Radio host Ingraham distorted my words, then cut my mike

I tried to have a real conversation about Fort Hood with the conservative talker, but she wasn't interested

By Mark Benjamin

Note to Laura Ingraham: If you are going to selectively edit my TV quotes to construct a straw man argument, don’t invite me on your radio show to discuss it. The problem, of course, is that it is pretty easy to point this out when I appear as a guest. And the wonders of Google allow anybody to pull my full quotes, later, and write about it.

Of course, you could always just cut off my microphone if you don’t like what I have to say about that. It worked today.

(I didn’t know who Ingraham was either. She is a right-wing radio host, sort of a poor man’s Ann Coulter. I say poor man’s Ann Coulter because, for example, earlier on Tuesday Ingraham’s Web site featured photos of Nancy Pelosi and Steven Tyler side-by-side, with a caption that reads, ‘Separated at Birth?’ That’s so funny. Get it? Nancy Pelosi looks like a man!)

Laura outlined my role as Straw Man within minutes of my picking up the phone for the interview. My part, it seemed, was to play the lefty who denied that Muslim extremism might have played a role in the motivation behind the Fort Hood massacre. I was the guy arguing that as an Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan suffered stress from counseling soldiers back from war and he snapped, simple as that.

“You are stating that you don’t think religion, or the religious fervor of this particular person, Hasan, had, really, any impact on this whatsoever,” she alleged early on.

Hmmm, I thought. That’s strange. “No,” I pointed out. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I think we have a complicated situation here.”

Not complicated to her. Ingraham’s investigation has already resulted in some conclusive results, which she shared with me. “What’s complicated?” she stammered. “He is screaming Allah-u-Akbar! He is e-mailing al-Qaida and asking one of the procurement officers for Osama bin Laden what he can do to forward the Jihad in the United States,” she announced. “And we are saying this is all that complicated?”

She then ran a quote from my appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show” last Thursday: “I certainly have met mental healthcare providers in the military who, after sitting all day long and listening to some really disturbing tales,” I said — in part — “and in combination with the fact that they are overwhelmed, overworked, don’t have resources to do their jobs, become extremely stressed and frazzled. There is no reason to not think that this could ultimately lead to that kind of a conclusion.”

Aha! Ingraham pounced. “So you did say that someone who is stressed and frazzled could be led to do this horrible act!” she said, calling my analysis “lazy.”

“You never talked about the crazy Jihadi ideas,” she went on, “I don’t believe, with Rachel Maddow. Did you?”

“I believe I did,” I responded.

What Ingraham did not say is that she had deleted the sentences I said immediately prior to the quote she used. Immediately before that Maddow quote, I had noted, “Well, it certainly could be a combination of factors. There are people who believe that this is a person who is suffering from some kind of secondary post-traumatic stress from treating soldiers,” I noted. “And there are people who believe he was somehow influenced by Muslim extremism. I think it could be a combination of both.”

I then noted on Ingraham’s radio show that there “obviously was a religious thing” going on with the story, as I said on TV.

“I’m surprised you are saying that,” she fired back. “I’m glad you are saying that.”

“I’ve been saying that for days,” I pointed out. “I’ve done five TV hits in the past week, which obviously you did not watch.” (In fact, the day after Maddow, I appeared on “Countdown With Keith Olbermann.” On Olbermann’s show I said, in part, “I mean, we’ve got a guy who clearly had a pretty twisted version of Islam and was getting, you know, increasingly militant.”)

“Well,” Ingraham admitted. “I don’t watch MSNBC often. Nor does anybody,” she said. “I did see the Rachel Maddow piece and I’m pretty sure you did not mention Jihadism.”

True. I mentioned “Muslim extremism.” And in the world of pixie dust, fairies and death panels, I guess that’s not the same. Up is down. Black is white. I didn’t say what I said.

At one point, Ingraham went so far as to suggest I was blaming U.S. troops for the massacre, since their experiences in war were so troubling. She summarized my alleged argument as, “Yeah. We suck.”

Later, via e-mail, I sent Ingraham my entire quote from Maddow and asked her if what she did on her show “was an accurate portrayal of my position.”

“Not playing an entire previous interview of a guest is hardly misrepresentation,” she responded, though I had not sent along the full transcript.

During the radio interview Tuesday, Ingraham apparently became frustrated with my efforts to discuss this matter, telling her producer to “put down his mike or this ends right here.”

