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U.S. intelligence agencies are combing through their files to see what reports they may have which might have provided advance warning about the apparently growing anger and radical Islamist sympathies of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 in a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas last week. The New York Times is reporting that intelligence agencies did intercept e-mails between Hasan and Anwar Awlaki, a former Washington D.C. area imam now residing in Yemen, but apparently didn't regard them as hugely significant at the time. Awlaki today posted an item on his Web site praising Hasan for his bloody attack last week. Intelligence officials said the agencies had begun scouring their files for material on Hasan even before Rep. Pete Hoekstra, top Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter today to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and the heads of the FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency requesting that they "preserve all documents and materials relevant to the Fort Hood attack and any related investigations or intelligence collection activities." In his letter, Hoekstra complained that the Obama administration had restricted limited Congressional intelligence briefings regarding Hasan to the so-called "Gang of Eight"—senior House and Senate leaders, including Intelligence Committee leaders from both parties (including Hoekstra himself). Hoekstra's press statement on the subject appeared to imply that he had reason to believe the agencies did have some intelligence on Hasan which could have given military officials an early warning that he was about to crack. "I have requested this information be preserved because I believe members of the full committee on a bipartisan basis will want to scrutinize the intelligence relevant to this attack, what the agencies in possession of that intelligence did with it, who was and wasn’t informed and why, and what steps America’s intelligence agencies are taking in light of what they know," Hoekstra said. He did not respond to a message from NEWSWEEK requesting further elaboration on this point.