Editorial: The Fort Hood tragedy leaves many questions

President Obama was right to warn on Friday, in the aftermath of the horrific Fort Hood, Tex., slayings, "against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts." It will be too easy for some to make that mistake, given the Arab heritage of alleged gunman Nidal Malik Hasan, his reported daily attendance at a Silver Spring mosque during his years in Washington and the anti-Muslim harassment that a relative said he endured in the Army. In fact, the terrible crime of which Maj. Hasan is accused was not the expression of any faith, nor the work of a terrorist organization, but rather, it appears, the act of an evil or deranged individual. It says nothing about American Muslims -- an estimated 3,000 of whom serve honorably in the armed forces. Maj. Hasan's own family issued a statement calling the attack "despicable and deplorable." "Our family loves America," the statement said.

One of the most obvious questions as investigations go forward is whether the FBI or military authorities missed an opportunity to prevent Maj. Hasan from acting. The Associated Press reported that the suspect came to the attention of law enforcement at least six months ago because of Internet postings that praised suicide bombers. Other reports said that he had been counseled because of poor performance while training as a psychiatrist, that he had been resisting a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, and that he had been trying to leave the military. Were disgruntlement and threatening behavior taken seriously enough?

Investigators also will need to determine how Maj. Hasan managed to smuggle weapons and ammunition into the post facility where he launched his attack, in spite of rules prohibiting the carrying of loaded weapons. The soldiers who were gunned down -- many of whom were preparing for deployment to a war zone -- were unarmed. Only the heroic intervention of a civilian police officer, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, stopped the rampage.

Maj. Hasan, a psychiatrist, was assigned to help soldiers suffering from the terrible stresses of war and repeated deployments abroad. Fort Hood has had its share of such trouble, with 10 suicides reported this year. During his eight years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, relatives said, Maj. Hasan was deeply bothered by the cases of post-traumatic stress disorder he saw. But it was Maj. Hasan, not those suffering men and women, who chose to turn a gun on his fellow service members. Whether he did so out of calculation or madness, he inflicted a grievous wound on the men and women of Fort Hood -- one that the nation must now do its best to salve.