Posted on 04/24/2007 10:52:18 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
WASHINGTON - Pat Tillman's brother accused the military Tuesday of "intentional falsehoods" and "deliberate and careful misrepresentations" in portraying the football star's death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.
"We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public," Kevin Tillman told a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing. "Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide," he said, contending that the military's misstatements amounted to "fraud."
"Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed," said Tillman, who was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened three years ago but didn't see it.
The committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., accused the government of inventing "sensational details and stories" about Pat Tillman's death and the 2003 rescue of Jessica Lynch, perhaps the most famous victims of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
"The government violated its most basic responsibility," said Waxman.
Lynch, then an Army private, was badly injured when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq. She was subsequently rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital but the tale of her ambush was changed into a story of heroism on her part.
Still hampered by her injuries, Lynch walked slowly to the witness table and took a seat alongside Tillman's family members.
"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales," Lynch said.
Kevin Tillman said his family has sought for years to get at the truth about Pat Tillman's death, and have now concluded that they were "being actively thwarted by powers that are more interested in protecting a narrative than getting at the truth and seeing justice is served."
Lawmakers questioned how high up the chain of command the information about Tillman's friendly fire death went, and whether anyone in the White House knew before Tillman's family.
"How high up did this go?" asked Waxman.
Pat Tillman's mother, Mary Tillman, said she believed former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must have known. "The fact that he would have died by friendly fire and no one told Rumsfeld is ludicrous," she said.
Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, after his Army Ranger comrades were ambushed in eastern Afghanistan. Rangers in a convoy trailing Tillman's group had just emerged from a canyon where they had been fired upon. They saw Tillman and mistakenly fired on him.
Though dozens of soldiers knew quickly that Tillman had been killed by his fellow troops, the Army said initially that he was killed by enemy gunfire when he led his team to help another group of ambushed soldiers. The family was not told until May 29, 2004, what really happened, a delay the Army has blamed on procedural mistakes.
In questioning what the White House knew, Rep. Elijah Cummings (news, bio, voting record), D-Md., cited a memo written by a top general seven days after Tillman's death warning it was "highly possible" the Army Ranger was killed by friendly fire and making clear his warning should be conveyed to the president. President Bush made no reference to the way Tillman died in a speech delivered two days after the memo was written.
A White House spokesman has said there's no indication Bush received the warning in the memo written April 29, 2004 by then-Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to Gen. John Abizaid, head of Central Command.
"It's a little disingenuous to think the administration didn't know," Kevin Tillman told the committee. "That's kind of what we hoped you guys would get involved with and take a look," he said.
Mary Tillman told the committee that family members were "absolutely appalled" upon realizing the extent to which they were misled.
"We've all been betrayed ... We never thought they would use him the way they did," she said.
The Tillman family has made similar accusations against the administration and the military before, but has generally shied away from news media attention. The family had never previously appeared together and summarized their criticism and questions in such a public, comprehensive way.
"We shouldn't be allowed to have smoke screens thrown in our face," Mary Tillman said. "You're diminishing their true heroism to write these glorious tales. It's really a disservice to the nation."
"Our family will never be satisfied. We'll never have Pat back," she said. "Something really awful happened. It's your job to find out what happened to him. That's really important."
Last month the military concluded in a pair of reports that nine high-ranking Army officers, including four generals, made critical errors in reporting Tillman's death but that there was no criminal wrongdoing in his shooting.
Tillman's death received worldwide attention because he had walked away from a huge contract with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lawmakers also planned to press the Pentagon with questions still hovering over Tillman's shooting, including whether a Predator drone was flying overhead when Tillman was killed and whether it videotaped the incident. The military says no such videotape exists.
___
Associated Press writer Scott Lindlaw contributed to this report from San Francisco.
Wouldn’t there have be an investigation before an official determination of fratricide was announced?
So what?
Exactly.
A few weeks to evaluate the actual cause is more than reasonable. I remember it annunced that it was friendly fire not that long after the announcement of his death. If it was covered up for years, that would be a different scenario.
This family, unfortunately, thinks it is entitled to more than other military families due to their son's fame. It is really quite embarrassing.
So it was fratricide. Happens. The real question is was he fragged?
What lie? This is where I lose contact. We were all told that Pat Tillman was killed in battle. I don't recall any specific narrative other than "in combat". If it was reported as "died heroically in combat"... That's *not* false. He *was* attacking an enemy position. That he was engaged by our side by mistake sucks, but it doesn't change his actions one bit.
If there was any embellishment of Tillman and his heroics, the people that did that are the *media* and not so much the Army. It was a compelling story and it wrote itself.
But I remember it coming out right away, within a couple of weeks IIRC, that the Army investigation confirmed instead that he was killed by his own unit by mistake. Not much of a coverup, if you ask me.
The media probably did not help matters, but if the Army had investigated the incident before saying anything they may have saved themselve much embarrassment. This could not have helped matters.
He knows what he is doing is wrong, but he does it anyway because he is so consumed by anger and bitterness that he prefers getting revenge to do what he knows is right.
This is a Satanic temptation - and the fact that Kevin Tillman has openly declared his contempt for God and people who believe in Him tells me that something has gone very wrong in his psyche.
It would be easier to understand if he were just a coward like Ehren Watada, but he isn't.
His Death was still heroic - he was trying his best to protect his soldiers - it was unfortunate that because he had an Afghan Soldier with him, his own compatriates who were under fire, mistook him for Taliban and opened fire on him.
Stonewall Jackson had a similar end and he is no less of a hero. I believe the bullet that got him was from his own troops.
Whoever is in charge of these ‘war-stories’ is quiet stupid and goes for short term glory and long term embarrassment.
Here are few that I can remember that started out as dramatic heart wrenching stories and then required shameful back pedalling, Jessica, Conversation with British Pilot during Bush’s surprise Thanks giving trip to Iraq, