Pamela Hess in Washington contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091110/...R3b3JrZXJhc3M-

[samanthajane13]

Did the Army Ignore Red Flags Because of Hasan's Religion?
By Mark Thompson / Washington Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009

As officials continue to investigate the alleged Fort Hood killer, it is looking increasingly likely that the Army missed several red flags in Major Nidal Malik Hasan's behavior. Many observers say it wouldn't be surprising if such signals had been missed, given that Hasan was a psychiatrist whom the Army desperately needed to help tend to the mental wounds of two wars. But at the same time, some members of the military are quietly discussing the more troubling possibility that the Army looked the other way precisely because Hasan was Muslim.

Army officials strongly deny any suggestion that Hasan's religion resulted in his being given special treatment. But one officer who attended the Pentagon's medical school with Hasan disagrees. "He was very vocal about being a Muslim first and holding Shari'a law above the Constitution," this officer recalls. When fellow students asked, "How can you be an officer and hold to the Constitution?," the officer says, Hasan would "get visibly upset — sweaty and nervous — and had no good answers." This medical doctor would speak only anonymously because his commanders have ordered him not to talk about Hasan, he says.

This officer says he was so surprised when Hasan gave a talk about "the war on terror being a war on Islam" that he asked the lieutenant colonel running the course what Hasan's presentation had to do with health care. "I raised my hand and asked, 'Why are you letting this go on — this has nothing to do with environmental health.' The course director said, 'I'm just going to let him go.' " The topic of Hasan's presentation, the officer says, had been approved in advance by the lieutenant colonel.

The officer says he and a colleague complained to staff at the Uniformed University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., but got nowhere: "It was a systemic problem — the same thing was happening at Walter Reed," the Army medical center several miles away, where Hasan was working as a psychiatrist. (The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Hasan gave a similar presentation at Walter Reed in which he said Muslims should be released as conscientious objectors rather than forced into combat against fellow Muslims.) But "political correctness" inside the military, the officer asserts, insulated Hasan. "People are afraid to come forward and challenge somebody's ideology," he says, "because they're afraid of getting an equal-opportunity complaint that can end careers."

A retired four-star officer says that, on the basis of the evidence gleaned so far, it was Hasan's career that should have been cut short. "They could have given him a dishonorable discharge and said what he's doing works against good order and discipline," says the general, who also requested anonymity. But rather than it being a matter of giving preferential treatment to Hasan because of his religion, "my guess is he fell through the cracks," the general says.

Whether he fell through the cracks or was cut slack because of concerns about appearing to impinge on his religious freedom will be a focus of the investigations under way. "The Army was just under such pressure that they planned to send him to Afghanistan," says Lawrence Korb, Pentagon personnel chief during the Reagan Administration. But Korb says he's perplexed by reports that Hasan received poor evaluations and still got promoted. "That tells me the Army didn't do its job," he says — though he attributes that to the unrelenting demand to keep mental-health professionals on duty rather than to Hasan's religion.

But Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who now writes military books and a newspaper column, contends that Hasan's religion protected him from punitive action by the Army, a view shared privately by many in uniform. While stressing "there shouldn't be witch hunts" against Muslims in uniform, Peters insists "this guy got a pass because he was a Muslim, despite the Army's claim that everybody's green and we're all the same."

Congress is already beginning to look into why an Army psychiatrist who reportedly had to be counseled against sharing his antiwar views with soldiers back from combat could have possibly been promoted in May. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said on Monday that he will hold a hearing next week to see "whether the government missed warning signs that should have led to [Hasan's] expulsion" before he killed 13 people on the Texas post last Thursday. Hasan's former classmate, for one, says he wasn't surprised to see Hasan's face flash across his television screen. "After the shock," he says, "the first thing that went through my mind was, Hey, I remember everything this guy said."


http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...s-nation-yahoo

[samanthajane13]

Obama Remembers the Fallen at Ft. Hood
By BEN FELLER , AP

FORT HOOD, Texas (Nov. 10) -- One by one, President Barack Obama spoke the names and told the stories Tuesday of the 13 people slain in the Fort Hood shooting rampage, honoring their memories as he denounced the "twisted logic" that led to their deaths.

"No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor," Obama told the crowd on a steamy Texas afternoon. "And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice — in this world and the next."

He did not name Maj. Nidal Hasan, the military psychiatrist accused of the killings.

As for the victims and the soldiers who rushed to help them, Obama said, "We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes."

He spoke at a memorial service before a crowd estimated at 15,000 on this enormous Army post.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama began an afternoon of consolation by meeting privately with family members of those killed last week and with those wounded in the attack and their families. Obama used his public remarks to put a human face on those who perished, victims ranging in age from 19 to 62. He also used his platform to speak indirectly to questions about whether the alleged shooter had ties to extremist Islamic ideology.

Thousands upon thousands of people, many of them soldiers dressed in camouflage, gathered to pay their respects and hear the president. The shooting killed 12 soldiers and 1 civilian, injured 29 others and left a nation stunned and searching for answers.

Below the stage where Obama spoke was a somber tribute to the fallen — 13 pairs of combat boots, each with an inverted rifle topped with a helmet. A picture of each person rested below the boots. After the ceremony, Obama walked solemnly along the row of boots, placing a commander in chief's coin next to each victim's photo in tribute.

Then soldiers and loved ones traced the same path to remember those lost and give a final salute, one woman nearly collapsing with grief.

Even as Obama honored the dead, there was government finger-pointing over what had been known about Hasan and whether he should have been investigated further.

U.S. officials said a Pentagon worker on a terrorism task force had looked into Hasan's background months ago and had concluded he did not merit further investigation. Two officials said the group had been notified of communications between Hasan and a radical Islamic imam overseas and the information had been turned over to a Defense Criminal Investigative Service employee assigned to the task force. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The revelation provided fresh evidence the military had been keeping an eye on the Army psychiatrist before the shooting rampage.

One soldier who attended the memorial said the mood at Fort Hood was turning from sadness to anger as soldiers learned more about Hasan's background.

"A lot of folks are angry because they feel this could have been prevented," said Spc. Brian Hill, a 25-year-old soldier from Nashville, Tenn., who was injured in Iraq and walks with a cane. "Somebody should have been paying attention."

Obama remembered the slain not as shooting victims but as husbands and fathers, immigrants and scholars, optimists and veterans of the war in Iraq.

He cited one woman who was pregnant when she was gunned down.

The president spoke to loved ones left behind, saying: "Here is what you must also know: Your loved ones endure through the life of our nation."

"Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that is their legacy," he said.

He named and described each victim, including Chief Warrant Officer Michael Cahill, a physician's assistant back at work just weeks after having a heart attack; Maj. Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, who spoke little English when he arrived in the United States from Mexico but earned a Ph. D and helped combat units cope with the stress of deployment; Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, an Eagle Scout who signed up "to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the service — defuse bombs."

Later, the president and first lady went to a military hospital to meet with those still recovering from wounds incurred during the attack.

The ceremony unfolded in a field at the headquarters of the massive post, cordoned off with walls of steel shipping containers. Many soldiers in the crowd listened intently to Obama's speech, standing stoically, some with heads bowed.

Sheila Wormuth, whose husband is stationed at Fort Hood, came with her 3-year-old daughter to show their support. While her husband wasn't at the shooting site, she said, "what happens to my husband's brothers and sisters happens to us."

Bonita Childs, 46, drove 30 miles to attend the ceremony, even though she had no connection to Fort Hood.

"I wanted to be a part of it," she said. "Our soldiers give so freely of themselves for the freedom we enjoy, and I thought coming here today and showing my gratitude was the least I could do."

It was Obama's moment to take on the job of consoler-in-chief, a role that can help to shape a presidency at a time of national tragedy.

The president has tried to strike a balanced tone: He has promised a full investigation of the Fort Hood shootings but has said little about it as investigators search for a motive. He said Tuesday it was "hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy."

It wasn't even two weeks ago that Obama stood in the dark of night at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, honoring the remains of 18 troops killed in Afghanistan. Now he led the mourning for 13 men and women who were working in the one place, as Obama put it, that "our soldiers ought to feel most safe."

When Obama returns to Washington, the cost of war will still be with him. His agenda Wednesday: another war council meeting on Afghanistan, and laying a Veterans Day wreath at Arlington National Cemetery.

Associated Press writers Angela K. Brown and Jeff Carlton at Fort Hood contributed to this report.


http://news.aol.com/article/obama-re...-hood%2F761755

[samanthajane13]

Who knew of Fort Hood suspect's radical contacts?
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 3 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The mystery over whether the military knew Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan was communicating with a radical Muslim imam lapsed into finger-pointing ahead of congressional investigations looking into the Army psychiatrist's contacts with any extremists.

Even as President Barack Obama remembered those killed at the Texas Army post and condemned what he described as "the twisted logic that led to this tragedy," federal agencies reacted to conflicting claims about whether a Defense Department terrorism investigator looked into Hasan's contacts months ago with Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki, an imam who was released from a Yemeni jail last year, has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. A military official Tuesday denied knowing Hasan had such contacts.

Two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case on the record, said the Washington-based joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI was notified of communications between Hasan and the imam overseas, and the information was turned over to a Defense Criminal Investigative Service employee assigned to the task force. The communications were gathered by investigators beginning in December 2008 and continuing into early this year.

