The fact that Hasan is Muslim, he said, doesn't matter. A review would have been necessary whatever the perpetrator's religion, as a "preventative measure" to prevent a similar incident from ever happening again, he said.

And to be truly effective, he said, the review should go beyond Muslims, to help identify and weed out zealots of any kind who could become potential threats. "It would be most prudent to go across the military and leave no stone unturned," Uqdah said.

The world situation demands it, he said. "We have to recognize this for what it is: a war on several fronts, with no boundaries, and here on our own shores," he said. "So we have to be vigilant. If that requires all of us being examined, then so be it," as long as it doesn't overstep civil liberty boundaries.

"So long as it is not prejudicious, a review right now is necessary," Uqdah said.

While providing an important "litmus test," the Pentagon review will also help highlight the contributions Muslim servicemembers make to the U.S. military, and the sacrifices they have made, he said.

Full text below:

Initial review 45 days, followed by a follow-on investigation "expected to last four to six months".

Full text below:

As part of her media outreach following yesterday's inauguration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a brief but wide-ranging interview to Afghanistan's Azadi Radio (State Department, AFP). Maintaining a conciliatory tone towards the embattled president, Clinton expressed a wish for the presence of more professionals and technocrats in the Afghan government; when asked whether the U.S. would support a Karzai administration with warlords, she said, "Well, there are warlords and there are warlords."

However, the anti-Dostum campaign continues.

On one side of the cavernous room sat Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who's warned that the international community is losing patience with Karzai.

On the other side was Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Afghan warlord who's become a symbol of cronyism and government corruption. Dostum was stripped of his top military post after he was accused of war crimes and investigated for enacting vigilante justice on the streets of Kabul.

Although foreign leaders have demanded that Karzai sideline Dostum and other discredited political allies, the Afghan president is also under pressure to reward those, such as Dostum, who helped him win re-election.

That he (along with the rest of the "Northern Alliance" who are now delegated to "warlord" status) was once a key ally in America's war against the Taliban has become an inconvenient truth that doesn't fit the space allotted for modern media coverage.

As at a wedding, the guest list said a lot. Sitting in the second row was General Dostum, a military commander briefly exiled from Kabul with a reputation for viciousness even in a room of tough military men. His presence in a Karzai cabinet - yet to be announced - might prove a problem for the west.

And while betrayal of former allies is anything but rare in Afghanistan, his opposition could prove even more problematic. A brief introduction to "the unsavory characters surrounding the Afghan president and his new government" here.

LTG Freakley, USAAC CG. Lieutenant General Benjamin C. Freakley assumed command of U.S. Army Accessions Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia, on 18 May 2007, consisting of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Fort Knox, KY; U.S. Army Cadet Command, Fort Monroe, VA; and U.S. Army Accessions Support Brigade, Fort Knox, KY. http://www.usaac.army.mil/cg.html Kenny Gamble. Kenny is a Grammy-award winning, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee and the co-creator behind such classics as "Aint No Stoppin' Us Now", and "Love Train". By collaborating with iconic soul singer Patti Labelle, and the Temple University's Choir and Orchestra, "I Am An American" seeks to bring a renewed sense of patriotism to this country. - James Hooker. Today, November 19th, James releases his third solo album in the last two years - this one,¨Hanging Out With The Boys¨ is a collection of the 11 songs that rose out of the September 11th attacks and the World War On Terror that James calls WWlV. He is, as you can tell from these songs, a true supporter of the men and women ¨up at the sharp end, who lay it on the line for our kids, and our otherwise worthless asses!¨ Larry Pratt will talk about the The Veterans Disarmament Act which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2008. This law places any veteran who has ever been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on the federal gun ban list. http://gunowners.org/a010808.htmhttp://gunowners.org/netb.htm Dudley Brown - Executive Director of National Association for Gun Rights to talk about the "Gun Free Zone" in our military that possibly contributed to the Fort Hood massacre. http://www.nationalgunrights.org

CJ and Troy have done a hellagood job putting this one together- their shows keep getting better and better. Listen online here tonight at 7PM Eastern. You'll be able to join the on-line chat or call in during the show.

The memo ticks off numerous problems over the course of Hasan's training, including proselytizing to his patients. It says he mistreated a homicidal patient and allowed her to escape from the emergency room, and that he blew off an important exam.

According to the memo, Hasan hardly did any work: He saw only 30 patients in 38 weeks. Sources at Walter Reed say most psychiatrists see at least 10 times that many patients. When Hasan was supposed to be on call for emergencies, he didn't even answer the phone.
<...>
The memo does have a couple of qualifications that say something positive about Hasan. It says, "He is able to self-correct with supervision." And Moran writes, "I am not able to say he is not competent to graduate."

Officials at Walter Reed told NPR that those statements were very carefully worded. What they convey is that when Hasan's supervisors read him the riot act -- when they gave him intensive supervision -- he would improve just enough so that they had to tell their commanders: "Hasan is capable of doing better."

But officials say nobody has the time to supervise a doctor that closely.

That's accurate - "works well when supervised" is a classic damning term for a military performance evaluation. The full memo is linked from NPR's report. Anyone familiar with military writing would be hard-pressed to describe this passage...

He is able to self-correct with supervision. However, at this point he should not need so much supervision. In spite of all of this, I am not able to say he is not competent to graduate nor do I think a period of academic probation now at the end of his training will be beneficial. He would be able to contain his behavior enough to complete any period of probation successfully.

...as anything other than a recommendation that Hasan's "skills" were perhaps best utilized elsewhere.

Elsewhere, the Washington Post's headline "Senators press Obama on Fort Hood probes" is subbed with "White House wants lawmakers to slow their investigations".

