Senate faults FBI, Army in Fort Hood

WASHINGTON - A Senate report on the Fort Hood shooting is sharply critical of the FBI's failure to recognize warning signs that an Army psychiatrist had become an Islamist extremist and amounted to a "ticking time bomb."

The report concluded that both the Defense Department and the FBI had sufficient information to detect that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been radicalized to violent extremism, but they failed to understand and act on it. It said the FBI's top leaders must exercise more control over local field offices and put to better use the intelligence analysts who should have been able to connect the dots.

Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 shooting rampage on the Texas military post.

"Our report's painful conclusion is that the Fort Hood massacre could have, and should have, been prevented," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Many of the report's criticisms have been aired over the past year in other investigations of the shooting. The Senate report stresses that the FBI's move to become more intelligence-driven has been hampered by internal conflicts that must be addressed. And it says the bureau's failure to use its analysts well contributed to its overlooking the significance of communications with known terrorists transmitted by Hasan.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late in 2009 of Hasan's repeated contact with U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The FBI has said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn't linked to terrorism.

The Senate report was released yesterday by Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and its ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.