FBI -- The Federal Agency That Failed You Pre-9/11? It's Getting To The Bottom Of The Fort Hood Bloodbath!
Rachel Uchitel
Anyway, there!
Now you feel safe?
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"FBI to probe panels that reviewed e-mails from alleged Fort Hood
gunman"
"Independent inquiry will look into any lapses in information-sharing"
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
FBI LEADERS announced Tuesday that they are launching an independent
investigation into the policies and actions of two bureau task forces
that reviewed e-mails from the alleged Fort Hood shooter in the months
before the Nov. 5 massacre at the Army base.
The inquiry will be headed by William H. Webster, who served as
director of both the FBI and the CIA in the 1980s. He will have free
rein to probe whether there were lapses in sharing information about
Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan within the FBI and between that agency and
the military. Hasan, a military psychiatrist, has been charged with
murder and attempted murder in the deaths of 13 people and the
wounding of nearly three dozen others at the base in Texas last month.
The action by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III is the first
significant signal since the attack that the bureau is concerned about
its own actions. The Defense Department had already launched such an
inquiry, led by former military officials.
Hasan exchanged as many as 18 e-mail messages with radical Yemeni
American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi between December 2008 and May 2009.
But a joint terrorism task force analyst determined that the
correspondence was innocent and in keeping with the doctor's research
into religious conflicts among some Muslims in the military.
Two of those messages were forwarded this year from an FBI office in
San Diego to one in Washington, where Hasan had worked at the Walter
Reed medical facility. But a later e-mail message that federal
government sources have described as more serious was not shared with
the Washington agents, a government official said. An analyst in San
Diego assessed the more recent messages and concluded that they
matched the previous, innocent correspondence. Violent rhetoric from
Aulaqi, who once served as an imam at a large Northern Virginia mosque
attended by two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, has inspired terror plots
in Britain, Canada and the United States, national security experts
say.
Agents in both FBI offices decided that the information was innocuous
and that they did not need to launch a full-blown investigation, which
might have entailed interviewing Hasan's military colleagues, or to
share the messages with Defense Department officials.
In the weeks since the attack, Army personnel have come forward to
express what they said were their earlier misgivings about Hasan. They
described a PowerPoint presentation he gave in 2007 arguing that the
military should allow Muslim soldiers to opt out of conflicts against
other Muslims in order to avoid "adverse events." None of this
information, however, appeared in military personnel records that the
FBI analysts consulted in their assessment of Hasan's e-mail.
Webster's inquiry does not have a formal deadline, FBI officials said,
but it is expected to follow the same timeline as the Defense
Department's review, with an initial report due in January.
After-action reports on the shooting, for which Hasan has denied
responsibility through a defense attorney, prompted President Obama to
order intelligence and military chiefs to explain how the incident
occurred and to ensure that nothing like it happens again.
The FBI sent an internal report on its actions to the White House on
Nov. 30, but officials there have not offered any public comment as to
its substance or recommendations. FBI officials say that the review
did not turn up any new information that elevated concerns about the
bureau but that appointing an independent overseer is a "common-sense
next step."
Webster, a retired federal judge, has substantial experience with the
intelligence community and with civil liberties. He will have the
authority to make recommendations about FBI guidelines for national
security probes and possible changes to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, which closely guards the sharing of information
about U.S. citizens who emerge on the law enforcement radar screen.
Changes to the FISA law could provoke alarm among civil liberties
groups and some Democratic lawmakers who have called for stricter
oversight of intelligence activities.
A representative for Webster said Tuesday that he would have no
immediate comment on his new assignment.
[Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120801731.html
Suppurating Tool
For a second I thought it was the CIA !
Or the Dept. of Homeland Suckurity!