Reporter: Army "Timid" About Hasan's Views

Washington Post's Dana Priest Talks About Doctors Who Served With Hasan; Analyst Calls Obama Weak on Afghanistan Decision

(CBS)  A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The Washington Post doubted on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday that the Army psychiatrist accused of carrying out the shootings at Fort Hood behaved in such a disturbing way that his colleagues could have prevented his alleged attack.

The suspect in the Fort Hood shootings, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, had previously worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which Washington Post reporter Dana Priest focused on for a Pultizer Prize-winning series of articles about veteran medical care.

Priest told CBS Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer she spoke with doctors who worked with Hasan during his fellowship there.

"I don't think they believe that he was crazy," Priest said. "I think they believed he was very odd and that he didn't pose a threat. If they thought he was mentally ill, again, these are doctors. They would have given him up."

CBSNews.com Special Report: Tragedy at Fort Hood

At the same time, Priest said, the doctors and other psychiatrists who worked with Hasan worked under a different mindset than soldiers who served in other countries.

"They aren't necessarily like the infantry troops that are going to have the threat at the forefront of their mind," Priest said. "He's intelligent, soft spoken. No indication of violence. No speaking about violence. Very polite."

When Schieffer pressed her about reports that Hasan would make peculiar statements or carry around business cards decorated with letters that could stand for "Soldier of Allah," Priest said the public doesn't yet know whether Hasan was confronted about his beliefs.

"How much discussion was there among his supervisors and him about his interpretation of Islam?" Priest asked. "I think that's where the Army, you'll find, is reticent. I mean, they don't know enough about it. They may not even know enough about it to have a general discussion."

Priest told Schieffer she thought that the Army feared it would be politically incorrect to have such a discussion with Hasan.

"They're timid about that," she said. "The Army is very concerned about diversity in its forces. They need Muslim leaders. Right now they are trying desperately to increase their ranks of people who speak Arabic and who can help them in the Middle East."

CBS News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate joined the discussion when Schieffer shifted the conversation to President Obama's decision in the coming weeks about his Afghanistan strategy.

Zarate called the process Mr. Obama chose to follow in making his decision "indecisive and a bit weak." He noted the recent reports that the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan discouraged the president from sending more troops to the country and an administration statistic that the United States pays $1 million per year to fund a single soldier in the country.

"There's a lot going on within the system, within the process to throw doubts into throwing more troops at the issue without a clear resolution of the strategy," said Zarate. "All of this, though, signals unfortunately, I think, a little bit too much indecision."

Zarate said the president will likely give a speech to Americans after the Thanksgiving holiday "to explain the number of troops and frankly to describe the strategy that the administration is going to resolve in terms of Afghanistan."

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

Priest said Mr. Obama's strategy depends on his goals for the war.

"Is the goal to defeat al Qaeda?" Priest asked. "If that's the goal, well, according to my sources, there are only about 100 al Qaeda left in Afghanistan."

"One hundred al Qaeda in Afghanistan?" Schieffer asked.

"They're over in Pakistan," Priest said. "Again, if your goal is to defeat al Qaeda, then Pakistan is where you need to go. They've been very reluctant to do that.

"If it's not that, if it's more regional stability or standing up a stable political process, that is probably going to take a lot more than 40,000 troops, and more time."

[NoodleLike]

As a former service member, I always felt too much time and effort is spent doing obsessive jockey short counts and whether a member is slipping out of their imposed state of anorexia. Talk about lack of priorities which always took precedence over the mission objective. I'm sure more Hasan types are free to rein from within.

[ramos1129]

"Is the goal to defeat al Qaeda?" Priest asked. "If that's the goal, well, according to my sources, there are only about 100 al Qaeda left in Afghanistan."

"One hundred al Qaeda in Afghanistan?" Schieffer asked.

"They're over in Pakistan," Priest said. "Again, if your goal is to defeat al Qaeda, then Pakistan is where you need to go. They've been very reluctant to do that.

"If it's not that, if it's more regional stability or standing up a stable political process, that is probably going to take a lot more than 40,000 troops, and more time
------------------------------------

SecState Clinton maintains that the sole reason we are in Afgan is to defeat AQ. Other news sources confirm that there are only about 100 AQ in Afgan. Right now, we have about 68,000 US troops plus assorted other national troops there. This means that there are over 680 troops to every AQ 1 troop. Something is wrong here.

[Mud_Baby]

Given the Army's longstanding persecution of gay people--a situation that Obama hasn't cared enough about to change in spite of his campaign promise to end "don't ask, don't tell"--its claims that that it is trying to increase diversity would be laughable if this situation weren't so sad.

[aChangeOfIdeas]

I've been thinking the same exact thing.

[jsf14]

What about his patients? How did they do? The military's telling personnel to get help for their problems. Did Dr. Hasan make his patients worse? He doesn't sound like someone who'd help them get better. So what's being done for the mental health of the patients he treated?