FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 13, 2010

The Virginia mosque of the radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, credited as the key link behind the Fort Hood shootings, the Christmas Day underwear bomber, and the Times Square bomber, has been receiving $23,000 a month from the U.S. Census Bureau for rent of an office building the mosque owns in the Washington suburbs.

“I wonder do we actually even have a Department of Homeland Security,” says Congressman John Carter (R-TX), who represents the Fort Hood area in the House. “The purpose for creating this cabinet-level agency in 2002 was to coordinate all agencies of the federal government to prevent any more radical Islamic attacks like 9-11. Eight years later and they can’t even tell a federal agency they’re renting office space from the very mosque involved with the 9-11 attacks, and that has seeded this past year’s assaults through the likes of Al-Awlaki.”

The former Texas judge says the mosque’s terrorist links could have been easily detected through a DHS background check by the General Services Administration (GSA), which leased the space for the Census Bureau.

“We missed multiple warnings that the 9-11 attacks were coming because federal agencies were not communicating and coordinating with each other concerning intelligence on terrorist activity,” says Carter. “DHS was supposed to correct that, yet they have failed us three times in a row in less than a year, are refusing to admit their failures, and are taking no corrective action.”

Carter says the President should immediately take responsibility for the failures and announce definitive steps to remediate the gross incompetence.