Washington, D.C.— House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) released the statement below following a Committee briefing earlier today by the Department of Defense on the restricted annex of the Department’s Independent Review Related to Fort Hood:

“While I am pleased with the progress that is being made by the DOD’s review of the tragic shooting at Fort Hood last year, I remain deeply concerned by media reports that military medical officers failed to document substandard and unacceptable behavior in Major Nidal Hasan’s military records during his medical training. 

“Our military health system is truly a national treasure of medical providers and researchers, and I am deeply concerned that these revelations threaten to undermine confidence in it—particularly during this critical time while our nation is at war.

"We cannot allow the reputation of our entire system to be tarnished by one bad apple, which is why I am calling upon DOD and the military services to perform a comprehensive review of medical training and personnel records. We need to guarantee that every single military officer practicing medicine today completed his or her training according to the standards and excellence that our nation's men and women in uniform expect and deserve.

"As always, we will continue to do everything necessary to prevent another tragedy like the Ft. Hood shooting, while at the same time ensuring that we do not interfere with the criminal investigation of Major Hasan or in any way compromise the ability of the prosecution to try this case.”

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