That defense investigator wrote up an assessment of Hasan after reviewing the communications and the Army major's personnel file, according to these officials. The assessment concluded Hasan did not merit further investigation — in large part because his communications with the imam were centered on a research paper about the effects of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and the investigator determined that Hasan was in fact working on such a paper, the officials said.

The disclosure came as questions swirled about whether opportunities were missed to head off the massacre in which 13 died and 29 were wounded last Thursday — a familiar, early stage in the investigation of headline-grabbing crimes when public officials involved in a case often speak anonymously as they try to shift any blame to rivals in other agencies.

The Senate already has launched its own inquiry into the Hasan case. Sens. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, plan to hold a hearing on the shootings next week.

The disclosure Tuesday of the defense investigator's role indicated the U.S. military was aware of worrisome behavior by the massacre suspect long before the attack. Following the disclosure, a senior defense official, also demanding anonymity, directly contradicted that notion.

The senior defense official said neither the Army nor any other part of the Defense Department knew of Hasan's contacts with any Muslim extremists. But the defense official carefully conceded this view was based upon what the Pentagon knows now.

Hours later, the same senior defense official reiterated that the Defense Department was not notified before the Fort Hood massacre of investigations into Hasan, despite the participation of two Defense Department investigators on two joint task forces run by the FBI that looked at Hasan. This defense official asserted that the task force ground rules barred any members from telling their home agency about task force findings without approval of the other investigators and wasn't aware of whether there was ever any discussion of doing that.

FBI officials were not immediately available to comment late Tuesday on what ground rules prevailed in the joint task forces or whether they were applied in this situation or not. One government official, however, pointed out that to complete the assessment the Defense Criminal Investigative Service representative had to access Hasan's Defense Department personnel file and determine what research he was conducting at the time.

The FBI has opened its own internal review of how it handled the early information about Hasan. Military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies also are defending themselves against tough questions about what each of them knew about Hasan before he allegedly opened fire in a crowded room at the huge Army post.

___

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Eileen Sullivan, Pamela Hess and Anne Gearan in Washington and Angela K. Brown at Fort Hood contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091111/...9rbmV3b2Zmb3I-

[samanthajane13]

Obama joins in honoring victims at Fort Hood
By Ben Feller
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated: November 10, 2009, 11:37 PM

FORT HOOD, Texas -- Somberly reciting 13 names and 13 stories, President Obama saluted the Americans killed on this Army post as heroes who died for their country … and promised a nation demanding answers that "the killer will be met with justice."

Addressing a hushed crowd of thousands of soldiers Tuesday, the president spoke forcefully if indirectly of the purported shooter's motives in last week's massacre, never mentioning Maj. Nidal M. Hasan by name.

"It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy," Obama said. "But this much we do know: No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts."

It was an apparent reference to reports that Hasan had communicated with a radical Islamic imam. A vast investigation is under way, including questions about what the government knew about Hasan and whether action should have been taken.

The president's remarks at a memorial service were personal, more about how the victims lived than how they died: the Eagle Scout, the newlywed, the expectant mother, the soldier eager to catch Osama bin Laden by herself. The president spent more time meeting privately with the wounded and with loved ones of those killed than speaking in public.

Obama mentioned each of the dead in turn, saying a word about service and the families left behind. Pfc. Michael Pearson "could create songs on the spot." Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow was "an optimist, a mentor and a loving husband and father."

In a stern tone, Obama pledged that "the killer will be met with justice … in this world, and the next."

On a steamy Texas day, Obama stepped into a scene filled with military resolve and tender moments. Soldiers helped wounded friends to their seats. A little girl in a black dress and shiny shoes clutched her mother's hand as hurting families streamed in.

Thousands upon thousands gathered on a field for the ceremony. Right below the stage was a traditional military tribute to the fallen -- 13 pairs of combat boots, each with an inverted rifle topped with a helmet. A picture of each person rested below the boots.

"In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility," Obama said. "In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans."

Riflemen fired a last salute. A bugler played taps. After the ceremony, Obama walked solemnly along the row of boots, placing a commander in chief's coin next to each victim's photo in tribute.

Then soldiers and loved ones traced the same path to remember those lost and give a final salute, one woman nearly collapsing with grief.

One soldier who attended the memorial said the mood at Fort Hood was turning from sadness to anger as soldiers learned more about Hasan's background.

"A lot of folks are angry because they feel this could have been prevented," said Spc. Brian Hill, 25, a soldier from Nashville, Tenn., who was injured in Iraq and walks with a cane. "Somebody should have been paying attention."

In his public remarks, Obama spoke of the tranquility and liberty enjoyed by most Americans and said the 13 fallen gave their lives for it.

"That is their legacy," he said.

As much as the president made the moment about the gunman's victims, the ceremony also was about him. Presidents inevitably must take the lead in times of tragedy, and this was Obama's moment to offer himself as consoler in chief.

The president worked through several drafts of his speech, including three on the Air Force One flight down to Texas. He viewed the personal stories as the most important part of the speech, a senior aide said.

About the victims and the soldiers who rushed to help them, Obama said, "We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes."

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama devoted considerable time to three private meetings with those affected by the shooting rampage, meeting first with families of those killed, then with some of those wounded and their families, and later with those still hospitalized.

"Just the president being here was a great morale booster to show the country he was here for the families," said Ronald Fiveash, a sailor whose brother was shot four times but survived.

Sheila Wormuth, whose husband is stationed at Fort Hood, came with her 3-year-old daughter to show their support. While her husband wasn't at the shooting site, she said, "what happens to my husband's brothers and sisters happens to us."

Bonita Childs, 46, drove 30 miles to attend the ceremony, even though she had no connection to Fort Hood.

"I thought coming here today and showing my gratitude was the least I could do," she said.

"These men and women came from all parts of the country," Obama said. "Some had long careers in the military. Some had signed up to serve in the shadow of 9/11. Some had known intense combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some cared for those did. Their lives speak to the strength, the dignity and the decency of those who serve, and that is how they will be remembered."

The Obamas strode to the stage to the squeal of bagpipes.

Soldiers remained attentive but quiet throughout the ceremony, under a sun hot enough to cause a few people to faint.

"So we say goodbye to those who now belong to eternity," Obama said at the end. "We press ahead in pursuit of the peace that guided their service. May God bless the memory of those we lost. And may God bless the United States of America.

After he spoke, a female soldier sang "Amazing Grace."

In the audience on the nation's largest military post were Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry and the state's two Republican senators. Also present were some of the nation's senior military brass, including Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, commander of III Corps and Fort Hood, noted that more than 500 Fort Hood soldiers have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, "but never did we expect to pay such a high price at home."


http://www.buffalonews.com/180/story/857175.html

[samanthajane13]

Fort Hood probe spotlights Web-savvy preacher
By William Maclean, Security Correspondent William Maclean, Security Correspondent – 1 hr 24 mins ago

LONDON (Reuters) – A radical Muslim preacher linked by U.S. intelligence to a gunman who killed 13 people at a U.S. Army base is an influential voice in English-language Internet forums increasingly used by militants unfamiliar with Arabic.

Anwar al-Awlaki, has spent years publishing anti-U.S. views sympathetic to al Qaeda to his English-language followers on the Internet, using blogs, video and audio lectures, a social networking site and lengthy articles.

While not a household name in the Arab world, Awlaki, in his 30s, has a following in the West, where governments suspect views like his may help to radicalize potential militants who do not understand Arabic, the main language of al Qaeda missives.

U.S. intelligence agencies learned that the gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had contacts with Awlaki late last year and they relayed that information to authorities before he went on the shooting spree on Thursday, U.S. officials have said.

The spotlight on Awlaki, one of whose favorite themes is the minority status of Muslims in the West, intensified when he posted a blog praising the killings and calling Hasan "a hero."

Awlaki's website was closed down shortly afterwards.

Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, said Awlaki was one of several English-language preachers using new media to reach Web-savvy audiences in the West.

"This alternative media trend is gaining strength and is helping jihadis a lot," he said. "They are doing well in this field."

"FANS LOVE HIM"

Radical Islamist recruitment is a concern in Europe because law enforcement agencies believe several thousand young Muslims on the continent, many of them South Asians unfamiliar with Arabic, are part of networks similar to the ones that carried out suicide bombings in London that killed 52 people in 2005 and bombings in Madrid that killed 191 in 2004.

Similar concerns have been growing in the United States following the arrests of several Muslim U.S. citizens in connection with suspected plots to attack targets there.

An American of Arab origin, Awlaki has a varied multinational audience, to judge by the 5,138 "fans" who follow his Facebook site, but experts suspect most of his readership are south Asian Muslims living in Europe and the United States.

Facebook was not immediately available to comment.

On the site debate raged about Awlaki's blog.

A supporter posted: "To all the haters, there is no evidence that this man (Awlaki) is linked to any acts ... Even if he agreed with Nidal, remember this is a right protected under the American constitution which enables the right of free speech."

Jarret Brachman, a U.S. expert on al Qaeda, said Awlaki and Jamaican Islamist Abdullah Faisal had become the two top English-language militant preachers, in part because their rhetoric appealed to a spectrum of opinion.

