US colleagues of shooter considered sacking him: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Colleagues of the accused gunman in the Fort Hood shooting rampage were troubled by his lackluster performance as an army psychiatrist and had discussed removing him, National Public Radio said Tuesday.

Psychiatrists told NPR that Major Nidal Hasan, suspected of killing 13 people in a shooting spree at the Texas army base last week, seemed "detached and uninterested" in his work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The doctors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Hasan often failed to answer the phone when he was the psychiatrist on duty at the hospital outside Washington, the report said.

One hospital official said that Hasan -- a devout Muslim with misgivings about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- had tried to convert a patient to Islam, telling the patient his religion would save him.

Supervisors had warned Hasan that he needed to improve his job performance and the director of psychiatric resident doctors at the hospital discussed kicking Hasan out of the program, NPR said.

Psychiatrists said it was difficult to fire a doctor and that an elaborate trail of documents is required showing neglect. Hasan's supervisors had not sufficiently documented his alleged shortcomings, it said.

One unnamed source told NPR that the hospital's policy committee also discussed how it would appear if one of the few Muslim staff members was sacked from the program.

Hasan has emerged from a coma after being wounded in the Fort Hood shootings last Thursday that also wounded 42 soldiers and civilians.

The shootings have set off nationwide soul-searching and worries about the motives of the gunman.

In a television interview on the eve of his visit to the base for memorial services, President Barack Obama said the question being asked was: "Is this an individual who's acting in this way or is it some larger set of actors?"

Senator Joseph Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he would launch a probe into whether the army missed any warning signs which could have prevented the attack.

The Washington Post meanwhile reported that Hasan made a presentation at the hospital 18 months ago warning army doctors that the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors to avoid "adverse events" that might arise from requiring them to fight in wars in Islamic countries.

The presentation unsettled the audience of army physicians but it was unclear if the briefing was reported to police or intelligence authorities, the Post wrote.