WASHINGTON — US authorities on Wednesday defended their role in tracking the suspected gunman in the Fort Hood shooting amid fresh concerns that agencies may have botched the case and missed worrying signs.
As debate raged over whether intelligence, defense and law enforcement services failed to share information or to respond to alarming clues about the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, officials insisted there had been full cooperation across the government.
“I understand people are looking for smoking gun connections or disconnections but there’s been nothing but cooperation” before and after last week’s shooting, a law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
A defense official agreed, saying: “There is tremendous cooperation between the department (of defense) and the agencies that are taking a look at this.”
But questions mounted over what government agencies knew about Hasan, the army psychiatrist and practicing Muslim accused of killing 13 people in last week’s shooting spree, in the months leading up to the attack.
US authorities revealed Hasan had contacts with a firebrand Islamic cleric in Yemen last year and co-workers recounted that the doctor had voiced doubts about Muslim soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After learning of his contact with the terror suspect, a Joint Terrorism Task Force concluded that “Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning,” the FBI said.
“The investigation to date indicates that the alleged gunman acted alone and was not part of a broader terrorist plot.”
It remained unclear if the FBI passed on the information to the military, even though a Defense Department employee served on the task force.
The case on Hasan was closed in the spring, with officials choosing not to pursue a more elaborate investigation, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Some analysts have questioned why Hasan was not more closely watched given his emails to Anwar al-Aulaqi, who is said to support Al-Qaeda and is now in Yemen after having served as a leader of a mosque in northern Virginia.
It remained unclear if authorities took into account other worrying details in addition to the communication with the imam, including Hasan’s purchase of a gun in August, an alleged website posting on suicide bombings and dismay among his fellow doctors about a talk he gave in 2007 on the divided loyalties of Muslim soldiers.
“Why didn’t they interview him and run this to ground?” one former counterterrorism official asked the Post.
US lawmakers have vowed to probe the handling of the case as intelligence and justice agencies were subjected to sweeping reforms after the September 11, 2001 attacks to ensure agencies shared information and avoided turf wars.
Hasan’s civilian attorney, retired army colonel John Galligan, meanwhile said the suspected gunman remained hospitalized at an intensive care unit in what he described as “guarded” condition. But Galligan said that he has yet to receive formal charges in the case.
“I have seen a lot of statements about other allegations, other investigations. None of which have been furnished to me. I have received no formal charge sheet in this case,” he told CNN.
Galligan said he received his first official communication from the US Army late Tuesday, informing him that Hasan’s leave and pass privileges had been suspended.
The lawyer spoke a day after President Barack Obama lauded each shooting victim and vowed justice at a memorial service at the Texas army base.
“It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy,” Obama told 15,000 sometimes tearful mourners.
“But this much we do know: no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts.
“No just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice, in this world, and the next.
