Hindsight

FBI, Army Missed Signs of Ft. Hood Attack

Ignored clues, failed to communicate, says Senate report.

A Senate investigation into the Fort Hood shooting found that both the Army and the FBI dropped the ball. The FBI failed to tell the Army that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was emailing with a “suspected terrorist,” likely the extremist Islamic cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi. The report, out Thursday, says the FBI may have ignored such warning signs in order to avoid causing a “bureaucratic confrontation.” Sen. Joseph Lieberman said the “painful conclusion is that the Fort Hood massacre could have and should have been prevented,” pointing to a “sanitized” officer evaluation that indicated Hasan was “not just a ticking time bomb, but a traitor.” The report in question described Hasan's obsession with Islamist extremism as research on counterterrorism. Lawmakers such as Texas Republican Rep. John Carter have seized on the report to condemn political correctness and urge further investigation into domestic extremism.