Ft. Hood Whitewash (NEW YORK POST EDITORIAL) 07/22/12)
Source: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/ft_hood_whitewash_Nia0dLF7KaCQ90Hd7eMxOK
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After a more-than-two-year review, a report released last week
accuses the FBI of having dropped the ball when it investigated the
Fort Hood jihadist before the 2009 massacre.
So — how many people will be fired?
Exactly . . . none.
That’s right: The agency might have been able to prevent the killing
of 13 people by a home-grown Islamic fundamentalist, Maj. Nidal Malik
Hasan — but failed to do so.
And yet, not a single FBI official will lose his or her job.
“We do not find, and do not believe, that anyone is solely
responsible for mistakes in handling the information,” concluded
former FBI Director William Webster, who conducted the probe.
“We do not believe it would be fair to hold these dedicated
personnel . . . responsible for the tragedy that occurred months
later at Fort Hood.”
How convenient for the agency and its staff.
And what a blow to the victims’ families — and the rest of America.
Webster’s report determined that the agency’s probe of Hasan in the
run-up to his shooting spree was “belated, incomplete and rushed” —
and influenced by an unhealthy dose of political correctness.
Indeed, the FBI had caught on to the fact that Hasan was in regular e-
mail contact with (the now happily deceased) radical Islamic cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki nearly a year before the mass shooting.
That included messages in which Hasan expressed support for suicide
bombers — and one in which he said: “I would assume that [a] suicide
bomber whose aim is to kill enemy soldiers or their helpers, but also
kills innocents in the process is acceptable.”
Yet the FBI — like the Army — concluded that Hasan had contacted the
cleric merely “to research Islam.”
Agents in Washington, alerted to the e-mails by the FBI’s San Diego
office, expressed fears that questioning Hasan might jeopardize his
military career.
And one in San Diego said he was told the matter was “politically
sensitive” and that the FBI’s Washington office “doesn’t go out and
interview every Muslim guy who visits extremist Web sites.”
Yet Americans are supposed to accept that nothing in all this FBI
bungling rises to a level that would require at least one person to
be fired — not even one.
It’s beyond outrageous.
Indeed, it’s not even clear that the report itself fully understands
the very problem that allowed the massacre to take place.
As Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine)
noted: “We are concerned that the report fails to address the
specific cause for the Fort Hood attack, which is violent Islamist
extremism.”
Even more political correctness, it seems.
The lawmakers also expressed skepticism “that FBI analysts are now
well-integrated into the FBI’s operations, as the report states.”
All of which means another Fort Hood-type massacre is probably no
less likely today than it was three years ago. (Copyright 2011 NYP
Holdings, Inc. 07/22/12)
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