I then found that my end of the conversation had become muted. I could no longer be heard on the radio — only she could. So, I hung up. In an e-mail afterward, Ingraham recounted this as, “It was your choice to hang up before the interview was over.”

Finally, something accurate. Technically.

“Oh, he hung up,” she’d said on the radio after she cut off my mike. “The left really don’t want to have a conversation.”

Audio of the interview is below. Thanks to Media Matters for providing it.

: Mark Benjamin is a national correspondent for Salon based in Washington, D.C. Read his other articles here. More Mark Benjamin

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Fort Hood suspect condemned ’09 shootings

A year before he admitted to planning his own attack, Pfc. Naser Abdo requested conscientious observer status

By Jamie Stengle, Associated Press

Topics:U.S. Military, Fort Hood Shooting

As Pfc. Naser Abdo beseeched officials to grant him conscientious objector status and release him from the military, he condemned a fellow Muslim soldier accused of shooting 13 people to death at Fort Hood. Such acts, he wrote, “run counter to what I believe in as a Muslim.”

Less than a year later, officials say Abdo has admitted planning to launch another attack on Fort Hood with a bomb in a backpack and weapons stashed in a motel room where he was arrested Wednesday, about 3 miles from the Texas Army base’s main gate.

The 21-year-old’s writings, including the essay obtained by The Associated Press in which he deplored the 2009 shootings, portray a devout infantry soldier struggling with his faith while facing the prospect of deployment and what he felt was the scorn of his peers.

“Overall, as a Muslim I feel that I will not be able to carry out my military duties due to my conscientious objection,” Abdo wrote in his application for the status. “Therefore, unless I separate myself from the military, I would potentially be putting the soldiers I work with in jeopardy.

“In this instance, I would be failing in my duty to my unit, my army and my god.”

Abdo was approved as a conscientious objector this year, but his discharge was put on hold amid military charges that 34 images of child pornography were found on a computer he used. He went absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., during the July 4 weekend.

On July 3, Abdo tried to buy a gun at a store near the Kentucky post, according to the company that owns the store. Abdo told an AP reporter a week later that he was concerned about his safety and had considered purchasing a gun for protection, but had not yet done so.

Police in Killeen said their break in the case came Tuesday from Guns Galore LLC — the same gun store where Maj. Nidal Hasan bought a pistol used in the 2009 attack. Store clerk Greg Ebert said Abdo arrived by taxi and bought 6 pounds of smokeless gunpowder, three boxes of shotgun ammunition and a magazine for a semi-automatic pistol.

Ebert said he called authorities because he and his co-workers “felt uncomfortable with his overall demeanor and the fact he didn’t know what the hell he was buying.”

“We would probably be here today, giving you a different briefing, had he not been stopped,” said Killeen Police Chief Dennis Baldwin, who called the plan “a terror plot.”

According to an Army alert sent via email and obtained by the AP, Killeen police learned from the taxi company that Abdo had been picked up from a local motel and also had visited an Army surplus store where he paid cash for a uniform bearing Fort Hood unit patches.

Agents found firearms and “items that could be identified as bomb-making components, including gunpowder,” in Abdo’s motel room, FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said. The FBI planned to charge Abdo with possessing bomb-making materials.

An Oklahoma lawyer who has represented Abdo said Thursday he hadn’t heard him in weeks. “I’ve been quite anxious to get in touch with him,” said attorney James Branum.

The Army alert said Abdo “was in possession of a large quantity of ammunition, weapons and a bomb inside a backpack,” and upon questioning admitted planning an attack on Fort Hood.

The military’s criminal investigation division, along with the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, had previously investigated Abdo after he was flagged for making unspecified anti-American comments while taking a language class, according to a U.S. official briefed on the investigation.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said neither the military nor the task force discovered anything at the time to indicate Abdo was planning an attack, the official said.

As the first anniversary of the 2009 Fort Hood rampage approached, Abdo sent to the AP the essay describing how he became a “different Muslim” after going through basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., and enduring religious harassment.

“Often times, during basic training the trainees would insult Islam and insult Muslims,” he wrote. As a result, Abdo said he grew reclusive and stopped socializing.

Abdo grew up in Garland, a Dallas suburb about 170 miles from Fort Hood. In his essay, he said his mother is Christian and his father is Muslim, and that he decided to follow Islam when he was 17.