"What makes them so appealing is that you can be an adherent, having only a fairly mild "radical quotient', but these guys breathe enough fire to keep even the most hardline, hardcore (jihad enthusiast) satisfied."

"They are accessible. Even fun. Awlaki has a great sense of humor ...His fans love him," he said.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091111/...Rob29kcHJvYg--

[samanthajane13]

Shooting suspect's superiors questioned behavior
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writers Brett J. Blackledge And Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writers – 16 mins ago

WASHINGTON – A group of doctors overseeing Nidal Malik Hasan's medical training discussed concerns about his overly zealous religious views and strange behavior months before the Army major was accused of a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and 29 wounded.

Doctors and staff overseeing Hasan's training viewed him at times as belligerent, defensive and argumentative in his frequent discussions of his Muslim faith, a military official familiar with several group discussions about Hasan said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hasan was characterized in meetings as a mediocre student and lazy worker, a matter of concern among the doctors and staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a military medical school in Bethesda, Md., the official said.

The concerns about Hasan's performance and religious views were shared with other military officials considering his assignment after he finished his medical training, and the consensus was to send the 39-year-old psychiatrist to Fort Hood, the official said.

Fort Hood, one of the country's largest military installations, was considered the best assignment for Hasan because other doctors could handle the workload if he continued to perform poorly and his superiors could document any continued behavior problems, the official said.

The group saw no evidence that Hasan was violent or a threat. It was more that he repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates, his superiors and even in his research work, the official said. His behavior, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views. But some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan's behavior, the official said.

Some in the group questioned Hasan's sympathies as an Army psychiatrist, whether he would be more aligned with Muslims fighting U.S. troops. And there was some concern about whether he should continue to serve in the military, the official said.

Sharon Willis, a spokeswoman for the Uniformed Services University, referred questions Wednesday about Hasan to his lawyer. The attorney, John Galligan of Belton, Texas, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

The revelations about the concerns that Hasan's superiors had before sending him to Fort Hood come amid a growing debate over what warning signs the military and law enforcement officials might have missed before last week's massacre.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan's repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The FBI said in a statement late Wednesday that the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn't linked to terrorism.

The doctors and staff who discussed concerns about Hasan had several group conversations about him that started in early 2008 during regular monthly meetings and ended as he was finishing a fellowship in disaster and preventive psychology this summer, the official familiar with the discussions said.

They saw no signs of mental problems, no risk factors that would predict violent behavior. And the group discussed other factors that suggested Hasan would continue to thrive in the military, factors that mitigated their concerns, the official said.

According to the official, records reviewed by Hasan's superiors described nearly 20 years of military service, including nearly eight years as an enlisted soldier; completion of three rigorous medical school programs, albeit as a student the group characterized in their discussions as mediocre; his resilience after the deaths of his parents early in his medical education, and an otherwise polite and gentle nature when not discussing religion.

The Army has said it has no record of enlisted service for Hasan, instead noting that his military service began when he started the medical school program in 1997.

The official said the group became increasingly concerned about Hasan's religious views after he completed two research projects that took a decidedly religious tone — one at the end of his residency at Walter Reed that advocated allowing Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims, and the other as he pursued his master's degree in public health that discussed religious conflicts for Muslim U.S. soldiers.

Some in the group shared their experiences with Hasan, all telling similar stories about repeated instances when he made religion an issue.

Officials involved at various times in the meetings about Hasan included John Bradley, Walter Reed's chief of psychiatry; Scott Moran, Walter Reed's psychiatric residency program director; Robert Ursano, chairman of the Uniformed Services University's psychiatry department; Charles Engel, the university's assistant chair of psychiatry, and David Benedek, an associate professor of psychiatry at the university.

Those officials either declined to comment or did not return telephone calls and e-mails seeking comment Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has found no evidence that Hasan formally sought release from the Army as a conscientious objector or for any other reason, two senior military officials told The Associated Press. Family members have said he wanted to get out of the Army and had sought legal advice, suggesting that Hasan's anxiety as a Muslim over his pending deployment overseas might have been a factor in the deadly rampage.

Hasan had complained privately to colleagues that he was harassed for his religion and that he wanted to get out of the Army. But there is no record of Hasan filing a complaint with his chain of command regarding any harassment he may have suffered for being Muslim or any record of him formally seeking release from the military, the officials told the AP.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.

Another Army official, Lt. Col. George Wright, said Wednesday that Hasan likely would have had to commit to another year in the military when he was transferred to Fort Hood earlier this summer. It is common for an officer to incur a one-year service extension when they receive a transfer to another post.

___

Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett, Pauline Jelinek, Lolita C. Baldor, Eileen Sullivan and Pamela Hess in Washington; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_h...9vdGluZ3N1c3A-

[samanthajane13]

Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood Shooter: Lone-Wolf Terrorism?
By NANCY GIBBS Nancy Gibbs – 2 hrs 9 mins ago

What a surprise it must have been when Major Nidal Malik Hasan woke up from his coma to find himself not in paradise but in Brooke Army Medical Center, deep in the heart of Texas, under security so tight that there were armed guards patrolling both the intensive-care unit and checkpoints at the nearest freeway off-ramp. This was not the finalÉ he had scripted when he gave away all his earthly goods - his desk lamp and air mattress, his frozen broccoli and spinach, his copies of the Koran. He had told his imam he was planning to visit his parents before deploying to Afghanistan. He did not mention that his parents had been dead for nearly 10 years.

And who denied him his martyrdom? That would be Kimberly Munley, the SWAT-team markswoman nicknamed Mighty Mouse, who with her partner ran toward the sound of gunshots at the Soldier Readiness Center, where men and women about to deploy gather for vaccinations and eye exams. It's practically been a motto stitched on their sleeves - "Better to fight the terrorists there than here" - except now they were at home, and there was one of their own, a U.S. officer, jumping up, shouting "God is great" in a language he could barely speak and then opening fire.

For eight years, Americans have waged a Global War on Terrorism even as they argued about what that meant. The massacre at Fort Hood was, depending on whom you believed, yet another horrific workplace shooting by a nutcase who suddenly snapped, or it was an intimate act of war, a plot that can't be foiled because it is hatched inside a fanatic's head and leaves no trail until it is left in blood. In their first response, officials betrayed an eagerness to assume it was the first; the more we learn, the more we have cause to fear it was the second, a new battlefield where our old weapons don't work very well and our values make us vulnerable: freedom, privacy, tolerance and the stubborn American certainty that people born and raised here will not reject the gifts we share.

Even as the President weighs how to fight the wars he inherited, he and the entire U.S. security apparatus will have to figure out how you fight a war against an enemy you can't recognize, much less understand. In that sense, the war on terrorism has left the battlefield and moved to the realm of the mind. The good news is that al-Qaeda's throw weight is much diminished; the bad news is that terrorism is now an entrepreneurial arena, with the Internet as its global recruiting station, attracting the lost, the loners, the guy with a coffee cart on Wall Street buying up hair dye and nail-polish remover to blend into bombs, or the polite army major in uniform who took his time, bought his gun and turned it on his comrades.

In his tribute to the fallen, President Barack Obama invoked a "world of threats that know no borders." Soldiers sacrifice to keep us safe; somehow we failed to keep them safe. It would be grim news for the intelligence community and the Army if they just missed all the warning signs. It would be worse news if they saw but chose to ignore them.

A Whole New War
No one thought the battle between the West and radical Islam was going to be fought like a traditional war, but to the extent that we could, we did. We tightened our borders, hardened the targets, took off our shoes and sent troops and tanks and drones to crush opponents in Afghanistan and take out top al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. We adapted our laws and intelligence services to make it easier to infiltrate terrorist cells, sniffing their emails, phone calls and Web traffic. The campaign has shown such success in crippling al-Qaeda's ability to deliver a massive blow that the U.K. has just reduced its national threat level.

But the terrorist techniques of even a decade ago are already outmoded. "I used to argue it was only terrorism if it were part of some identifiable, organized conspiracy," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. But Hoffman has changed his definition, he says, because "this new strategy of al-Qaeda is to empower and motivate individuals to commit acts of violence completely outside any terrorist chain of command." Every month this year, he notes, there has been a terrorist event - either an act committed or one broken up before it could be carried out. "The nature of terrorism is changing, and Major Hasan may be an example of that," Hoffman argues. "Even if he turns out to have had no political motive, this is a sea change."

If "leaderless resistance" is the wave of the future, it may be less lethal but harder to fight; there are fewer clues to collect and less chatter to hear, even as information about means and methods is so much more widely dispersed. It is more like spontaneous combustion than someone from the outside lighting a match. Senator Joe Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee warned of this threat in a report last year. "The emergence of these self-generated violent Islamist extremists who are radicalized online presents a challenge," the report concluded, "because lone wolves are less likely to come to the attention of law enforcement." At least until they start shooting.

It might help if there were at least agreement on what constitutes terrorism; one government study found 109 different definitions. As far as the FBI is concerned, it counts as terrorism if you commit a crime that endangers another person or is violent with a broader intent to intimidate, influence or change policy or opinion. If Hasan shot people because of indigestion, worker conflict or plain insanity without a larger goal of intimidation or coercion, it was probably just a crime. If, on the other hand, his crime was motivated by more than madness - say, a desire to protest U.S. foreign policy - it was effectively terrorism.


Continued...

