FORT HOOD, Texas -- A key U.S. senator said Sunday he would begin an investigation into whether the Army missed signs that the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood had embraced an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology.
Sen. Joe Lieberman's call for an investigation came a day after classmates who participated in a 2007-2008 master's program at a military college said they complained to superiors about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and what they considered to be his anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.
"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance," Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on "Fox News Sunday." "He should have been gone."
Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wants Congress to determine whether the shootings constitute a terrorist attack.
Army Chief of Staff George Casey also warned Sunday
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Dr. Val Finnell told The Associated Press on Saturday that he and other classmates participating in a 2007-2008 master's program with Hasan at the Uniformed Services University complained about his comments, including that the war on terror was "a war against Islam."
Another classmate told the AP on Sunday that he complained to five officers and two civilian faculty members at the university. He wrote in a command climate survey sent to Pentagon officials that fear in the military of being seen as politically incorrect prevented an "intellectually honest discussion of Islamic ideology" in the ranks. The classmate requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
