Fort Hood Shooter Tried to Contact Al Qaeda

The story of Major Malik Nadal Hasan gets more and more ugly:

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.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan tried to make contact with people linked to al Qaeda.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.

It makes me wonder if his transfer from Washington to Fort Hood was done because he was deemed a threat to D.C., but not enough of a threat to detain and investigate. Somebody dropped the ball, and as discussed in the previous post, I wonder how much political correctness and the fear of appearing bigoted contributed to this terrorist attack.