Hasan’s superiors privately criticized him, officially praised and promoted him

Look at it this way: Major Nidal Hasan was Barak Obama in another body: an alienated non-Euro incompetent who openly expressed his hostility to America and his identification with Islam, yet who kept getting praised and promoted way beyond what his abilities, performance, and loyalty warranted, until he brought on disaster—and only then did the truth about him begin to be publicly recognized.

A ‘Major’ disaster
By ANDY SOLTIS
New York Post, January 20, 2010

The Fort Hood massacre major repeatedly was ripped by Army brass for unprofessional behavior, poor judgment, lateness and even being too fat—but was still given glowing reports by the same officers.

Nidal Hasan was rated “Outstanding Performance, Must Promote” by one supervisor and “Best Qualified” by another shortly after he barely avoided being put on probation.

Documents obtain by The Associated Press showed that officials expressed concern about Hasan at almost every stage of his Army education yet they praised him when it mattered, on his permanent record.

When Hasan—who last Nov. 5 opened fire on Fort Hood soldiers, killing 13—was a psychiatric intern at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he once appended “Allah willing” to a patient’s medical chart. A potentially suicidal—or homicidal—patient of his managed to walk out of an emergency room.

One of his instructors, Lt. Col. Donald Lundy, even thought Hasan was at risk of developing a psychosis—but there was no follow-up.

Confidential minutes from a January 2005 meeting held by a policy committee that oversees Walter Reed’s psychiatry program said Hasan exhibited “poor self-monitoring, judgment and cognitive abilities.”

On June 1, 2005, the committee blasted Hasan for “a continuous trend of poor performance.”

Yet he got a glowing review—“outstanding performance”—on his record and was recommended for promotion.

One reviewer called him a “fine military physician officer.”

The confidential documents also reveal that by March 2007, Hasan was a mess.

The head of the Walter Reed psychiatric residency program, Maj. Scott Moran, said Hasan was seeing less than one patient a week, acting unprofessionally and conducting research that was unfocused and loaded with Koran verses. Also, he was nearly 20 pounds overweight.

But Moran later wrote to the certifying American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology that the hospital had “no documented evidence of unethical or unprofessional behavior, nor any serious question regarding clinical competence.” Moran also gave him an “outstanding performance” rating.

During Hasan’s fellowship, fellow students repeatedly raised concerns about his preoccupation with Islam, including that the war on terror was “a war against Islam.”

They said he appeared to justify suicide bombing and had declared Islamic law took precedence over the Constitution—an assertion that should have prompted a review of his security clearance.

Nevertheless he was promoted to major in May 2009, despite more lateness, missed exams and avoiding a physical fitness test. With AP

andy.soltis@nypost.com

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 22, 2010 10:22 AM | Send