“Little did I know that when I first became a Muslim that I was going to learn what Islam meant to me and what I was willing to sacrifice for it,” he wrote.

Abdo said life was better after he arrived at his first duty station, but that he studied Islam more closely as he neared deployment to learn “whether going to war was the right thing to do Islamically.”

“I began to understand and believe that only God can give legitimacy to war and not humankind,” he wrote. “That’s when I realized my conscience would not allow me to deploy.”

His application was filed in June 2010. Abdo wrote that if it was granted, he looked forward to “rejoining the Muslim community in Dallas and spending some time on ‘The path of Allah.” He said he would devote days or weeks travelling to other states and sleeping in mosques to “revive the faith of the Muslim nation.”

The Army’s Conscientious Objector Review board denied his request, but the deputy assistant secretary of the Army Review Boards Agency recommended this year he be separated from the Army as a conscientious objector. The discharge was delayed when he was charged with possession of child pornography on May 13.

Fort Campbell civilian spokesman Bob Jenkins said Abdo had been aware of the child pornography investigation since November.

Abdo attempted to purchase a gun July 3 from Quantico Tactical, a store near Fort Campbell in Oak Grove, Ky., said David Hensley, president of the seven-store chain.

Hensley said Abdo went into the store twice that day. The first time, after asking questions, he left. The second time, he attempted to buy a handgun, Hensley said.

“He exhibited behavior that alerted our staff and our staff refused to, based upon that behavior, sell him a firearm,” he said.

The AP was among the media outlets to interview Abdo in the past year when reporting on his request for objector status. On July 12, Abdo contacted an AP reporter with whom he had spoken previously, said he had gone AWOL and considered purchasing a gun for personal protection. Abdo said he had not yet done so, because he knew he would have to give his name and other information to the gun dealer.

The AP described the contents of this conversation on July 14 to a civilian Army spokesman. The next day, when contacted by Army investigators, the AP said it did not know Abdo’s location and provided the telephone number from which he made his original call.

Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd in Dallas; Danny Robbins in Garland, Texas; Pauline Jelinek, Eileen Sullivan and Robert Burns in Washington; Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tenn.; and Bruce Schreiner and Janet Cappiello in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.

: More Jamie Stengle

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Lone nuts and convenient definitions of “terrorism”

How commentators make sense of murder

By Alex Pareene

Jared Lee Loughner and Nidal Hasan

Topics:Jared Loughner, War Room, Crime, Fort Hood Shooting, Gabrielle Giffords, Islam, Malik Nadal Hasan, Terrorism

“Columbine” author Dave Cullen wrote yesterday that most media figures compulsively — and incorrectly — assign all killers to one of two binaries: Crazy or political. Right-wing commentators do the same thing, for the most part, though they tend to say killers are either crazy or terrorists. And while they’ll usually freely admit that Tim McVeigh counted as a terrorist, for the most part they reserve that term for Muslims who kill.

There is, for example, Charles Krauthammer’s classic column on Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood. Krauthammer is a former practicing psychologist — he’s also a former practicing liberal — and he used his considerable skill to argue that because he did not think Hasan was crazy, to call him crazy was dastardly political correctness. The correct diagnosis, according to Krauthammer, was that Hasan was a Muslim. He was driven to kill by Extremist Islamic rhetoric. He had, after all, e-mailed Anwar al-Awlaki, who sympathizes with al-Qaeda. He had even said frankly nutty things to his colleagues about nonbelievers having hot oil poured down their throats.

It’s not just that Krauthammer made a point of highlighting the influence of radical Islamism on Hasan’s crime — Krauthammer mocked those who thought there might be a psychological component to a formerly well-adjusted American suddenly falling under the sway of extremist rhetoric and shooting dozens of people.

Jared Loughner, though? He’s just nuts. Seriously, classic nutcase, end of story. It’s frankly irresponsible to speculate as to whether or not he had a political motivation when he attempted to assassinate a member of Congress.

Jonah Goldberg yesterday attempted to directly answer the question of why it’s “Islamic terrorism” when a Muslim does it and lone nuttery when a white American does it:

The difference is that most of the relevant Muslim mass-murderers in recent years have in fact either taken orders or meaningful encouragement from actual Jihadist organizations and individuals. The Times Square bomber did. The Fort Hood shooter did. The DC sniper didn’t, but he seems more of an exception than the rule.

