US President Barack Obama held emotional meetings at Fort Hood, Texas, on Tuesday with relatives of the 13 victims of last week's shooting rampage as an inquiry examined whether vital warning signs had been missed.
The president, accompanied by his wife, Michelle, also visited many of the 29 wounded. While Obama attended a memorial service at the base, Major Nidal Malik Hasan was recovering in a hospital after being shot four times by a policewoman at the scene of the massacre.
Hasan’s lawyer, Colonel John Galligan, said yesterday he remained sedated and would continue to exercise his rights not be interviewed by investigators.
Galligan told CBS Hasan was “aware he’s a suspect.”
“But there were no formal charges that I could discuss with him,” the lawyer said.
Investigators tried to speak to him on Sunday but Hasan asked for a lawyer.
A spokesman at the hospital at San Antonio said Hasan had been taken off a ventilator over the weekend and had been talking to hospital staff.
Galligan, who was hired by Hasan’s family, questioned whether it was possible for his client to receive a fair trial if it was held at Fort Hood.
A White House spokesman said Obama, who postponed a trip to Asia to take part in the memorial service, wanted to use the occasion to concentrate on the victims, to talk about each of them and discuss their contributions.
Lieutenant-General Bob Cone, Fort Hood’s commanding officer, said the service was similar to those held to honor those who die in combat.
“This is what we do,” Cone said. “This is a process that we as soldiers go through, and many of our families have been a part of this ... It will be familiar and comfortable to many of our soldiers.”
Hasan, who is to be tried in a military court, faces a death sentence if found guilty. He allegedly opened fire with two handguns as troops were making final preparations for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The FBI was alerted about Hasan late last year and again this year, when he was in e-mail contact with a former US-based imam, Anwar al-Aulaqi, who is now believed to be in Yemen.
The FBI intercepted more e-mail exchanges but concluded there was nothing in them that constituted a threat. On Aulaqi’s Web site on Monday, there was praise for the Fort Hood shooting as a “heroic act.”
The Washington Post yesterday published a presentation Hasan made to a military medical conference in which he told a room of military doctors 18 months ago that to avoid “adverse events” the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.
“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” he said.
Some present are said to have expressed surprise because such presentations were normally confined to treatment of mental illness.
Asked about whether these and other warning signs had been missed, the White House’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said: “That’s what we want to figure out. And the president has asked that there be that accounting, and when we have it we’ll let it be known.”
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