Shooting spurs Pentagon review of personnel procedures

Along with that 45-day examination, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates also ordered yesterday an in-depth investigation, lasting four to six months, into whether Army policies and procedures played a role in failing to prevent the Fort Hood shootings.

Word of the Pentagon reviews came on the same day as a Senate committee held the first public hearing into the attack that killed 13 people and wounded dozens at the Army post.

Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent who chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, began the hearing by saying that he believed the shooting was a terrorist attack. He added that senators wanted “to determine whether that attack could have been prevented, whether the federal agencies and employees involved missed signals or failed to connect the dots.’’

As more becomes known about the behavior ahead of the shootings of Major Nidal M. Hasan, the alleged gunman, pressure has mounted on the Obama administration and the military to explain why the Army psychiatrist did not warrant further investigation or preemptive action.

Intelligence officials knew last year that Hasan had been corresponding with a radical Islamic cleric; earlier this year investigators learned of Internet postings, allegedly by Hasan, that indicated sympathy for suicide bombers; and colleagues of Hasan’s at Walter Reed Army Medical Center said the “intensity’’ of his embrace of Islam raised concerns among doctors there.

Gates said the Army’s “in-depth, detailed assessment’’ would look at “whether the Army programs, policies, and procedures reasonably would have prevented the shooting.’’ The goal, he said, is “to determine whether, in fact, there were lapses or problems.’’

The secretary promised “full and open disclosure’’ of the findings of the reviews, adding that avoiding similar tragedies is imperative.

Togo D. West Jr., the former Veterans Affairs secretary and army secretary, and retired Admiral Vernon Clark, a former chief of naval operations, will lead the 45-day review. It will look for deficiencies in Pentagon procedures for “identifying servicemembers who could potentially pose credible threats to others,’’ Gates said.

Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Gates at the news conference and said commanders are responsible for taking necessary action should servicemembers make radical statements. While not referring to the Hasan case, Mullen said that his expectation is “for any commander certainly to be aware of those kinds of things and then to take appropriate action . . . to certainly not sit idly by but to address it.’’ Still, he said, “a single proclamation, if you will, doesn’t, in and of itself, necessarily mean anything. You’ve got to put it into the circumstances.’’

Asked whether he believes management failures in the Army played any role in the Fort Hood shootings, Gates replied, “If there are questions of accountability, the Army would address those internally.’’ He said he was confident in the service’s ability to investigate itself.

Gates called it disturbing that Hasan had e-mailed cleric Anwar Al-Aulaqi, but the secretary said he wanted to find out all the facts before drawing conclusions.

Asked whether he would join Lieberman in characterizing the shootings as a terrorist attack, Gates replied, “I’m just not going to go there.’’

As the senior Pentagon leader, he said, he did not want to be seen as influencing the military criminal judicial process underway.

Hasan, who is conscious but paralyzed from the waist down, remains in an intensive care unit at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, his lawyer said yesterday.

John Galligan said the Army has allowed Hasan’s legal defense team to hire a civilian chemist to observe the examination of all evidence related to the shootings as well as any tests involving Hasan.

Galligan said he has requested that the military make funds available for Hasan to hire a private civilian investigator, to conduct an investigation independent from government probes. Galligan, a retired colonel and former military judge at Fort Hood, also has requested that the government reinstate his security clearance so that he can review any classified documents relating to his client.

Galligan said the government shipped him a box of personnel files and other records related to Hasan. He said he expects more records to be made available in the standard discovery process, but he has not had a chance to read them.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee has received only partial cooperation from the Obama administration toward its investigation of the attack, with Lieberman rebuffed in his requests to have current officials appear. But Lieberman said yesterday that the committee had received access to important classified documents, and he sounded cautiously optimistic that the administration would be more forthcoming.

Senator Susan M. Collins of Maine, the panel’s ranking Republican, recalled the missed opportunities to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“In the wake of the mass murder at Fort Hood, we must once again confront a troubling question: Was this another failure to connect the dots?’’ Collins said.