Fort Hood Update: Pointed Questions for the Government

While law enforcement tries to figure out whether Nidal Malik Hasan sought guidance from any terror or extremist groups before launching his massacre at Fort Hood Thursday, the demand for answers from the Pentagon and intelligence agencies is intensifying.

As mentioned earlier, ABC News cited anonymous sources who say Hasan's attempts to contact people associated with al Qaeda were discovered "months ago."

But intelligence agency officials are denying that claim to Fox News, saying "it would be wrong to allege the CIA had information about Hasan contacting Al Qaeda that it did not share with the Army.

"There's no sign at this point that the CIA had collected information relevant to this case and then simply sat on it," an official told the network.

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has written the heads of relevant intelligence agencies to demand they preserve any and all records related to Hasan. He criticized the Obama administration for allowing information to trickle out to the media through anonymous sources before key congressional leaders have been informed.

In a statement, Hoekstra pledged an "intense review of this and other issues related to the performance of the intelligence community and whether or not information necessary for military, state and local officials to provide for the security of the post was provided to them."

Hoekstra's review is among many in the works regarding the Fort Hood shootings. U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) wants to find out why Hasan continued to serve in his capacity as an Army psychiatrist despite a series of troubling accounts about his radicalism. Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the military should have "zero tolerance" for someone showing signs of being an Islamist extremist:

"The Department of Defense has a real obligation to convene an independent investigation to go back and look at whether warning signs were missed, both of his — the stress he was under, but also the statements that he was making which really could lead people to believe that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist."

For a look at other possible investigations, click here.

Related Topics: IPT News

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