#US doctors worried suspect was 'psychotic:' report
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US_doctors_worried_suspect_was_psyc_11112009.html
US doctors worried suspect was 'psychotic:' report
[To quote Hawkeye's jeep driver from M*A*S*H: "Fuckin' army..."]
AFP
Published: Wednesday November 11, 2009
US military doctors had worried that the suspected gunman in the Fort
Hood shootings was "psychotic" and unstable but did not seek to sack him,
National Public Radio reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed officials.
Psychiatrists and medical officials who oversaw Major Nidal Hasan,
accused of opening fire on fellow soldiers at the Fort Hood base in Texas
last week, held a series of meetings between the spring of 2008 and the
spring of this year to discuss serious concerns about his work and his
behavior, NPR reported.
"Put it this way. Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or
Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your fox hole," one
official was quoted as saying.
One official who participated in the conversations had reportedly told
colleagues that he was concerned Hasan might leak secret military
information to Islamic extremists if he was assigned to Iraq or
Afghanistan, NPR said.
Another official "wondered aloud" to colleagues whether Hasan might be
capable of killing fellow soldiers in the same way a Muslim sergeant in
2003 had set off grenades at a base in Kuwait and claimed the lives to
two comrades, the radio reported.
The officials who discussed Hasan's status were not aware -- as some top
Walter Reed hospital officials were -- that intelligence agencies had
been tracking Hasan's e-mails to a radical Islamic cleric since December
2008, NPR said.
The NPR report cited interviews with several officials from Walter Reed
Medical Center in Washington and the Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences in Maryland.
Officials considered kicking Hasan out of the program but chose not to
partly because sacking a doctor is a "cumbersome and lengthy" process
that involves hearings and potential legal conflict, sources told NPR.
Officials also believed they lacked solid evidence that Hasan was
unstable and were concerned they could be accused of discriminating
against him because of his Islamic identity or views.
With Hasan due to leave Walter Reed after six years and transfer to Fort
Hood in Texas, officials thought the larger psychiatric staff at that
army base would be better placed to provide support to Hasan and to
monitor him, according to NPR.
The army psychiatrist and practicing Muslim is accused of killing 13
people in Thursday's shooting spree at Fort Hood.
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