First of all, “meaninful encouragement” is a wonderfully vague phrase that allows Goldberg to call people who never had any meaningful contact with terrorist groups “terrorists,” but even with that helpful bit of vague nonsense he is unable to justify the inclusion of one of his examples of terrorism, and is forced to consider it an “exception” to the rule he is in the process of inventing.

Did Hasan receive “meaningful encouragement” from al-Awlaki? Sure. But we have no idea whom Loughner may or may not have received “meaningful encouragement” from. We don’t have his e-mails. We don’t have his private conversations.

Goldberg goes on:

The “obvious” distinction is that there are a number of Islamist groups who are calling for violent attacks on America (which is why we are legally at war with them). Those that align with their cause are simply murderous traitors and terrorists. The Fort Hood shooter, we quickly learned, was in contact with Anwar al Awlaki. Loughner, we’ve quickly learned, was not in contact with Sarah Palin, had a grievance with Giffords that predates Palin’s prominence and the rise of the tea parties, and that he was simply out of his gourd.

It was nice of him to put “obvious” in scare quotes himself, thus saving me the trouble. But the fact is that there are plenty of extremist groups that are wholly American-grown and non-Islamic. (And if it’s only “terrorism” when we’re “legally at war” with the specific group who “meaningfully encouraged” the act, then very few things are terrorism anymore.)

But this paragraph, if you strip away the bit that’s clearly Goldberg thinking out loud, actually does explain the world-view succintly: It’s because those killers are Islamic. Yeah, Loughner wasn’t inspired by Sarah Palin’s Tweets. But Goldberg doesn’t say what he was inspired by. He was just “out of his gourd.” QED.

I don’t have a detailed psychological evaluation of either man, but based on the facts as we know them, it seems reasonable to argue that Nidal Hasan is a disturbed loner influenced to kill by extremist rhetoric that appeals to crazy people, and Jared Loughner is a disturbed loner possibly influenced to kill by extremist rhetoric that appeals to crazy people. The fact that Hasan was an increasingly devout Muslim meant that radical Islamic rhetoric appealed to him. The fact that Loughner was an increasingly disturbed young white American man meant that Ayn Rand and possibly David-Wynn: Miller and whatever else he got his hands on appealed to him. And any dangerous extremist supplements his bizarre beliefs with bad misreadings of non-extreme texts — the Koran, in Hasan’s case, and the various dystopian works of fiction on Loughner’s reading list.

The decision to murder innocent people is seldom one made by well men. If we’re going to argue that there’s something fundamental about Islam itself that causes it, when Muslims do it, it’s bald bigotry not to make the same argument when a non-Muslim commits a similarly incomprehensible crime.

If we define terrorism as violence committed by non-state actors aimed at achieving political goals, a case could be reasonably made for either, both, or neither or these men as terrorists. But when you start from the position that the Muslim is the “Terrorist” and the white guy is the “lone nut,” you’re have to work backwards to come up with a much more convoluted definition.

: Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene

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Witness says Fort Hood gunman shot at random

Details flood in during the trial of Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused gunman in the military base attack

By Angela K. Brown and Michael Graczyk, Associated Press

Topics:Fort Hood Shooting

A gunman appeared to be trying to hit anyone who moved — not any specific person — as he fired upon Army personnel and civilian workers in a deadly rampage at Fort Hood last November, a military court heard Monday.

Pvt. Justin Johnson said he was chatting with his mother on his cell phone as he waited to undergo pre-deployment medical exams when the shooting began. He threw himself down and started to crawl.

The gunman “was aiming his weapon on the ground and he started shooting, and he was hitting people that were trying to get away,” Johnson told the Article 32 hearing via video link from Kandahar in Afghanistan.

“It didn’t seem like he was targeting a specific person, sir. He was just shooting at anybody.”

Johnson, who was shot three times in the attack and still has a bullet wedged in his lungs, could not identify the shooter.

In the first week of testimony, several witnesses said they made eye contact with Maj. Nidal Hasan, a 40-year-old American-born Muslim, and identified him as the gunman in the Nov. 5 shootings at the Texas Army post.

The hearing is to determine if Hasan will stand trial on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the worst attack on an American military base.

The investigating officer at the hearing, Col. James L. Pohl, said earlier this year that he wanted to hear from the almost three dozen people who were wounded in the attack. The Article 32 hearing is unique to the military in that Pohl, along with prosecutors and defense attorneys, can call witnesses.