[samanthajane13]

So what are we to make of the free agents who might have never sworn allegiance to a band of jihadist brothers or plotted a conspiracy of violence, just watched some YouTube videos or downloaded some sermons and came away with visions of carnage dancing in their heads? "We have to be careful not to let our definition of terrorism become too broad," said former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last year. "Particularly when we get to the individual lone wolf, then it really does become hard to distinguish between the person who killed the students at Virginia Tech and the person who might do the same thing simply because they read something on the Internet about bin Laden and that happened to appeal to their psychology." Once everything is terrorism, he warned, then nothing is. But while the motivations of the Virginia Tech gunman seemed perversely personal, Hasan had spent years telling anyone who would listen that the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan was immoral.

The Making of a Radical
Hasan was a walking contradiction: the counselor who himself needed counseling; the proud soldier who did not want to fight, at least not against fellow Muslims; the man who could not find a sufficiently modest and pious wife through his mosque's matchmaking machinery but who frequented the local strip club. A man supposedly so afraid of deployment that he launched a war of his own from which he clearly did not expect to return alive. "Everyone is asking why this happened," said Hasan's family in a formal statement, "and the answer is that we simply do not know."

But if this is the new face of terrorism in America, we need better facial-recognition software. Hasan's motives were mixed enough that everyone with an agenda could find markers in the trail he left. For those inclined to see soldiers as victims, he was a symptom of an overstretched military, whose soldiers return from their third and fourth deployments pouring out such pain that it scars their therapists as well. "We've known for the last five years that [deployment to Afghanistan] was probably his worst nightmare," cousin Nader Hasan told Fox News. "He would tell us how he hears horrific things ... That was probably affecting him psychologically."

That diagnosis seemed like sentimental nonsense to people who noted how well Hasan matched the classic model of the lone, strange, crazy killer: the quiet and gentle man who formed few close human attachments but, reported the New York Times, used to chew up food and let his pet parakeet eat it from his mouth; when he rolled over during a nap and accidentally crushed it to death, he visited the bird's grave for months afterward.

But Hasan may be the new terrorist template that fuses psychological damage with jihadist ideology. The most obvious and ominous evidence points to a now familiar pattern: alienated individuals who don't have to graduate from al-Qaeda training camps to embrace their mission and means. When an Army officer is reported to proudly call himself a Muslim first, an American second; when he appears at a public-health seminar with the PowerPoint presentation "Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam"; when he applauds the killing of a U.S. soldier by a Muslim convert at an Arkansas recruitment center; and when he is caught corresponding with a radical imam in Yemen who has called on all Muslims to kill American soldiers in Iraq, you wonder just how brightly the red lights had to flash before anyone was willing to stop and ask some questions.

Hasan's early life offers few clues to what came later. He was born in Virginia to Palestinian parents who had chased the American Dream from the West Bank to Roanoke. They opened a couple of restaurants and a convenience store and had great hopes for their three sons - which did not include their eldest joining the Army, even if just as a way to get a free education. Hasan graduated from Virginia Tech with honors in biochemistry, then went to medical school, where, an uncle told the Los Angeles Times, he decided to major in psychiatry after he fainted while watching a baby being born.

At that point, his fanaticism did not extend past cheering on his Washington Redskins. He did, however, regularly attend services at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md., helped at its homeless shelter and even applied to an annual matrimonial center that acts as a kind of matchmaking service. He described himself in his application as "quiet and reserved until more familiar with person. Funny, caring and personable."

"He wanted a woman who prayed five times a day and wears a hijab," the former imam Faizul Khan told the New York Times, "and maybe the women he met were not complying with those things." It was after his parents died that Hasan became more conspicuously devout. At Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he completed his psychiatric training, he was reportedly reprimanded for trying to convert patients to Islam, while castigating those with drug and alcohol issues for their "unholy" behavior. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unfolded, he asserted the right of Muslim Americans to conscientiously object to fighting; his relatives claimed he offered to repay the cost of his medical education in exchange for release from his obligations.

The first alarms began to sound while he was still in training. "He was very vocal about being a Muslim first and holding Shari'a law above the Constitution," says an officer who attended the Pentagon's medical school with Hasan but would speak only off the record because his commanders ordered him not to discuss the case. "When fellow students asked, 'How can you be an officer and not hold to the Constitution?,' he'd get visibly upset - sweaty and nervous - and had no good answers." This officer was so disturbed when Hasan gave a talk asserting that the U.S. was waging a "war on Islam" that he challenged the lieutenant colonel running the course. "I raised my hand and asked, 'Why are you letting this go on? This has nothing to do with environmental health,' " which was the actual focus of the course. " 'I'm just going to let him go,' " replied the lieutenant colonel, who had even approved the topic in advance.

"It was a systemic problem," the officer says. "The same thing was happening at Walter Reed." The vital question for the military and our own security is whether political correctness - or the desire to protect diversity - prevented the Army from recognizing and dealing with a problem in its midst, a problem in plain sight. According to a co-worker, Hasan would not even allow his photo to be taken with female colleagues. "People are afraid to come forward and challenge somebody's ideology," explains Hasan's classmate, "because they're afraid of getting an equal-opportunity complaint that can end careers." NPR reported that top officials at Walter Reed held meetings in the spring of 2008 in which they debated whether Hasan was "psychotic." "Put it this way," an official told NPR. "Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole."


Continued...

[samanthajane13]

Preacher and Provocateur
Hasan's path began to twist about the time he attended the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., one of the largest mosques on the East Coast and home to a charismatic Islamic cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki. Born in New Mexico in 1971 to Yemeni parents and educated at Colorado State University, al-Awlaki was often portrayed as a mainstream, moderate Muslim cleric who asserted that terrorists claiming to be good Muslims had "perverted their religion." But the perception of al-Awlaki shifted as intelligence officials began connecting the dots: they found that he had raised money for Hamas, had met with two of the 9/11 hijackers at his previous mosque in San Diego and had some association with other extremist groups. In April 2001, two 9/11 hijackers worshipped at al-Awlaki's Virginia mosque; the next month, Hasan held his mother's funeral there, though there is no evidence that the two men met.

In 2002, al-Awlaki left the U.S. and eventually returned to Yemen, where his humor, charisma and technological savvy helped him develop a global reputation as an intellectual blood bank for aspiring martyrs. The Fort Dix Six are said to have listened to his sermons, as are some of the Minneapolis youths who traveled to Somalia to join the al-Shabab terrorist group. And last December and January, surveillance of al-Awlaki revealed that he had received as many as 20 e-mails from Hasan.

The FBI-led Washington-area Joint Terrorism Task Force reviewed the transcripts along with the task force's representative at the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS); they reviewed Hasan's personnel file and concluded there was no need to open an investigation. The exchange was just one of hundreds, maybe thousands, that al-Awlaki was having with people in the U.S. The contents of the e-mails seemed relatively innocuous, inquiries about his legitimate area of research - trying to figure out how Muslims in the military are affected when sent to fight against fellow Muslims. Says a counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity: "This wasn't Hasan saying, 'Preacher, bless me because I'm about to martyr myself.' "

The Pentagon said it never heard about the e-mails; thus began the finger-pointing. "Once they're assigned," a senior Pentagon official says of DCIS officers, "they work for the task force, not us." FBI Director Robert Mueller has ordered a review of the bureau's knowledge of Hasan to determine whether "any policies or practices should change based on what we learn." Among other challenges will be figuring out how to distinguish real threats from provocative behavior and how to train agents to be confident enough to make that judgment. At this moment, there are hundreds of thousands of people on terrorist watch lists. "When you have that many people," says a senior Democratic Hill source, "unless you're East Germany, you can't keep track of everyone."

A senior counterterrorism official from the Bush Administration says the FBI was very aware of al-Awlaki's profile; Hasan's emails, even if they sounded like academic inquiries, should have "rung bells," he says. "You don't typically think of John Gotti as a guy you'd write a letter to saying, 'I'm very interested in organized crime and how it works.' " After the shootings, al-Awlaki cheered Hasan on his website for doing his jihadist duty - killing soldiers about to be deployed to kill Muslims: "He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people."

And al-Awlaki was not the only red flag. About six months ago, authorities discovered a Web posting in which the writer, "NidalHasan," compared suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save their colleagues. A senior Administration official tells TIME that Hasan had other foreign connections as well: "It is clear that he had contacts with individuals overseas who have espoused the use of violence like al-Awlaki. It is unclear whether or not it was anything more than just contacts, or if there was any type of operational engagement. It appears as though Major Hasan was inspired by some of this extremist rhetoric and propaganda. But what we are trying to do is make sure that we don't reach conclusions based on just a preliminary review of information that is available to date. That's why we have to go back in, make sure we scour those files."

Congress is bound to ask, How was it possible that even as his performance was poor, his personnel file was being reviewed and his communications with a radical cleric were being analyzed, Hasan was promoted from captain to major last May and dispatched in July to Fort Hood, the largest active Army base in the U.S.? One explanation is a desperate need for mental-health professionals. With its 50,000 soldiers and 150,000 family members and civilian personnel, Fort Hood has the highest toll of military suicides; posttraumatic-stress-disorder cases quadrupled from 2005 to 2007.


Continued...

