Senators and witnesses agreed today at Congress’ first public inquiry into the Fort Hood massacre that American GIs must immediately report signs of Islamic radicalism among their colleagues to protect the nation’s armed forces from inside attacks by lone wolf, self-radicalized gunmen such as the alleged shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs signaled that it would urge the armed services to revamp guidelines to encourage troops to report on fellow military personnel because GIs themselves remain the first line of defense against attacks such as the one that took place at Fort Hood on Nov. 5.

Retired Army Gen. John Keane, the Army’s former vice chief of staff, told the panel the Army needed to make changes to help troops identify the "specific behavior and attitudes as expressed by radical Islamists or Jihadist extremists" that would warrant making reports to superiors.

"It should not be an act of moral courage for a soldier to identify a fellow soldier who is displaying extremist behavior," Keane testified. "It should be an obligation."

The Senate panel convened hours after National Public Radio released a copy of a personnel evaluation of Hasan by a medical supervisor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The two-page evaluation by Army Maj. Scott Moran in 2007 said the faculty of Hasan’s psychiatry training program had "serious concerns" about the physician’s "professionalism and work ethic," adding: "He demonstrates a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism."

The memo obtained by NPR was the first public evidence that at least one Army superior tried to bring Hasan’s professional conduct to the attention of his chain of command.

Hasan went before an Army promotion board a year after Scott’s evaluation and was recommended for promotion from captain to major – a rank that has suffered acute shortages in the Army medical corps.

Scott offered his evaluation amid a series of red flags that have come to light since the Fort Hood attack.,

Hasan reportedly told superiors at Walter Reed that some of his soldier-patients should be charged with war crimes for actions described in private psychiatric sessions.

Hasan also told fellow physicians that Muslim soldiers ought to be permitted to leave the Army as conscientious objectors rather than serving in a force fighting Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army-trained physician also exchanged emails with the radical Islamic cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who had ties to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists.

The Senate panel touched upon a troubling absence of intelligence sharing between an FBI-led joint terrorism task force that came across email traffic between Hasan and the radical cleric.

Information that Hasan had been in touch the Islamic spiritual leader never made it from the task force to the Pentagon or the Army.

Frances Townsend, former homeland security adviser at the White House under President Bush, told the Senate panel that Army officials may have shied away from entering "derogatory" information about Hasan’s radicalization into the physician’s personnel file so that JTTF investigators never saw any reason to spread the word that he had been in touch with a radical cleric.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, a political independent from Connecticut, said the panel he chairs will now seek documents and interviews within the Justice Department, the Pentagon, the Army and Walter Reed Army Medical Center to determine the warning signs that may have been missed and recommendations for changes in the future.

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