Pentagon finds mistakes by officers over Hasan

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military remains vulnerable to another Fort Hood-like massacre with religious radicalization on the rise and too little attention being paid to internal threats, senior Pentagon officials said Friday.

An internal investigation into the shooting at the Texas Army post in November found that several officers failed to use “appropriate judgment and standards” in overseeing the career of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan and that their actions should be investigated immediately.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, has been charged with killing 13 people.

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

Lawmakers including Rep. Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, and Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn called the findings unacceptable.

“We go to great lengths to keep our troops safe in overseas theaters of combat; when they return home, we cannot let our guard down,” said Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A separate White House assessment concluded the government doesn’t do enough to share information on “disaffected individuals” and that closer scrutiny of some information is needed by intelligence and law-enforcement officials.

Of particular concern is “self-radicalization” by individuals seeking out extremist views, said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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

The Hasan case has taken on heightened importance in recent weeks because of its parallels to the attempted bombing of a Detroit- bound passenger jet. Both cases are linked to a radical cleric in Yemen and expose a failure by intelligence officials to prevent the attacks.

According to two officials familiar with the case, as many as eight Army officers could face discipline for failing to do anything when Hasan displayed erratic behavior early in his military career. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because that information has not been publicly released.

The officers supervised Hasan when he was a medical student and during his early work as an Army psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Hasan was described as a loner with lazy work habits and a fixation on his Muslim religion. He was passed along from office to office and job to job despite professional failings that included missed or failed exams and physical fitness requirements.