[samanthajane13]

But others are convinced that his religion protected him from stronger action by the Army. "He'd have to murder the general's wife and daughter on the parade ground at high noon in order to get a serious reprimand," says Ralph Peters, an outspoken retired Army lieutenant colonel who now writes military books and a newspaper column. While stressing "there shouldn't be witch hunts" against Muslims in uniform, Peters insists that "this guy got a pass because he was a Muslim, despite the Army's claim that everybody's green and we're all the same." A top Pentagon official admits there may be some truth to the charge. "We're wondering why some of these strange encounters didn't trigger something more formal," he says. "I think people were overly sensitive about Muslims in the military, and that led to a reluctance to say, 'This guy is nuts.' The Army is going to have to review their procedures to make sure someone can raise issues like this."

Obama's Response
Less than an hour after the shooting began, the Situation Room notified the White House that there had been an event at Fort Hood; Obama was briefed in the Oval Office a half hour later. Reports were all over the place - how many shooters, how many dead. As the day went on, the principals from the White House and Pentagon pushed for clarity as to whether this was part of a broader plot. Obama knew about the al-Awlaki e-mails long before he went to bed that night. "We were looking to see if there might have been any code or anything embedded in that," an official says.

The next morning, Obama ordered all the agencies to do an inventory of their files, collect every scrap they had on Hasan and review how that information had been handled. "We needed to understand what we knew and when we knew it," the official says, "and not to make any preliminary or premature judgments about anything."

Investigators continued to comb Hasan's computer, search his garbage, scrub his phone records. By Saturday, Hasan was awake and talking, though only to his doctors and lawyers. He will face a trial, most likely in a military court, and if convicted, he could become the 16th person sentenced to death under the current military death-penalty system. Ten of the previous 15 had their sentences commuted, and five sit on death row in Fort Leavenworth, Kans.

Meanwhile, the Fort Hood community does what it has had to do all too often: mourn the dead, minister to the living. At least 545 soldiers from Fort Hood have died in Iraq and Afghanistan; now 13 more are gone, ranging in age from 19 to 62. One victim was a newlywed; one was three months pregnant; 19 children were left without a parent. Support groups kicked in, delivering food to the families. Local blood banks were swarmed with donors. The Facebook group Sgt. Kimberly Munley: A Real Hero has close to 24,000 fans and counting.

A President can't go to every memorial service. But this one he had to attend, if only to make sure that the stories got told, the names got spoken - Aaron and Amy, Jason and John, Frederick, Francheska, Juanita, Kham, Libardo, Justin, Russell, Michael. A young President baptized a new Greatest Generation: "We need not look to the past for greatness," he said, "because it is before our very eyes." Our security is their life's work, he said, and peace is their legacy, and freedom their gift. To the great gray sea of soldiers that stood before him, the deaths were a hard reminder of the challenge of protecting all three at the same time.

- Reported by Massimo Calabresi, Bobby Ghosh, Michael Scherer, Mark Thompson and Michael Weisskopf / Washington and Hilary Hylton / Fort Hood


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2009111...FsaGFzYW5mbw--

[samanthajane13]

Army: Fort Hood suspect charged with murder

FORT HOOD, Texas – The Army psychiatrist suspected in a deadly rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, has been charged in a military court with 13 counts of premeditated murder.

U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman Chris Grey told a news conference Thursday at the Texas base that additional charges may also be filed against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

Hasan is suspected of killing 12 soldiers and one civilian in last Thursday's shooting spree at Fort Hood. He was shot and wounded by two police officers at the base, and remains in recovery at an Army hospital in San Antonio. His attorney says he was read the charges at the hospital.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military officials say the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 and wounding 29 in last week's shooting rampage at his military post in Texas will face 13 charges of premeditated murder under the military's legal system. The decision makes him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

A formal announcement about the charges against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is expected later Thursday. Two U.S. military officials described the charges to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the case publicly.

The officials said it is not yet decided whether to charge Hasan with a 14th count of murder related to the death of the unborn child of a pregnant shooting victim.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091112/...lmb3J0aG9vZA--

[samanthajane13]

Fort Hood suspect charged with 13 counts of murder
By ANGELA K. BROWN and LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writers Angela K. Brown And Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 37 mins ago

FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army psychiatrist was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the Fort Hood massacre as he lay in a hospital bed Thursday, while President Barack Obama ordered a review to determine if the government fumbled warning signs of the man's contacts with a radical Islamic cleric.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan could face the death penalty if convicted.

Army officials said they believe Hasan acted alone when he jumped on a table with two handguns last week, shouted "Allahu akbar" and opened fire. The dead included at least three other mental health professionals; 29 were injured.

Additional charges were possible, said Chris Grey, spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command. It had not been decided whether to charge Hasan with the death of the unborn child of a pregnant soldier who died, officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the case publicly.

Meanwhile, Obama ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan to determine whether it was properly shared and acted upon within the government. John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, will oversee the review. The first results are due Nov. 30. Obama also ordered the preservation of the intelligence.

Members of Congress are pressing for a full investigation into why Hasan was not detected and stopped. A Senate hearing on Hasan is scheduled for next week.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, and others have called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan's contacts with a radical imam and others of concern to the U.S., and what they did with the information. Hoekstra confirmed this week that the U.S. government knew of about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and a radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan's repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The FBI said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn't linked to terrorism.

Hasan was charged in the hospital without his lawyers present, said John Galligan, his civilian attorney.

"What I find disturbing is that my client is in ICU, and he's 150 miles south of his defense counsel, and he's being served with the charges," he told The Associated Press. "Given his status as a patient, I'm troubled by this procedure and that I'm not there. I'm in the dark, and that shouldn't be the case. I am mad."

Months before the shootings, doctors and staff overseeing Hasan's training reported viewing him at times as belligerent, defensive and argumentative in his frequent discussions of his Muslim faith, according to a military official familiar with several group discussions about Hasan. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hasan was characterized as a mediocre student and lazy worker, which concerned the doctors and staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a military medical school in Bethesda, Md., the official said.

Even outside the military, Hasan's behavior drew attention. Golam Akhter, a civil engineer from Bethesda, Md., said Thursday that he had spoken with Hasan about 10 times at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring before Hasan left for Texas last summer.

"He used to not believe that 9/11 was solely the work of Middle East people," Akhter said. "His main thing was, 'America is killing Muslims in the Middle East.' That made him very, very upset."

Akhter said he sensed that Hasan was "a troubled man" and feels guilty for not alerting others.

"I tried to convince him to try to be a moderate Muslim," Akhter said.

Hasan repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates at Walter Reed, his superiors and even in his research work, the military official said. His behavior, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views.

But some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan's behavior, the official said.

Some questioned Hasan's sympathies as an Army psychiatrist, whether he would be more aligned with Muslims fighting U.S. troops. There also was some concern about whether he should continue to serve in the military, the official said.

But they saw no signs of mental problems, no risk factors that would predict violent behavior. And the group discussed other factors that suggested Hasan would continue to thrive in the military, factors that mitigated their concerns, the official said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he was appalled at news leaks about the investigation into last week's deadly shootings at Fort Hood.

"Frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who's leaking on the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career-ender," he told reporters traveling with him to Oshkosh, Wis. "Everybody ought to shut up."

___

Baldor reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Brett J. Blackledge, Richard Lardner, Devlin Barrett, Pauline Jelinek, Eileen Sullivan and Pamela Hess in Washington; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/..._hood_shooting

[deacon]

Originally Posted by samanthajane13

Fort Hood suspect charged with 13 counts of murder
By ANGELA K. BROWN and LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writers Angela K. Brown And Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 37 mins ago

FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army psychiatrist was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the Fort Hood massacre as he lay in a hospital bed Thursday, while President Barack Obama ordered a review to determine if the government fumbled warning signs of the man's contacts with a radical Islamic cleric.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan could face the death penalty if convicted.

Army officials said they believe Hasan acted alone when he jumped on a table with two handguns last week, shouted "Allahu akbar" and opened fire. The dead included at least three other mental health professionals; 29 were injured.

Additional charges were possible, said Chris Grey, spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command. It had not been decided whether to charge Hasan with the death of the unborn child of a pregnant soldier who died, officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the case publicly.

Meanwhile, Obama ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan to determine whether it was properly shared and acted upon within the government. John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, will oversee the review. The first results are due Nov. 30. Obama also ordered the preservation of the intelligence.

Members of Congress are pressing for a full investigation into why Hasan was not detected and stopped. A Senate hearing on Hasan is scheduled for next week.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, and others have called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan's contacts with a radical imam and others of concern to the U.S., and what they did with the information. Hoekstra confirmed this week that the U.S. government knew of about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and a radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan's repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The FBI said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn't linked to terrorism.

Hasan was charged in the hospital without his lawyers present, said John Galligan, his civilian attorney.

"What I find disturbing is that my client is in ICU, and he's 150 miles south of his defense counsel, and he's being served with the charges," he told The Associated Press. "Given his status as a patient, I'm troubled by this procedure and that I'm not there. I'm in the dark, and that shouldn't be the case. I am mad."

Months before the shootings, doctors and staff overseeing Hasan's training reported viewing him at times as belligerent, defensive and argumentative in his frequent discussions of his Muslim faith, according to a military official familiar with several group discussions about Hasan. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hasan was characterized as a mediocre student and lazy worker, which concerned the doctors and staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a military medical school in Bethesda, Md., the official said.

