Was Fort Hood shooter being groomed for an intelligence role?

[JackRiddler]

ABC, citing military sources and a Republican senator "furious" at the CIA's refusal so far to brief Congress, reports that

a) Hasan was known to be reaching out to foreign jihadi elements six months ago.

b) The Army was informed about it.

Yet they were about to deploy him to Afghanistan?!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fort-hood-shooter-contact-al-qaeda-terrorists-officials/story?id=9030873

Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan's Contacts with al Qaeda

Army Major in Fort Hood Massacre Used 'Electronic Means' to Connect with Terrorists

By RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS

Nov. 9, 2009

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with an individual associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan's contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.

In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA).

Hoekstra said he is "absolutely furious" that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan's attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News.

SNIP

[FarCenter]

1. The function of counter-intelligence is to observe and understand -- not to forestall minor attacks

[JackRiddler]

2. "Counter-intel" sources claim to have informed the Army.

The function of "intelligence" (misnomer) can also be to recruit or develop potential assets, no?

If the Army knew this about Hasan, why were they deploying him to Afghanistan, supposed nexus of the international jihadis? A bad decision is one possibility. Protected status as an asset or infiltrator is another.

[FarCenter]

7. Rather than a double agent, he may have been an unwitting asset

By sending him to Afghanistan, they may have been able to see whether he hooked up with some elements in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

If the choice is between using him and stopping him, the former is the better option. It also provides Al Qaeda will no information about what we know -- means and methods are not disclosed.

[JackRiddler]

8. That's a possibility.

It would also be highly irresponsible, triply so given his position as a counsellor!

It would be indicative of a spook mindset that has damaged "America" far more often than it has protected it. If they determined he was a risk but send him to Afghanistan anyway, then they're risking people over there. They should have just discharged the fucker as he requested.

But I'm sure, if your idea is true, that those who made such a decision will even now convince themselves they meant well, and try to cover it up.

The relatives of the soldiers shot by their own psychiatrist likely would not see it that way, and they'd be right.

In any case, those who play god with intelligence don't always apply the same methods. There are counter-examples, as when there is a rush to construct a case and get some patsy behind bars on weak evidence (which usually works, this being "terror" after all), rather than allow it to develop into something usable for infiltration in the way you describe.

Finally, direct intel agency attempts to recruit him are obviously not out of the question. After all, he was a major and they might think that made him trustworthy.

[FarCenter]

9. A classic case is the allegation that Churchill did not defend Coventry in order to protect Ultra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Blitz

[JackRiddler]

10. But if your supposition applies, they might have sacrificed people...

in order to keep a pipedream.

[FarCenter]

11. That is what military officers do all the time

"take that hill and hold it at all costs"

[JackRiddler]

3. bump for readers

[Octafish]

4. TIA reports an Army officer is talking to a suspected radical and he gets let go is a sign.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, an Army colonel I know through a friend of my step-mother's hairdresser's college roommate* told me that he could not talk about Bush and Fiends over the phone because they were bugged. He feared for his safety.

Even if deemed "OK, the guy's just doin' research," there's almost no way these folks would allow an officer they suspected of ties to a suspected radical to continue active-duty service, unless there was a darn good reason. Counterintelligence is one possibility. Other possibilities are not so, eh, benign.

Here's more from ABC:

Al Qaeda Recruiter New Focus in Fort Hood Killings Investigation

* Sorry to sound flip, JackRiddler. The colonel feared for his/her safety. Thank you for a very important post.

[Nikki Stone1]

5. A patsy?

Lee Harvey Oswald also had all the marks of an intelligence asset, including consorting with the enemy (USSR).

Hmmm....

[JackRiddler]

6. Honestly? I don't think so...

As far as speculations that this was planned as a psychological operation, I don't see how this "benefits" the military or the war propaganda, or enables anything that the military couldn't get otherwise. It's very bad for recruitment and morale.

(Notwithstanding that they're trying to make the "best" of it, and that the right-wing wants to run with it in their usual way.)

If there were other shooters in a surprise attack, and Hasan was picked as the patsy for damage-control, I don't see how they'd successfully cover it up.

Other possibilities are conceivable, like that he was an experimental subject of some kind and it went wrong, but would need evidence.

Based on what's known I think it's very likely that a rampage killing was his very bad choice of a mutiny. (Mutiny and murder are not mutually exclusive, are they?)

That doesn't conflict with the possibility that his efforts to contact jihadis were known, as ABC reports. But perhaps he was protected and deployed to Afghanistan anyway, because he was being groomed as an intelligence asset.

[AntiFascist]

12. Also, from reading reports, it seems that he was transferred to Fort Hood...

because of his poor performance at Walter Reed hospital. I wonder about the decision to transfer him there, and if he may have experienced even more post 9-11 harassment (as his family claims) as a result.

[FarCenter]

13. He bought the 5.7 mm pistol 3 weeks after the arrived -- he probably felt threatened in Kileen, TX

[JackRiddler]

14. caveat & kick...

Assuming this story isn't just noise or misinformation, of course. However, the sources cited are intel (presumably not fabricated!) & Hoekstra, so if the info is true and presented fairly, then the question arises naturally of why he would be given deployment orders without a review.

[JackRiddler]

15. FBI sources in today's news report from BBC...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8351740.stm


US major contacted radical cleric

SNIP

US authorities knew that an army major accused of killing 13 people at a military base had been in contact with a cleric sympathetic to al-Qaeda.

SNIP

US policy denounced

The major, a 39-year-old US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, was scrutinised by an FBI-led joint terrorism task force because of a series of e-mails between December 2008 and early 2009 with Mr al-Awlaki.

Mr al-Awlaki, who was released from a Yemeni jail last year, was once an imam at the mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, where Maj Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped. He now runs a website denouncing US policy. It has praised Maj Hasan's alleged actions at Fort Hood as heroic.

US officials said the content of the e-mail messages did not advocate or threaten violence, and was consistent with Maj Hasan's research for his job as an army psychiatrist, part of which involved post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from US combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The terrorism task force concluded that Maj Hasan was not involved in terrorist planning.

A senior Republican on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee has called on all the US intelligence agencies to preserve the information they have on Maj Hasan. Representative Pete Hoekstra said in a statement: "I believe members of the full committee on a bipartisan basis will want to scrutinise the intelligence relevant to this attack, what the agencies in possession of that intelligence did with it, who was and wasn't informed and why, and what steps America's intelligence agencies are taking in light of what they know."

[jakeXT]

16. Alleged shooter had "unexplained connections" to others besides Awlaki.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/screen?id=9048590

Senior Official: More Hasan Ties to People Under Investigation by FBI
By MARTHA RADDATZ, BRIAN ROSS, MARY-ROSE ABRAHAM, and REHAB EL-BURI
Today, 4:40 PM EST

Alleged shooter had "unexplained connections" to others besides Awlaki.

A senior government official tells ABC News that investigators have found that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had "more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI" than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The official declined to name the individuals but Congressional sources said their names and countries of origin were likely to emerge soon.

...