Probe: Ft. Hood shooter's superiors showed poor judgment

WASHINGTON — The military remains vulnerable to another Fort Hood-like massacre with religious radicalization on the rise and too little attention being paid to internal threats, senior Pentagon officials said Friday.

An internal investigation into the shooting at the Texas Army post in November found that several officers failed to use "appropriate judgment and standards" in overseeing the career of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan and that their actions should be investigated immediately.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, has been charged with killing 13 people.

"I would ask all commanders and leaders at every level to make an effort to look beyond their day-to-day tasks and be attuned to personnel who may be at risk or pose a danger," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

Separately, the FBI said it would revise its own procedures to make sure that when it investigates a member of the military, it notifies the Pentagon. In the Hasan case, a local joint terrorism task force run by the FBI with some military personnel examined Hasan but did not alert the Pentagon that concerns had been raised.

A separate White House assessment concluded the government doesn't do enough to share information on "disaffected individuals" and that closer scrutiny of some information is needed by intelligence and law-enforcement officials.

Of particular concern is "self-radicalization" by individuals seeking out extremist views, said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Hasan case has taken on heightened importance in recent weeks because of its parallels to the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound passenger jet. Both cases are linked to a cleric in Yemen and exposed a failure by intelligence officials to prevent the attacks.

According to two officials, up to eight Army officers could face discipline for failing to do anything when Hasan displayed erratic behavior early in his military career. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

The officers supervised Hasan when he was a medical student and during his early work as an Army psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Hasan was described as a loner with lazy work habits and a fixation on his Muslim religion. He was passed along from office to office and job to job despite professional failings that included missed or failed exams and physical-fitness requirements.

He was often late or absent, sometimes appeared disheveled and performed to minimum requirements. The pattern was obvious to many around him, yet not fully reflected where it counted in the Army's bureaucratic system of evaluation and promotion, investigators found.

Hasan nonetheless earned some good reviews from patients and colleagues.

Hasan showed no signs of being violent or a threat.

Retired Adm. Vernon Clark and former Army Secretary Togo West Jr., who led the Pentagon's two-month investigation, said there were discrepancies between Hasan's performance and his personnel records.

"There is not a well-integrated means to gather, evaluate, and disseminate the wide range of indicators that could signal an insider threat," Clark said.

Their investigation also found that his top-level security clearance hadn't been properly investigated.