Even outside the military, Hasan's behavior drew attention. Golam Akhter, a civil engineer from Bethesda, Md., said Thursday that he had spoken with Hasan about 10 times at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring before Hasan left for Texas last summer.

"He used to not believe that 9/11 was solely the work of Middle East people," Akhter said. "His main thing was, 'America is killing Muslims in the Middle East.' That made him very, very upset."

Akhter said he sensed that Hasan was "a troubled man" and feels guilty for not alerting others.

"I tried to convince him to try to be a moderate Muslim," Akhter said.

Hasan repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates at Walter Reed, his superiors and even in his research work, the military official said. His behavior, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views.

But some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan's behavior, the official said.

Some questioned Hasan's sympathies as an Army psychiatrist, whether he would be more aligned with Muslims fighting U.S. troops. There also was some concern about whether he should continue to serve in the military, the official said.

But they saw no signs of mental problems, no risk factors that would predict violent behavior. And the group discussed other factors that suggested Hasan would continue to thrive in the military, factors that mitigated their concerns, the official said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he was appalled at news leaks about the investigation into last week's deadly shootings at Fort Hood.

"Frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who's leaking on the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career-ender," he told reporters traveling with him to Oshkosh, Wis. "Everybody ought to shut up."

___

Baldor reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Brett J. Blackledge, Richard Lardner, Devlin Barrett, Pauline Jelinek, Eileen Sullivan and Pamela Hess in Washington; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/..._hood_shooting

They dropped the ball due to political correctness.

[samanthajane13]

Defense lawyer: Fort Hood suspect may be paralyzed
By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer Angela K. Brown, Associated Press Writer – 48 mins ago

FORT HOOD, Texas – The attorney for the Army psychiatrist accused of killing fellow soldiers at Fort Hood says doctors have told the soldier he may be paralyzed from the waist down.

Attorney John Galligan told The Associated Press on Friday that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan told him that he has no feeling in his legs and doctors say the condition may be permanent. Galligan says Hasan also told him he had extreme pain in his hands.

Hasan was shot by police officers responding to last week's shootings at Fort Hood. Galligan spoke with him Thursday in the intensive care unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the attack at the sprawling Texas post that also left 29 people wounded.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — Accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was coherent during his first meeting with his defense lawyer in a hospital intensive care unit, the attorney said Friday.

Civilian lawyer John Galligan told the CBS "Early Show" that Hasan was alert but began to fade toward the end of their hour-long session Thursday.

Hasan was charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the attack at the sprawling Texas post that also left 29 people injured. The Army psychiatrist was shot several times and remains hospitalized. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Galligan said Hasan's medical condition remains "extremely serious." But he says Hasan was alert enough to know he was speaking with his lawyer.

"He understands who I am. We can talk .... But I was only there for an hour and towards the end of the one-hour session, I could tell I was kind of pushing him in terms of my ability to keep him fresh and alert in a discussion with me," Galligan said.

President Barack Obama has ordered a review to determine if warning signs were mishandled of contact between Hasan and a radical Islamic cleric who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.

Obama said he wanted all intelligence related to Hasan preserved and reviewed to determine whether it was properly shared and acted upon within the government. The first results are due Nov. 30. John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, will oversee the review.

Members of Congress also are pressing for a full investigation into why Hasan was not detected and stopped. A Senate hearing on Hasan is scheduled for next week.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan's repeated contact with the cleric. The FBI said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn't linked to terrorism.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, and others have called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan's contacts with a radical imam and others of concern to the U.S., and what they did with the information. Hoekstra confirmed this week that the U.S. government knew of about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and a radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

Staff overseeing Hasan's training had reported that he was at times belligerent in his frequent discussions about his Muslim faith and was considered a lazy worker, according to a military official familiar but not authorized to speak publicly about several group discussions about Hasan.

Army officials have said they believe Hasan acted alone when he jumped on a table with two handguns last week, shouted "Allahu akbar" and opened fire inside a building at Fort Hood. The 13 people killed included a pregnant soldier and at least three other mental health professionals.

Hasan could face additional charges, said Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman Chris Grey. It had not been decided whether to charge Hasan with the death of the soldier's unborn child, officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the case publicly.

Hasan was charged in the hospital without his lawyers present, Galligan said.

"What I find disturbing is that my client is in ICU, and he's 150 miles south of his defense counsel, and he's being served with the charges," he told The Associated Press. "Given his status as a patient, I'm troubled by this procedure and that I'm not there. I'm in the dark, and that shouldn't be the case. I am mad."

Months before the shootings, doctors and staff overseeing Hasan's training reported viewing him at times as defensive and argumentative in his frequent discussions of his faith, according to the military official familiar with several group discussions about Hasan. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hasan was characterized as a mediocre student and lazy worker, which concerned the doctors and staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, a military medical school in Bethesda, Md., the official said.

Even outside the military, Hasan's behavior drew attention. Golam Akhter, a civil engineer from Bethesda, Md., said Thursday that he had spoken with Hasan about 10 times at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring before Hasan left for Texas last summer.

"He used to not believe that 9/11 was solely the work of Middle East people," Akhter said. "His main thing was, 'America is killing Muslims in the Middle East.' That made him very, very upset."

Akhter said he sensed that Hasan was "a troubled man" and feels guilty for not alerting others.

"I tried to convince him to try to be a moderate Muslim," Akhter said.

Hasan repeatedly referred to his strong religious views in discussions with classmates at Walter Reed, his superiors and even in his research work, the military official said. His behavior, while at times perceived as intense and combative, was not unlike the zeal of others with strong religious views.

But some doctors and staff were concerned that their unfamiliarity with the Muslim faith would lead them to unfairly single out Hasan's behavior, the official said.

Some questioned Hasan's sympathies as an Army psychiatrist, whether he would be more aligned with Muslims fighting U.S. troops. There also was some concern about whether he should continue to serve in the military, the official said.

But they saw no signs of mental problems, no risk factors that would predict violent behavior. And the group discussed other factors that suggested Hasan would continue to thrive in the military, factors that mitigated their concerns, the official said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he was appalled at news leaks about the investigation into last week's deadly shootings at Fort Hood.

"Frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who's leaking on the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career-ender," he told reporters traveling with him to Oshkosh, Wis. "Everybody ought to shut up."

___

Baldor reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Brett J. Blackledge, Richard Lardner, Devlin Barrett, Pauline Jelinek, Eileen Sullivan and Pamela Hess in Washington; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/..._hood_shooting

[samanthajane13]

How the Military Will Try Nidal Hasan
By Hilary Hylton Friday, Nov. 13, 2009

From the moment Major Nidal Malik Hasan was recognized as the alleged assailant in the killings of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, a complex, keenly balanced legal process kicked in: the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The code demands both speed and balance, experts say, and sets up the process for a court-martial that would have the 39-year-old Army psychiatrist judged by a jury of his fellow officers not for what motivated him but simply for what he did.

Justice is likely to be speedy. The UCMJ has no provision for bail and the prosecution is required to bring its case to trial in 120 days. Hasan has probably already been notified of his rights under Article 12 of the UCMJ, which is similar to the Miranda warning given to civilians. Article 12, however, preceded Miranda by 11 years and is more restrictive.

Civilian police can communicate with suspects prior to reading them their Miranda rights, which usually is given as part of a custodial interrogation. But military investigators must advise suspects of their right to remain silent prior to any communication, even a chance or informal conversation, bedside or on the street, according to Scott L. Silliman, a retired military lawyer and head of the Duke University Law School Center on Ethics and National Security.

It is all part of the UCMJ's attempt to screen the process from undue influence. "The military is a hierarchical society," Silliman says, and so the rules of the UCMJ seek to protect the proceedings from any presumed or perceived command influence — including that of the President, who is at the very top of the chain of command. Once a suspect has been informed that he or she is under investigation, the 120-day clock starts ticking toward the trial. (The 120-day schedule may be extended any time the defense is granted a delay.)

Hasan's attorney, James P. Galligan, a retired Fort Hood military judge, has said he has instructed his client not to talk to investigators. Meanwhile, Silliman says, investigators are likely assembling evidence from a multitude of other sources to draw up a list of charges, which could include anything from capital murder to taking a gun to the base. Hasan also may face a noncapital charge of murdering an unborn child because one of the victims, Francheska Velez, was three months pregnant. Both sides will probably want to have Hasan undergo psychiatric evaluation, with the defense perhaps having an eye on mitigating any sentence. Galligan is unlikely to be able mount an insanity defense for his client because military law makes it difficult. It requires a finding of severe disability or defects that render the defendant incapable of discerning a wrongful act.

While the debate swirls about Hasan's motives, connections and communications, opting for a military trial avoids the legal mire of treason or terrorism charges. Military prosecutors will have a Dragnet view of the case — "just the facts" as Jack Webb, star of the television cop classic was fond of saying. Why he did it is not essential, Silliman says, although the defense may seek to cloud the picture with digressions into motivation. Prosecutors will focus on what the accused intended to do and how he allegedly did it: when he bought the gun, what he said to neighbors and how he acted on the morning of the crime. The jury will be composed of 12 of Hasan's fellow officers who will have to answer a narrower question: Did Major Nidal Malik Hasan murder 13 people and, if found guilty, how should he pay for his crimes?

