89–008 

111TH CONGRESS REPORT " ! HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 2d Session 111–402 

RESOLUTION OF INQUIRY REQUESTING THE PRESIDENT TO TRANSMIT TO 

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ALL DOCUMENTS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE PRESIDENT RELATING TO THE INVENTORY AND REVIEW 

OF INTELLIGENCE RELATED TO THE SHOOTING AT FORT HOOD, TEXAS, 

DESCRIBED BY THE PRESIDENT IN A MEMORANDUM DATED NOVEMBER 

10, 2009 

JANUARY 27, 2010.—Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed 

Mr. REYES, from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 

submitted the following 

ADVERSE REPORT 

together with 

MINORITY VIEWS 

[To accompany H. Res. 978] 

The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to whom was 

referred the resolution (H. Res. 978) requesting the President to 

transmit to the House of Representatives all documents in the possession of the President relating to the inventory and review of intelligence related to the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, described by 

the President in a memorandum dated November 10, 2009, having 

considered the same, report unfavorably thereon without amendment and recommend that the resolution not be agreed to. 

PURPOSE

H. Res. 978 requests that the President submit to the House of 

Representatives all documents in the possession of the President 

relating to the inventory and review of intelligence related to the 

shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, described by the President in a 

memorandum dated November 10, 2009. 

BACKGROUND

On November 10, 2009, President Barack Obama ordered an inventory of all information held by the U.S. Government regarding 

U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who has been charged with 

13 specifications of premeditated murder and 32 counts of atVerDate Nov 24 2008 05:39 Jan 28, 2010 Jkt 089008 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6659 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\HR402.XXX HR402

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tempted premeditated murder under the Uniform Code of Military 

Justice. 

President Obama also directed a review of how that information 

was handled, shared, and acted upon within and across departments and agencies. The President’s national security advisors delivered a report summarizing the inventory and review to the 

President on November 30, 2009. 

SCOPE OF COMMITTEE REVIEW

No hearings were held in the Committee on H. Res. 978. 

OVERSIGHT FINDINGS

In compliance with clause 3(c)(1) of rule XIII of the Rules of the 

House of Representatives, the Committee advises that the findings 

and recommendations of the Committee are incorporated in the descriptive portion of this report. 

GENERAL PERFORMANCE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Clause 3(c)(4) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives does not apply, as H. Res. 978 does not authorize funding. 

CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY STATEMENT

Clause 3(d)(1) of rule XIII of the House of Representatives does 

not apply, as H. Res. 978 is not a bill or a joint resolution that may 

be enacted into law. 

COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION AND ROLL CALL VOTES

On January 20, 2010, the Committee met in open session to consider H. Res. 978. 

The Committee voted to report the resolution adversely by a 

record vote of 8 ayes and 5 noes. 

Voting aye: Mr. Reyes, Mr. Hastings, Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Holt, Mr. 

Thompson, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Langevin, Mr. Boren. 

Voting no: Mr. Gallegly, Mr. Thornberry, Mrs. Myrick, Mr. Miller, Mr. Conaway. 

SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS

This resolution requests that the President submit to the House 

of Representatives all documents in the possession of the President 

relating to the inventory and review of intelligence related to the 

shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, described by the President in a 

memorandum dated November 10, 2009. 

STATEMENT OF FEDERAL MANDATES STATEMENT

H. Res. 978 includes no Federal mandates. 

STATEMENT ON CONGRESSIONAL EARMARKS

Clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives 

does not apply, as H. Res. 978 is not a bill or a joint resolution. 

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE ESTIMATE

In compliance with clause 3(d)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules of the 

House of Representatives, the Committee estimates that impleVerDate Nov 24 2008 05:39 Jan 28, 2010 Jkt 089008 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6659 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\HR402.XXX HR402

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menting the resolution would not result in any significant costs. 

The Congressional Budget Office did not provide a cost estimate for 

the resolution. 

CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW MADE BY THE BILL, AS REPORTED

H. Res. 978 makes no changes to existing law. 


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MINORITY VIEWS 

We are dismayed that the Committee has once again refused to 

conduct urgent and bipartisan oversight of what appear to be significant issues in the Intelligence Community. We have pressed 

since the Fort Hood incident for more information, and even though 

a second attack raising almost identical issues has occurred in the 

interim we have still received virtually no meaningful information. 

Since the Administration to date has shared only a two-page unclassified report that virtually ignores what appear to be the key 

intelligence issues, we believe that this resolution continues to be 

needed to facilitate meaningful oversight to help protect against future attacks. 

Since November 2009, the United States has suffered two significant jihadist-connected terrorist attacks—the November 5, 2009 

shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, and the failed Christmas, 2009 

bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit, Michigan. 

Two days after the Fort Hood incident, Republican members of the 

Committee wrote to the Directors of key intelligence agencies to express concern that preliminary information had suggested the possibility that serious issues existed with respect to the performance 

of the intelligence community, and asked for all relevant documents and materials to be preserved to facilitate ‘‘significant and 

serious oversight activity by the Committee.’’ 

The urgency of conducting vigorous oversight to attempt to immediately fix deficiencies in our nation’s intelligence collection and 

analysis in order to try to prevent future attacks should have been 

obvious and noncontroversial. This is not a partisan objective, but 

an imperative command of our duty to protect the American people. 

The Committee should have worked immediately and collectively 

on a bipartisan basis with senior Administration officials and the 

leadership of the Intelligence Community to identify and fix the 

shortcomings highlighted by the Fort Hood incident. These included what apparently were serious failures to apprehend and follow up on the significance of intelligence that had been collected, 

serious failures in sharing information, serious failures in analyzing disparate intelligence, and serious failures to comprehend 

the threat caused by radicalized Americans. 

