As former Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan faces execution, questions remain about warnings dismissed before the Fort Hood killings and information withheld afterward. Nine Army officers faced disciplinary action, but their names and individual punishments were withheld from the public.

Senators Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins concluded that the Defense Department and FBI had enough information to detect Hasan’s radicalization but failed to act. After three months of negotiations with President Obama’s executive branch, information remained withheld. Their objection appeared in a footnote of the 100-page report:

“We take issue with the extent of these redactions, some of which we believe are unjustified, but we have consented to them in order to produce this report in a timely manner.” The statement appears in footnote 1 on printed page 8 of A Ticking Time Bomb, the Senate’s February 3, 2011, Fort Hood investigation report.

Before killing 12 soldiers and a civilian physician assistant at Fort Hood, Army psychiatrist, Hasan, delivered a 50-slide presentation in 2007 to his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members at Walter Reed.

Col. John Bradley headed Walter Reed’s psychiatry department. A military evaluation praised Hasan’s research on Islamic beliefs regarding military service as having “extraordinary potential to inform national policy and military strategy.” The Senate report described evaluations that “sanitized his obsession with violent Islamist extremism into praiseworthy research on counterterrorism.”

Meanwhile, San Diego FBI investigators monitoring extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki flagged Hasan’s communications with him. According to the report, FBI personnel in Washington relied on favorable military evaluations and treated the contact as legitimate research. San Diego challenged the inquiry as “slim,” but the disagreement went unresolved. The FBI did not alert Hasan’s Army command before the killings.

Was the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit consulted? What information did it receive, and what assessment did it provide? If it was not consulted, why not? The FBI used behavioral analysis experts to assess another terrorism suspect, Hosam Smadi, during the same period.

The Associated Press reported that some of Hasan’s supervisors expressed serious concerns about his behavior, judgment, and competence, yet continued giving him positive evaluations. Nine officers faced reprimands ranging from oral warnings to written censure, but the Army withheld their names and individual punishments. The officers also had the right to appeal.

Appeal? Consider the alternative: a public execution by firing squad. A reprimand suddenly looks pretty good.

Who directed the Army to withhold the nine names: the Army, Defense Department, or White House? President Obama was commander in chief. Who made the decision?

The Army announced discipline without identifying those disciplined. That leaves a national security loophole: the public cannot scrutinize the “lone wolf” theory or determine whether those involved oversaw psychiatric research on soldiers as human subjects. Withholding their names blocks scrutiny of both leadership failures and potential connections to that research.

Hasan’s responsibilities make those questions especially important. He treated soldiers with combat-related trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder, and worked in research and proposed military policy.

Hasan completed a fellowship in preventive and disaster psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The two-year program trained military psychiatrists in “preparing for, and responding to, mass casualty events.”

NPR identified three psychiatrists as reportedly under Army investigation: Bradley; Charles Engel, who supervised Hasan’s fellowship at the Uniformed Services University; and Scott Moran, who directed Walter Reed’s psychiatric residency program. The Army declined to confirm or deny those individual investigations.

Moran tried to remove Hasan, documenting a “pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism.” Higher-ranking officials told him to back off, warning of legal difficulties. Who overruled him, and what consequences followed?

Questions about accountability also extend to the FBI’s review process. FBI Director Robert Mueller commissioned an outside review chaired by former FBI and CIA director William Webster. Its other members were Douglas E. Winter, Adrian L. Steel Jr., William M. Baker, Russell J. Bruemmer, and Kenneth L. Wainstein.

The commission documented mistakes but found no “intentional misconduct or the disregard of duties,” saying personnel “acted with good intent.” Those findings concerned FBI and task force personnel not the Army’s nine officers.

Deputy chair Douglas Winter had clerked for Webster. His law firm profile lists pharmaceutical and medical device litigation among his practice areas. Walter Reed and military psychiatry conduct human research involving psychiatric treatments, including medical devices. That overlap raises questions about potential conflicts of interest and the independence of the review.

The pattern from Fort Hood to Virginia Tech’s “lessons learned” process and the Sandy Hook commission raise the same question: were stakeholders examining institutional failures, or protecting the institutions they represented?

Military research aimed at advancing warfighting technology and studying human psychology accounts for a substantial share of research funding. Congress appropriated $301 million in fiscal year 2007 for military traumatic brain injury and psychological health research. DARPA’s SUBNETS program later emerged in 2013 and 2014 as a reported $70 million effort to develop psychiatric brain implants.

Those funding decisions are directly related to the type of research Hasan was involved in: military psychological health, psychiatric treatment, and research intended to influence military policy. The expansion of that research makes the unanswered questions about his psychiatric leadership more urgent—not less.

Without the nine officers’ identities and records, the public cannot fully examine their research responsibilities, decisions involving Hasan, or connections to psychiatric human research on soldiers. The government should not withhold the information needed to examine those connections.

Psychiatry’s role in military treatment, research, and policy deserves scrutiny. No profession’s institutional authority should place its leadership beyond public accountability.  Psychiatry is not the 4th branch of  the government; it is subject to the people.

Hasan’s guilt is settled. Responsibility up the chain remains unfinished. Who independently investigated the psychiatric leadership that kept him advancing despite extremist ties?

Name the nine. Release their final disciplinary outcomes. Identify who overruled the warnings. The public deserves to know not only who committed the killings, but how the institutions responsible for recognizing the danger failed to act.