There is little secrecy over evidence. The UCMJ's version of the civilian grand jury takes place early in the 120-day process and is much more open and balanced. In the hearing, the prosecution will lay out its prima facie case before a military judge, and the defense will have an opportunity to put in evidence and cross-examine witnesses. Out of that hearing, specific charges will be issued and recommended to an officer with the rank of general in Hasan's direct chain of command. That commanding general will decide on what charges will be made and where the trial will take place. All charges must be brought at once, Silliman says, unlike in the civilian system where prosecutors can pick and choose.

The last court-martial to hold the national attention was the 1971 trial of Lieut. William Calley. "It has been a very long time since a case has engaged the public nationwide for a sustained period," says Eugene R. Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice who teaches military law at Yale. The charges that Calley directed the massacre of 104 Vietnamese villagers in 1968 fed the national debate over the war and his 1971 trial underlined the country's divisions. Politics intruded into the Calley case when Congress refused to release secret testimony about the incident. President Richard Nixon mitigated Calley's sentence over the objections of Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Freed by an appeals court after only 3½ years of military house arrest, Calley, who had been sentenced to a life term of hard labor for the premeditated murder of 22 villagers, only recently suggested some remorse.

Lessons have been learned since the Calley case, Silliman says, not the least of which is the danger of political intrusion and command influence. While members of Congress may enter the hot debate, President Barack Obama as Commander in Chief must be wary not to exert "unlawful command influence" in his pronouncements on the case, Silliman says, just as President George W. Bush and Administration officials in the chain of command were cautious in the Abu Ghraib cases. So far, Obama has not stepped over the line, Silliman says, by specifically naming Hasan. This is as close as the President has gotten: "For what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice — in this world, and the next," Obama declared during his speech on Nov. 9 at the Fort Hood memorial service. "We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes."


http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...s-nation-yahoo

[samanthajane13]

Some Fort Hood victims' funerals set for Saturday
By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press Writer – 34 mins ago

KIEL, Wis. – When Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger joined the U.S. Army Reserves after the 2001 terrorist attacks, she vowed to hunt down Osama bin Laden. When her mother said she couldn't do it alone, the soldier defiantly told her, "Watch me."

Krueger and several of the other 12 victims of the Fort Hood shooting rampage were set to be mourned at funerals across the country Saturday.

On Friday, hundreds packed into the Kiel High School gymnasium for a visitation for Krueger, 29, who was remembered as a determined, energetic young woman.

"We know what happened, but we don't know why it happened," said Geneva Isely, 57. "To give her all the way she did — and on United States soil. Just unbelievable."

Krueger was set to deploy to Afghanistan for a second time in December and had recently arrived at Fort Hood for training. She had been studying psychology at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and was a mental health specialist who wanted to help soldiers cope with combat stress.

She also loved playing sports, shooting pool and was a partygoer who sang karaoke and belted out songs by rapper Eminem.

"Her smile would light up any room, her energy would envelope all of those around her," her parents, Jeri and David Krueger, said in a statement. "It is that smile and that energy that keeps us going throughout this difficult time."

She was to be buried in a private service.

Funerals also were planned Saturday for Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, Utah; Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, 32, an Indiana native who lived in Evans, Ga., with his wife and daughter; Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif.; Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, 22, of Frederick, Okla.; and Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolingbrook, Ill.

Utah's congressional delegation, governor and the president of the Mormon church were among those expected to attend services for Nemelka, an Eagle Scout who carried on a family tradition by joining the Army a little more than a year ago.

"Aaron was a man of few words but deep feelings and a gentle disposition," according to an obituary in Salt Lake City newspapers. "His beautiful smile and cheerful, fun-loving personality endeared him to his many friends and family members."

In Plymouth, Ind., small American flags were to be distributed downtown to honor DeCrow. His body was to be escorted from a funeral home to a church by military members, police officers and Indiana Patriot Guard motorcyclists.

"It tears at your heart that it was someone from our community," Mayor Mark Senter said. "People will be out to support him and all that he did for our country."

In Kiel, an eastern Wisconsin town of 3,500 and self-proclaimed "little city that does big things," Krueger knew Mayor Robert Werdeo Jr. simply as "Uncle Bob."

"She had that constant, ever-loving smile — except when she was playing pool. Then she was there to win," Werdeo said. "Just a very strong-willed, determined, beautiful young lady."

Werdeo said Krueger always wore an Army hat or shirt around town and received a tattoo shortly before leaving for Fort Hood, where authorities allege Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at a processing center last week.

With a tattered flag in the background, Krueger's tattoo read: "All gave some. Some gave all. Sacrifice."

(This version CORRECTS RECASTS lead to correct when the conversation between Krueger and her mother took place. Minor edits to conform,trim. ADDs background on Krueger. Multimedia: An interactive detailing the events of the Fort Hood shooting, the biography of suspected shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, and evolving victim profiles is available in the _national/fort_hood_shooting/ folder.)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091114/..._hood_funerals

[samanthajane13]

Soldiers killed in Fort Hood shooting are mourned
By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press Writer – 10 mins ago

KIEL, Wis. – The hundreds of people who lined the main street of a small Indiana city Saturday fell solemnly silent as a white hearse passed by on its way to the church. Mourners streamed into a Wisconsin gymnasium to remember a soldier who once promised to take down Osama bin Laden.

Across the country, many stood before several flag-draped coffins during funeral services for several of the 13 victims of the Nov. 5 shootings in Fort Hood, Texas.

In Plymouth, Ind. Sheila Ellabarger had placed two foot-high American flags in the grass where she watched the procession for Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow. She said her children went to school with DeCrow and his wife — his high school sweetheart — and she knew other members of his family.

"He was killed by a terrorist in my mind but he was still killed in the line of duty. We owe him a debt of gratitude, him and his family and the other soldiers. We owe them our lives, our freedom," Ellabarger said.

During services in Norman, Okla., snapshots from U.S. Army Spc. Jason Dean Hunt's recent wedding were projected near his casket. The 22-year-old was described as a loving husband and family man as well as a soldier who left a legacy of selflessness and service.

"We may never find out the reason for what occurred on that fateful day at Fort Hood, Texas," said Ross Ridge, the deputy commanding general at Fort Sill, Okla. "The military community are all grieving here today over the loss of this dedicated soldier."

The high school gymnasium in Kiel, Wis. was filled Saturday for Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger's funeral. A visitation had been held there Friday where the 29-year-old was remembered as a determined, energetic young woman.

She joined the U.S. Army Reserves after the 2001 terrorist attacks and vowed to hunt down bin Laden. When her mother said she couldn't do it alone, the soldier defiantly told her, "Watch me."

Krueger was to deploy to Afghanistan for a second time in December and had recently been sent for training at Fort Hood, where authorities allege Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at a processing center.

Krueger had been studying psychology at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and was a mental health specialist who wanted to help soldiers cope with combat stress.

"Her smile would light up any room, her energy would envelope all of those around her," her parents, Jeri and David Krueger, said in a statement. "It is that smile and that energy that keeps us going throughout this difficult time."

She was what they call "Army Proud." Krueger always wore a U.S. Army hat or shirt around town and sported a tattoo that had a tattered American flag and read: "All gave some. Some gave all. Sacrifice."

Other funerals on Saturday were for Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif. and Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolingbrook, Ill.

Among the mourners at Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka's service were Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

The 19-year-old Nemelka, of West Jordan, Utah joined the Army a little more than a year ago and was preparing to deploy to Iraq.

"Aaron was a man of few words but deep feelings and a gentle disposition," according to an obituary in Salt Lake City newspapers. "His beautiful smile and cheerful, fun-loving personality endeared him to his many friends and family members."

___

Associated Press writers Rochelle Hines in Norman, Okla., Rick Callahan in Plymouth, Ind.; Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee and Jennifer Dobner in West Jordan, Utah contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091114/..._hood_funerals

[samanthajane13]

Soldiers Killed in Fort Hood Shooting Are Mourned
Mourners nationwide attend funerals to remember soldiers killed in Fort Hood shooting massacre
By RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press Writer
KIEL, Wis. November 14, 2009 (AP)

The hundreds of people who lined the main street of a small Indiana city Saturday fell solemnly silent as a white hearse passed by on its way to the church. Mourners streamed into a Wisconsin gymnasium to remember a soldier who once promised to take down Osama bin Laden.

Across the country, many stood before several flag-draped coffins during funeral services for several of the 13 victims of the Nov. 5 shootings in Fort Hood, Texas.

In Plymouth, Ind. Sheila Ellabarger had placed two foot-high American flags in the grass where she watched the procession for Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow. She said her children went to school with DeCrow and his wife — his high school sweetheart — and she knew other members of his family.

"He was killed by a terrorist in my mind but he was still killed in the line of duty. We owe him a debt of gratitude, him and his family and the other soldiers. We owe them our lives, our freedom," Ellabarger said.

During services in Norman, Okla., snapshots from U.S. Army Spc. Jason Dean Hunt's recent wedding were projected near his casket. The 22-year-old was described as a loving husband and family man as well as a soldier who left a legacy of selflessness and service.

"We may never find out the reason for what occurred on that fateful day at Fort Hood, Texas," said Ross Ridge, the deputy commanding general at Fort Sill, Okla. "The military community are all grieving here today over the loss of this dedicated soldier."

