War On Terror: Last month we told you about a high-level Muslim aide pushing his weight around the Pentagon. Now we learn he wasn't properly vetted, and his days there are numbered.
Somehow, Egypt-born Hesham H. Islam landed a top-security job in the office of the deputy secretary of defense, despite nefarious contacts with Muslim radicals and a questionable background.
Key parts of Islam's official bio don't check out, according to the National Review. Now the Pentagon has taken down a glowing profile of him from its Web site, "while we try to determine the facts," a spokesman said.
You would think military headquarters in the middle of a war against Muslim terrorists would have thought to do that before it hired a Muslim immigrant as special assistant to the Pentagon No. 2.
But in a major embarrassment, it appears nobody bothered to conduct a thorough background investigation of Islam, who still was cleared to receive secret intelligence.
Nor were red flags raised when, shortly after he took his new job in 2005, he tried to bring a leading member of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood into the Pentagon to meet with his gullible boss, Gordon England.
His invitation to Muslim Brotherhood official Husam al-Dairi was canceled only after a senior State Department official heard about it and insisted the meeting not take place, according to terror expert Steven Emerson.
Islam did manage to invite a Syrian official to meet with England, however, also in direct contradiction of U.S. policy. England, who considers Islam "my personal close confidant," wasn't the wiser. "I take his advice," he said, "and I listen to him all the time."
Indeed, England has followed Islam's advice to do "outreach" with the Islamic Society of North American — even after federal prosecutors named the group a front for the radical Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror-financing case.
Islam arranged for England to speak at ISNA's 2006 convention and last year invited ISNA officials to lunch with England at the Pentagon. A Pentagon intelligence analyst butted heads with Islam over the unseemly outreach when he argued in briefings that the Defense Department should cease such programs with ISNA.
Maj. Stephen Coughlin also produced a 329-page thesis concluding that the terrorists have been following Islamic war doctrine. Islam reportedly complained about his findings and not long afterward it was decided that Coughlin's contract would not be renewed.
But thanks to attention drawn to the outrage in the conservative press, Coughlin's job has been restored, while Islam is expected to soon step down from his post. His departure can't come soon enough.
As Emerson noted, "Hesham Islam is an Islamist with a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bent who has brought in groups to the Pentagon who have been unindicted co-conspirators."
According to federal prosecutors, ISNA and other major U.S. Muslim groups are involved in a Brotherhood conspiracy to destroy America from within.
The Egypt-based Brotherhood's motto: "God is our objective, the Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our way, and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations."
Who else in the Pentagon has been running influence operations on behalf of the bad guys? What other Muslims haven't been vetted?