Officials: U.S. Aware of Hasan Efforts to Contact al Qaeda

ABC News ^ | 11/9/2009 | Richard Esposito

[Saije]

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

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

One senior lawmaker said the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan's efforts.

CIA director Leon Panetta and the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, have been asked by Congress "to preserve" all documents and intelligence files that relate to Hasan, according to the lawmaker.

On Sunday, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist.

"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance," Lieberman told Fox News Sunday.

[SeattleBruce]

Interesting how things develop into our common vocabs, hey?

[happinesswithoutpeace]

This guy is actually pretty relevant with everything going on.

[EBH]

0bama and Hasan, what is that relationship?

0bama knew of him? Knew of him through security briefings?

The very, very odd handling of matters.

Matters are going to be shut down on this. Watch and see.

[RoseyT]

Incidentally, there’s one other advantage to calling it jihad: doing so really pisses off the liberals.

I was looking at Al-Awlaki’s site yesterday and I remember reading something about his desire for Muslim's to substitute the word "jihad" for "terrorism" and "jihadist" for "terrorist" when they hear it in the media. I honestly don't remember what page I saw it on but I remember making a mental note of it. They are terrorists in my book.