The high school gymnasium in Kiel, Wis. was filled Saturday for Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger's funeral. A visitation had been held there Friday where the 29-year-old was remembered as a determined, energetic young woman.

She joined the U.S. Army Reserves after the 2001 terrorist attacks and vowed to hunt down bin Laden. When her mother said she couldn't do it alone, the soldier defiantly told her, "Watch me."

Krueger was to deploy to Afghanistan for a second time in December and had recently been sent for training at Fort Hood, where authorities allege Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at a processing center.

Krueger had been studying psychology at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and was a mental health specialist who wanted to help soldiers cope with combat stress.

"Her smile would light up any room, her energy would envelope all of those around her," her parents, Jeri and David Krueger, said in a statement. "It is that smile and that energy that keeps us going throughout this difficult time."

She was what they call "Army Proud." Krueger always wore a U.S. Army hat or shirt around town and sported a tattoo that had a tattered American flag and read: "All gave some. Some gave all. Sacrifice."

Other funerals on Saturday were for Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif. and Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolingbrook, Ill.

Among the mourners at Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka's service were Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

The 19-year-old Nemelka, of West Jordan, Utah joined the Army a little more than a year ago and was preparing to deploy to Iraq.

"Aaron was a man of few words but deep feelings and a gentle disposition," according to an obituary in Salt Lake City newspapers. "His beautiful smile and cheerful, fun-loving personality endeared him to his many friends and family members."

———

Associated Press writers Rochelle Hines in Norman, Okla., Rick Callahan in Plymouth, Ind.; Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee and Jennifer Dobner in West Jordan, Utah contributed to this report.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9082725

[BeastofBears]

Originally Posted by deacon

They dropped the ball due to political correctness.

We're doomed.

And unlike Obama, I see no need to delay the investigation: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...investigation/

[deacon]

Originally Posted by BeastofBears

We're doomed.

And unlike Obama, I see no need to delay the investigation: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...investigation/

Nor do I. The Army did nothing when they had reason to suspect this guy. IMO There is no excuse for this.

[samanthajane13]

Report: Imam says he didn't pressure Hasan
The Associated Press
Updated: November 16, 2009, 8:39 AM

A radical Muslim cleric with suspected links to al-Qaida considered himself a confidant of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the Fort Hood shootings, The Washington Post reported Monday.

But the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, insisted in an interview with a Yemeni journalist contacted by the Post that he did not pressure Hasan to harm Americans. Al-Awlaki is a former imam at a Falls Church, Va., mosque where Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped.

Al-Awlaki, a native-born U.S. citizen, left the United States in 2002, eventually traveling to Yemen. He said Hasan first e-mailed him in December 2008. Eventually, al-Awlaki said, Hasan came to view him as a confidant.

"It was clear from his e-mails that Nidal trusted me," al-Awlaki told the journalist. "Nidal told me: 'I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else.'"

He showed the journalist his correspondence with Hasan but would not provide it to the Post. He said Hasan questioned the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and said the Army psychiatrist cited Islamic law that demanded "that what America was doing should be confronted."

"So Nidal was providing evidence to Anwar, not vice versa," said the Yemeni reporter, Abdulelah Hider Shaea.

Hasan, 39, was charged last Thursday with the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood, in which 13 people were killed.

The imam told Shaea that the Fort Hood attack was acceptable under Islam. "America was the one who first brought the battle to Muslim countries," al-Awlaki said.

Al-Awlaki also denounced Muslims who condemned the attack. "They say American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan should be killed," the imam argued, "so how can they say the American soldier should not be killed at the moment they are going to Iraq and Afghanistan?"

Al-Awlaki is considered to have deep and close links with al-Qaida, former U.S. intelligence officials have told The Associated Press. In 2001, al-Awlaki had contact with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, according to law enforcement officials.


http://www.buffalonews.com/260/story/863118.html

[samanthajane13]

Fort Hood slayings prompt full Pentagon review
By ANNE GEARAN and PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer Anne Gearan And Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 24 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Worried that the Army may have missed red flags about the alleged shooter in the Fort Hood massacre, the Pentagon will likely launch an inquiry into how all the military services keep watch on other volatile soldiers hidden in their ranks, officials said Tuesday.

The probe, still in the planning stages, would be a broad examination ranging beyond the specific case of Army psychiatrist Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan, officials said. The inquiry, they said, could look at personnel policies and the availability of mental health services for troubled troops.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants a unified probe that goes beyond the Army, but has not decided how far-reaching the inquiry would be or who would lead it, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday.

"There are issues that need to be looked at department-wide, and the focus at this point is trying to figure out some of these questions," Morrell said.

The Army's No. 2 officer bluntly said Tuesday that officials fear more people like Hasan may be undetected inside the armed forces.

"I think we always have to be concerned about that," Army Vice-Chief of Staff Peter Chiarelli said as he outlined separate efforts to curb rising suicide rates in the Army. The service has been the combat force most affected by the stress of fighting two wars.

The Army has been preparing for its own examination of what went wrong in the Hasan case and ways to prevent a similar attack. That probe could stand alone or be part of a larger inquiry.

Hasan apparently slipped through cracks in the Army's personnel and mental health systems, keeping his job and readying for overseas deployment to Afghanistan even though aspects of his behavior and statements had alarmed co-workers and others.

Hasan, an Army major, is accused of killing 13 people when he opened fire Nov. 5 on mostly unarmed soldiers and civilians at the Texas base. He is charged with murder and is expected to be tried in a military court.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey had said that the service would take a hard look at itself following the deaths.

Any inquiry would have to be careful not to overlap the criminal investigation and legal case against Hasan.

Chiarelli said the Army has begun collecting information that would go into the investigation. He would not discuss the probe beyond that, but said the Army is trying to keep better tabs on mental health and improve services for the mentally ill or troubled.

The investigation would consider some questions Morrell described as immediate, although he would not be specific, and some he said will take longer to frame and sort through.

Another official said there will be a speedy look at whether the military has missed danger signs in other cases. Still, another said, one possibility would be to bring in outsiders to examine practices and safeguards. Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still being organized.

Two military officials said Tuesday that Casey is looking at forming an investigative panel. It would look at Hasan as a whole, his career development and at what point someone should have or might have raised an alarm, one of the officials said.

The proposed Army probe would focus on Hasan's six years at Washington's Walter Reed Medical Center, where he worked as a psychiatrist before he was transferred to Fort Hood in July, one said.

The doctors who oversaw Hasan's medical training had discussed at a meeting concerns about Hasan's overly zealous religious views and strange behavior months before the attack, a military official told The Associated Press last week.

Hasan also was characterized as a mediocre student and lazy worker, but the doctors saw no evidence that he was violent or a threat. The military official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting.

The FBI learned late last year of Hasan's repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. President Barack Obama already has ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies.

___

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091117/...J0aG9vZHNsYXk-

[samanthajane13]

SAN ANTONIO – An attorney for the Army psychiatrist charged in the mass shooting at Fort Hood says his client will have his first court hearing in his hospital room on Saturday.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's civilian attorney, John Galligan, said Friday that military prosecutors notified him of their plans for the hearing at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Hasan has been recovering there since the Nov. 5 rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 wounded. Hasan was shot by civilian members of Fort Hood's police force.

The hearing is to determine whether Hasan will be placed in pre-trial confinement — which usually means jail. But Galligan says he'll argue that Hasan should remain in intensive care because he is paralyzed and still needs hospital care.

Fort Hood officials didn't immediately return a call about the hearing.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091120/...R5aG9zcGl0YWw-

[samanthajane13]

Fort Hood suspect ordered held until court-martial
By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer Angela K. Brown, Associated Press Writer – Sun Nov 22, 3:58 am ET

FORT WORTH, Texas – The Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood will be confined until his military trial, initially staying in a hospital where he is recovering from gunshot wounds, his attorney said Saturday.

During a hearing at Maj. Nidal Hasan's hospital room in San Antonio on Saturday, a magistrate ruled that there was probable cause that Hasan committed the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood, said his civilian attorney, John Galligan. Hasan has been at Brooke Army Medical Center since the shooting, and his attorney said Hasan has been told he has permanent paralysis.

Galligan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the judge also ordered Hasan to pretrial confinement, which usually means jail, until his court-martial. The military justice system does not have bail for defendants.

The magistrate ruled that Hasan will initially remain in the hospital, where he is in intensive care, Galligan said.

Saturday's hearing was closed to the media. Officials at Fort Hood, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Worth, declined to comment.

Galligan said Hasan has no feeling from the chest down and has limited movement in his arms.

Hasan was shot by civilian members of Fort Hood's police force after the shooting spree in a crowded building where soldiers must go before they are deployed to finalize wills, update vaccinations and get vision and dental screenings.

Hasan has been under guard at the hospital, Galligan said, and military officials have not told him how the pretrial confinement status will change anything.

"I don't know what rights and privileges he had that will now be changed, such as visitors of if they'll open his mail," Galligan said. "There are still many issues that haven't been addressed. I feel like I just wasted a day."

Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder. Authorities have not said whether they will seek the death penalty, his attorney said.

Galligan said he is concerned about where Hasan will be moved once he's released from the hospital, but he does not know when that will happen.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091122/..._hood_shooting