Zero Covering For Islamist Extremists

Congressman: Why is Obama stifling Hasan investigation?
Member of House intelligence committeee wants reports to prevent another attack

"How can it be that the House Committee on Homeland Security has launched an investigation and called hearings within a week to look into the couple who crashed a recent White House state dinner, yet a month after Fort Hood there has yet to be a single congressional hearing into the Fort Hood attack?" Hoekstra said. "I fear that our nation is returning to the naive security outlook of Sept. 10, 2001, when radical Islamic terrorist attacks were considered law enforcement and criminal problems and not threats to our national security."

Hoekstra said that in just the past year, there have been arrests of suspects in alleged "homegrown terrorist attacks" in New York, Chicago, North Carolina and Atlanta.

"Russia recently has seen several alleged homegrown terrorism attacks, including a train bombing and an attack against a gas storage facility. There were horrific homegrown terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. In 2006, 18 homegrown terrorists were arrested in Toronto. It has happened here and will happen again if we don't act. We cannot wish it away," he warned.

"We need to understand how homegrown terrorism works if we are to identify and stop homegrown terrorists before they carry out acts of violence. How are al-Qaida leaders and other radical jihadists recruiting and radicalizing homegrown terrorists? A principle route seems to be the Internet. We know that Maj. Hasan was in contact via the Internet with radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and that Mr. al-Awlaki's sermons have influenced would-be homegrown terrorists in the United States and the terrorists who launched the deadly 2005 London subway bombings," Hoekstra said.

"Hoekstra suspects Obama is purposefully dragging out the release of any information on Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan into next February, and he considers this stall an unconstitutional trampling of his committee's responsibility to the nation," he wrote. "Federal law requires the White House to brief House and Senate members on this investigation and 'ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States.'"

"What is being covered up?" Collins wondered. "Whatever's in the report must be even worse than the publicly available facts."

In Hoekstra's commentary, he said only a thorough review will uncover "the intelligence failures that prevented it from being detected."

"Americans underestimate the threat from homegrown terrorism," he said. "The president said it is inconceivable that this would happen in America. Wrong. It is not inconceivable and is a growing global problem that needs to be addressed."