Instead of such a bipartisan effort, the Administration announced on November 10 that it had chosen to conduct a unilateral 

and wholly internal review of the matter. Accordingly, Republican 

members of the Committee wrote to the Speaker of the House on 

November 17 to request vigorous bipartisan oversight of the matter 

in light of ‘‘significant intelligence and intelligence sharing failures 

that must be reviewed and addressed immediately to ensure that 

the American people receive the fullest protection against potential 

attacks’’. We received no response to our outreach, and were disVerDate Nov 24 2008 05:39 Jan 28, 2010 Jkt 089008 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6604 Sfmt 6604 E:\HR\OC\HR402.XXX HR402

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1 A New York Times Magazine article after the attempted Christmas Day attack stated: ‘‘Notwithstanding Janet Napolitano’s statement last month that ‘the system worked,’ Obama suspected that it had not. While on vacation he was given an 80-page review of the Fort Hood 

shooting, looking at how information about Hasan was not well circulated within the federal 

government.’’ Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism, New York Times Magazine, January 17, 2010. 

appointed that our efforts to conduct meaningful, substantive oversight on this matter were ignored on a partisan basis. 

At the November 30, 2009 deadline for the completion of the Administration’s review of intelligence related to the Fort Hood shootings, we again made requests on November 30 and December 3 for 

briefings so we could immediately get to work on intelligence community performance issues ‘‘that must be addressed immediately to 

safeguard the American people.’’ In his December 3 letter, Ranking 

Member Hoekstra pointed out ‘‘Given what we already know about 

the attack, we need to prevent its reoccurrence. We cannot waste 

more time. We must immediately begin a healthy dialogue between 

the Executive and Legislative Branches in order to investigate the 

intelligence-related matters surrounding the attack.’’ Again, this 

proposition should not have been either partisan or controversial. 

Again, our request was met by silence. The Committee was not and 

still has not been briefed on the results of the intelligence review, 

and it appears that even the President may not have been fully 

briefed on the review until weeks later.1

On December 16, 2009, Ranking Member Hoekstra introduced H. 

Res. 978 in an effort to obtain documents and materials related to 

the Fort Hood intelligence review so that the Committee could conduct independent oversight of the performance issues in the Intelligence Community that had been brought to light in the Fort Hood 

attack. 

Nine days later, on Christmas Day, the United States suffered a 

second attack by al-Qaeda connected terrorist Abdul Farouk 

Abdulmutallab, who attempted to destroy Northwest Flight 253 

and the 289 people on board with an explosive device. It immediately became apparent that the failures that had come to light 

at Fort Hood had almost catastrophically happened again—failure 

to understand the importance of critical intelligence, failure to follow up on that intelligence, failure to share that intelligence, and 

failure to comprehend the threats posed by radicalization. The 

Christmas attack also further highlighted the failure of the Intelligence Community to effectively follow up on the threat posed by 

radical jihadist cleric Anwar al-Alwaki. 

While it is impossible to say definitively whether more urgent 

and effective followup on the intelligence flaws identified in connection with the Fort Hood matter would have prevented the Christmas attack, it is clear that the Committee and the Administration 

should have acted more urgently as we sought in the wake of Fort 

Hood and still must act immediately to conduct vigorous and independent review of these issues so that these problems can be fixed 

fully and immediately. 

The limited information that has been made available to us on 

the Executive Branch reviews that have been conducted on these 

matters gives us little confidence that the flaws have been fully addressed. On January 15, 2010, six weeks after its conclusion, the 

Administration finally provided the Committee with some informaVerDate Nov 24 2008 05:39 Jan 28, 2010 Jkt 089008 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6604 Sfmt 6604 E:\HR\OC\HR402.XXX HR402

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2 ‘‘Democrats Seek Cover on Security,’’ Roll Call, January 14, 2010 at 3. (‘‘House Democratic 

leaders are looking to President Barack Obama to show that the party in power is staying on 

offense when it comes to national security. . . . ’’). 

tion on the outcome of the Fort Hood intelligence review—a two 

page, unclassified, document sent via email that failed entirely to 

address the most significant concerns that have arisen in the wake 

of the two most recent attacks. Given the seriousness of the issues 

at stake for national security, this document is shocking in its utter 

lack of substance and failure to grasp the nature or urgency of the 

issues at stake. It is clearly insufficient. Moreover, the White 

House review of matters relating to the Christmas bombing attempt could not be fully independent or objective inasmuch as it 

was led by the same person who originally was responsible for 

some of the potentially flawed practices at the National Counterterorrism Center. 

The Majority once again has turned down a clear and necessary 

opportunity to fill a critical void. The Chairman’s objection that 

this resolution might require the production of too many documents 

from the Intelligence Community (which have already been preserved and presumably examined in the Executive Branch review) 

only highlights what we believe is the fundamental lack of independent oversight being conducted by this Committee. It is unfortunate that the Majority apparently is willing to cede its oversight 

responsibility to the Executive Branch and apparently views this 

issue as a matter of artisan political discourse rather than as an 

urgent legislative responsibility.2 This is not an issue of partisan 

politics. It is an issue of national security, and we will continue to 

press for aggressive and substantive oversight to address these 

critical issues. 

PETE HOEKSTRA. ELTON GALLEGLY. MAC THORNBERRY. MIKE ROGERS. SUE MYRICK. ROY BLUNT. 

JEFF MILLER. K. MICHAEL CONAWAY. 

PETER T. KING. 

fi 


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