TAMPA, FL -- According to retired Col. Mike Pheneger, who spent 30 years as a military intelligence officer including five years at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, said United States intelligence should be focusing on why suspected Fort Hood gunman Nidal Malik Hasan did what he did.
It is possible that Hasan was merely unhappy about an imminent deployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan, as some have speculated, Pheneger said.
But Pheneger believes there are enough facts about Hasan's background that merit at least some suspicion about his motivation.
"One of the issues they're trying to figure out is whether the guy was simply individually motivated by his distaste with the Army and his unwillingness to go ahead and deploy or whether there's some more sinister aspect to the whole thing," Pheneger said.
Among the "more sinister aspects" that Pheneger suggested were that Hasan is a "lone wolf" who has sympathy for Islamic militancy and "decided to go act on his own to do some damage" or that he could have "consciously been placed as a plant in the U.S. Army."
Pheneger believes the last suggestion is the least likely but also the most sinister.
Late Thursday, federal law enforcement officials said Hasan had been on their radar for at least six months because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats.
Pheneger said Hasan's computer would be one place intelligence officers would be looking. They would also delve into Hasan's social network and check with intelligence sources to find out if Hasan had ever had contact with organizations around the world, he said.
"I normally take these things with a grain of salt," Pheneger said, "but the other factor that comes in here is this guy handles a gun awfully well for a doctor."
Hasan is a 39-year-old psychiatrist who transferred to Ft. Hood in July. Before that, he spent six years at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C.