Col. Morgan Lamb, a Fort Hood brigade commander appointed to oversee judicial matters in Hasan’s case, will decide if the prosecution has shown probably cause, thereby allowing the case to go to trial.

Witnesses last week told similar stories of how a balding man in an Army combat uniform stood by a front counter, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — “God is great!” in Arabic — and started shooting at unarmed soldiers in a building where they went for routine medical tests before deploying.

When the volley of gunfire sprayed across a crowded waiting area, startled soldiers initially thought it was a training exercise.

On Monday, Spc. Joseph Tracy Foster said he was among those who thought the bullets being fired were not live ammunition.

“I felt a sharp pain in my hip,” said Foster, of the 20th Engineer Battalion. “I believed it was a paintball round, or something along those lines. … I remember bringing my hand up to my face and thinking: ‘These paintball rounds feel really real.’”

Many witnesses were shot more than once — some as they tried to pull buddies to safety, others as they hid under tables or chairs. One wounded soldier ran outside, but the gunman followed him and shot him again, soldiers testified.

Upcoming witnesses are expected to include the two Fort Hood police officers credited with taking the gunman down. Hasan, who was paralyzed from the chest down after being shot, remains jailed.

The hearing is expected to last at least another week.

(This version corrects that less than three dozen were wounded in the attack. )

: More Angela K. Brown
: More Michael Graczyk

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Ft. Hood attacker to face witnesses tomorrow

An Article 32 hearing will determine whether there is enough evidence to put the Army psychiatrist on trial

By Angela K. Brown, Associated Press

Topics:Fort Hood Shooting

For the first time in nearly a year, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan will come face to face with dozens of people he’s accused of attacking in last year’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood.

An Article 32 hearing, which starts Tuesday in military court and is expected to last at least three weeks, will determine whether there is enough evidence to put the Army psychiatrist on trial. It will also be the first time witnesses have testified about the worst-ever shooting on a U.S. military base.

Such hearings are unique to military court, where prosecutors and the defense can call witnesses, and both sides are able to question them and present other evidence.

Hasan, 40, is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. When the proceeding begins, he will be sitting just a few feet from the witnesses, who are expected to describe graphic details of the attack.

The shootings happened on a sunny autumn day at Fort Hood, one of the nation’s largest Army posts. About 300 people were in the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, a facility where soldiers must go before they are deployed to update vaccinations, get vision and dental screenings, finalize their wills or sign up to talk to a chaplain.

As soldiers waited in various lines, a man suddenly jumped up on a desk, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and started firing two guns, witnesses said.

The soldiers and civilian workers were unarmed as 100 rounds came at them directly or ricocheted off the desks and tile floor. Some dove for cover. Others ran outside, bullets whizzing by their heads while they pulled wounded comrades to safety. Victims moaned in pain and screamed for help.

Outside the building, soldiers in nearby buildings heard shouts for medics and ran to a grassy area where people lay bleeding. They ripped off their shirts and used them as a tourniquets. One young soldier loaded a few of the wounded into the back of his pickup and rushed to a hospital.

The rampage lasted only about 10 minutes, until two Fort Hood police officers shot and wounded Hasan, who is now paralyzed. He remains in custody.

The dead ranged in age from 19 to 62 and came from all walks of life: a pregnant soldier who had just returned from Iraq and wanted a lifelong Army career; a woman who had joined the military after the 2001 terrorist attacks and had vowed to take on Osama bin Laden; and a young father excited about his first deployment.

To grief-stricken families who had feared losing their loved ones on a foreign battlefield, this was unimaginable.

“He was on a base,” Marikay DeCrow, the widow of Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, said last year after the attack. “They should be safe there.”

Three who died and six who were seriously injured were in the same Army Reserve unit that Hasan was supposed to deploy with the following month.

The Madison, Wis.-based 467th Medical Detachment had just arrived at Fort Hood, so it’s unclear if Hasan knew any of the 40 members or was targeting them. Most of the unit, which provides counseling and other mental health services for soldiers, deployed to Afghanistan as scheduled a month after the attack.

In the wake of the rampage, a disturbing picture of Hasan began to emerge. The American-born Muslim was trying to get out of his pending deployment because he opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He recently had been saying goodbye to friends and neighbors, and had given away his Quran and other belongings.

