Lieberman, Collins may soon wrap up Fort Hood investigation

The fight between the Senate and the Obama administration over who has access
to information on the November 2009 shooting massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, is
likely to end this fall one way or another, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said last week.

“We may decide soon that we’re ready to write a report [on
the shooting], in which case possibly we’d issue it sometime in September,”
Lieberman said.

{mosads}Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the Department of Defense has complied with his panel’s
investigation just enough to avoid subpoenas. Lieberman said his investigation
could drag on past September if the committee decides the Pentagon isn’t
adequately cooperating.

Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the accountability
committee’s ranking Republican, are investigating the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting at
Fort Hood that left 13 people dead and 30 wounded. Military prosecutors have
charged Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the
incident.

Lieberman and Collins subpoenaed Attorney General Eric
Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates in April, seeking more information
about the Fort Hood investigation. In May, the two senators said they were
leaning toward taking the administration to court to enforce the subpoenas.

Since then, Lieberman said the administration has been more forthcoming with
information.

“We’re making progress in the sense that they’ve turned more documents over,
and we’ve found a way, I think, to try to get testimony from some of the people
involved,” Lieberman said. “So far we haven’t felt the need to enforce the
subpoenas.”

Collins said progress on the case has been steady behind
closed doors, but said she and Lieberman are “still fighting” the
administration.

“It’s still possible that we’re going to have to enforce the subpoenas that
we’ve issued,” she said.

Lieberman has called the Fort Hood attack an act of terrorism and wants access
to investigators as well as Hasan’s personnel file to determine if the
shootings could have been prevented. The administration has resisted those
requests on the grounds that the investigation could be compromised.

Lieberman said he and Collins might simply issue a joint statement on the
shooting, since they have been the only two senators on the committee deeply
involved in the case. That arrangement would remove the need for a full
committee vote on the matter, unless legislation is necessary.