Sen. Rick Scott pushes for change in foreign military training programs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (WEAR) — After learning NAS Pensacola shooter Mohammed Alshamrani has strong ties to terrorists, Senator Rick Scott continues to push for change for foreign military training programs.

Channel 3 spoke to Senator Scott who said the US needs to beef up the vetting process for foreign military students, or a tragedy like this could happen again.

The FBI said the terror attack was calculated and backed by terrorists.

Defense officials said the shooter, Mohammed Al-Shamrani, was connected to al-Qaida and had been planning the attack for years.

“This announcement surely confirmed our worst fears, it was an act of terror on American soil,” said Senator Scott.

Senator Scott has now proposed a bill called the Secure U.S Bases Act.

The legislation would tighten the vetting process and increase the monitoring of foreign military students training in the U.S.

The bill calls for special, limited visas that would prohibit students from owning firearms.

The Senator said he also wants Saudi flight students to be trained in abroad and strictly monitored.

“This country has been successful in the past in stopping terrorist attacks and I think that if we would have had the right vetting process in place this student would have never gotten on American soil,” said Senator Scott.

Greg Grippo is a Marine veteran who was stationed at NAS Pensacola for years.

“It’s shocking that they didn’t check him out more thoroughly before they gave him access to our aircraft and our naval base,” said Grippo. “It’s almost criminal negligence on somebody’s part."

Senator Scott is now calling for all the Saudi national students to be sent home until changes are made to the program.

“Their guys should be over there, using their money and equipment and if they want send some of our guys over there to train them. There is no reason that they need to use our facilities at all,” added Grippo.

After the attack, 21 Saudi flight students were expelled. The FBI says this was because they were in possession of Jihadist material or child pornography.

Right now, several other Saudi students still remain on NAS.

Their training was initially grounded for several months but picked up at the end of February.

“We’ve got to keep our bases safe. Our military men and women safe,” said Senator Scott.