Congressional Democrats have not been nearly as aggressive in their oversight of the Obama administration as they were during the Bush administration. The actions on Capitol Hill this week, however, demonstrate a growing impatience, particularly among senators, with the White House's preference that lawmakers slow down their inquiries.

Lieberman's hearing Thursday, the first on Capitol Hill regarding the Texas shootings, will start what potentially could be a more assertive approach to administration oversight, at least on matters of national security.

The report adds that "Even some of President Obama's most steadfast allies have questioned whether intelligence agencies crossed their signals" with regards to information-sharing on Hasan.

Meanwhile, President Obama concluded his Asia trip with a stop at Osan Air Base in Korea:

Obama arrived on the base 3:19 p.m. local time (1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) and received a rousing welcome from 1,500 troops in camouflage uniforms, many holding cameras or pointing cell phones to snap pictures.

"You guys make a pretty good photo op," the president said.

Standing on a riser wearing a blue suit and red tie, with a cluster of troops and a large American flag behind him, Obama expressed "the gratitude of the American public" and said his meetings in four countries over eight days in Asia will help deliver a "safer, more prosperous world for all of us."

He got a huge cheer when he told them he was increasing military pay. "That's what you call an applause line," he said, before boarding his jet and taking off at 4:11 p.m.

Mission accomplished.

Here's a look back at the history of the problem.

CBS - Obama: I'd Fire Afghan Decision Leakers.

"We have deliberations in the situation room for a reason; we're making life and death decisions that affect how our troops are able to operate in a theater of war. For people to be releasing info in the course of deliberations is not appropriate."

"A firing offense?" Reid inquired.

"Absolutely," Mr. Obama responded.

In the same interview, "the president said it's still several weeks before he makes a decision on how many more troops to send to Afghanistan." He told CNN "we are very close to a decision" on Afghanistan, and "I will announce that decision, certainly in the next several weeks."

Earlier this month, sources revealed to ABC News that "as of now President Obama will likely announce his decision about a new strategy in Afghanistan at some point between the Afghan run-off election, November 7, and the president's departure for Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, November 11." But almost immediately afterward other sources revealed that it "appears increasingly likely that Obama will not announce his new Afghanistan strategy until after returning to the United States on Nov. 20." But late last week a leak from senior U.S. officials revealed that

Ambassador Eikenberry's memos expressed "deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior U.S. officials said."

...and that could be cause for further delay.

The Gates comparison from the CBS story ("Reid says he asked the president if he's as angry as Defense Secretary Robert Gates about all the leaks...") was in reference to a recent report headlined "Gates Lashes Out at Leakers" in which the secretary was quoted as saying "I am appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on."

"If I found out who" was involved, he said, "it would probably be a career ender."

He also expressed concerns over the complexity of the president's approach to Afghanistan: "How do we signal resolve, and at the same time, signal to the Afghans and the American people that this is not open-ended?" However, the fact that those were actually administration concerns wasn't officially leaked until the following day:

One senior administration official, who requested anonymity in order to reflect the details and tone of confidential deliberations, said these concerns had added to the president's insistence at a White House meeting on Wednesday that each military option include the quickest possible exit strategy.

As for possible troop numbers, while late October leaks had indicated the president was leaning towards a smaller number, ("...what one official described as "McChrystal Light''), in early November McClatchy declared Obama leaning toward 34,000 more troops for Afghanistan - but noted that "the officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss internal administration planning, cautioned that Obama's decision isn't final.

CBS quickly trumped that story with the dramatic announcement that "informed sources tell CBS News [Obama] intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for". That report prompted an administration response CBS described as "attributed to White House National Security Advisor James Jones":

Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false.

Last week, McClatchy revealed that according to their sources (no less than six military and administration officials who had requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly), those leaks had "deprived Eikenberry and other officials of the ability to tell Karzai that no more American troops will be forthcoming if he doesn't agree to implement reforms." And worse...

The Obama administration's internal debate over Afghan policy has escalated into a battle of media leaks that's straining relations between officials who're seeking a major troop increase and those who want a more limited approach and a greater focus on domestic priorities.

The feud also has poisoned ties between the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan and the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, and left the administration struggling for leverage to press Afghan President Hamid Karzai to appoint untainted officials to his new government, attack corruption and share power with the parliament and provincial officials.
<...>
A U.S. defense official said the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, feels he was "stabbed in the back" by Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan...

However, they added in perhaps unintentional hilarity, "The official, like others who were interviewed for this article, requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. However, according to a half-dozen U.S. military and administration officials..."

So that might explain why the president is starting to get upset about leaks.

Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman recently described a dramatic scene inside the White House...

It was a tense meeting this morning at the White House, as Ambassador Karl Eikenberry addressed the National Security Council by teleconference from Kabul just hours after the media got hold of his dissent on the crucial question of sending more troops to Afghanistan. "He is very unpopular here," said a National Security Council staffer who described the meeting.

No one was happy to read in The Washington Post that Eikenberry, who commanded the war himself from 2005 to 2007, thinks that the Karzai government needs to demonstrate its commitment to anti-corruption measures before the administration can responsibly authorize another troop increase. The prevailing theory is that "he leaked his own cables" because "he has a beef with McChrystal," the staffer said.

...however, unlike most reporters who have been recipients of leaks, Ackerman later retracted the story: "My original source for the post stands by the account provided. The individual, a National Security Council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, has provided truthful and verified information on past stories, and so I trusted the source for this one..." But "White House spokesman Tommy Vietor says he checked with Amb. Eikenberry's office and the teleconference call reported in this post did not occur."