But there had been warning signs much earlier. Some fellow students in a graduate military medical program complained to the faculty about Hasan after he reportedly gave a presentation that justified suicide bombings and said the war on terror was a war against Islam.

But no one filed a formal complaint, out of fear that doing so would appear discriminatory toward a Muslim student.

After the shootings, government investigations uncovered critical security lapses. A local terrorism task force run by the FBI had learned months earlier of Hasan’s e-mail contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops, but the information was not adequately shared with the Pentagon.

An internal Pentagon review concluded that several medical officers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center failed to use “appropriate judgment and standards of officership” when reviewing Hasan’s performance as a student, internist and psychiatric resident. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said disciplinary action is possible.

According to government documents obtained by The Associated Press, Hasan’s supervisors sanitized his performance appraisals during his residency at Walter Reed, even though he was described as a loner with lazy work habits and a fixation on his Muslim religion. He once appended “Allah willing” to a patient’s medical chart.

Despite their concerns that he might have been developing a psychosis, no mental health evaluation was done, documents show.

The Fort Hood attack spurred the military to make many changes, including a comprehensive weapons policy for military bases. The Defense Department’s final report on the shootings said military supervisors must have access to soldiers’ personnel records and be aware of signs of potential workplace violence. The Pentagon recently said it is taking new steps to beef up security and surveillance programs at its bases, and will join an FBI intelligence-sharing program aimed at identifying future terror threats.

Prosecutors have not said whether they would seek the death penalty if the judge determine there is enough evidence for a court-martial.

Hasan, 40, has been in custody since the shootings, first in a San Antonio military hospital and now in the nearby Bell County Jail, which houses military suspects for Fort Hood. The military justice system does not offer bail.

It’s unclear if Hasan’s military record or mental health issues will be addressed at the Article 32 hearing.

Lead defense attorney John Galligan said a defense psychiatrist plans to review Hasan’s military files, as well as government reports about Hasan’s alleged e-mails with al-Awlaki and the Pentagon review of Hasan’s time at Walter Reed. Galligan said he has not decided what evidence to present, “if anything at all.”

: More Angela K. Brown

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Fort Hood slayings prompt full Pentagon review

By Anne Gearan and Pauline Jelinek, Associated Press

Topics:Fort Hood Shooting, Robert Gates, Pentagon

The Pentagon will investigate its procedures in light of the Fort Hood shooting rampage, looking at how all the military services keep a watch on potential problems in their ranks, officials said Tuesday.

The probe is still in the planning stages, but would be a broad examination beyond the particulars of Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, officials said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants a unified probe that hits all corners of the Pentagon, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said.

“This is shaping up to be a DoD effort,” Morrell said, using shorthand for the Department of Defense.

“This is larger than the Army. There are issues that need to be looked at department-wide, and the focus at this point is trying to figure out some of those questions,” he added.

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 fast look at whether the military has missed red flags that might signal there are other potentially dangerous service members out there. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still being organized.

The Army has also been preparing to launch its own internal probe. The Pentagon review could supersede that, although it is not clear whether the Army will still go ahead separately.

Though it’s still undecided who would do such a review and exactly what it would include, officials are working to make an announcement on it soon, a senior defense official said Tuesday on condition of anonymity because plans are still fluid.

Morrell said there has ben no decision on the structure, time line or staffing for a review.

“He’s trying to come to a resolution of this as quickly as possible, but this has not been nailed down quite yet,” Morrell said of Gates.

Hasan, an Army major, is accused of killing 13 people in the Nov. 5 shooting rampage at the Texas base.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey had said earlier that the service would take a hard look at itself following the Nov. 5 shooting.

Any new review would be have to be careful not to interfere with the ongoing criminal investigation, defense officials said. And so it could look at things outside that realm such as personnel policy and practices and whether there are adequate health services for troubled troops, one official said.

A top priority, this official said, likely would be to look at red flags missed in Hasan’s case, with an eye toward ensuring there are not other similar missed cases out there waiting to happen.

“A tragedy like this certainly gives this institution an opportunity to reflect on whether we are doing everything that we can and should to prevent something like this from happening,” said Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman. He said Gates has not made any decision on a defense-wide review.

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 other said the terms of what the panel would do have not been defined.

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.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday will hold its first public hearing about the incident. Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation, pleading for lawmakers to “resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater.”

——

Department of Defense http://www.defenselink.mil

Army http://www.army.mil