[T-Rock]

Former Defense IG Raises Concerns About Military Chaplain Vetting

A former inspector general for the Defense Department is calling on Congress to investigate and oversee the vetting process for Muslim clerics who are nominated to serve as U.S. military chaplains.

In a letter sent earlier this month to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, former Inspector General Joseph Schmitz outlined what he believes is the potential risk to national security posed by the military’s current chaplain vetting system.*Among the concerns Schmitz outlined in his letter, which was obtained by FoxNews.com, are:

— The naming of the ISNA's former endorsing agent, Dr. Louay Safi, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2003 trial of Sami Al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to one count of fundraising for the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Safi is also the subject of a whistleblower investigation.

“The November 2008 criminal conviction in Texas of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) as a front for Hamas, naming of the DoD's Chaplain Endorsing Agents, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), as an unindicted co-conspirator (among others), suggests that terrorist organizations can and do disguise themselves as charitable organizations," Schmitz wrote to Feinstein.

"The November 2009 Fort Hood massacre by a commissioned Army officer who served as a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood demonstrates that international terrorist organizations can also try to disguise their agents as chaplains and religious lay leaders," he added…

…In his letter to Feinstein, he also argued that the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror fundraising trial in itself should be enough to reconsider the organizations currently tasked with endorsing chaplain candidates.*During that trial, prosecutors named the ISNA, among other well-known Muslim organizations, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case that convicted a Texas charity of acting as a front for Hamas. (A court document unsealed two weeks ago reaffirms the prosecution’s stance that ISNA, among other groups, was tied to HLF's fundraising for Hamas.)*

Yet, ISNA remains one of two ecclesiastical endorsing agencies used to vet Muslim chaplain candidates for the military… *

…Safi, who has participated in Pentagon programs since at least 2005, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2006 Al-Arian case. (During the trial, Safi was identified as "Unindicted Co-Conspirator Four," and evidence from the case included wiretapped phone conversations between him and Al-Arian.)*

Safi is also the subject of a whistleblower complaint filed late last year by a contractor who expressed concern with Safi's participation in a lecture on Islam to soldiers at Fort Hood before their deployments in the weeks after the deadly shooting there.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...etting-policy/

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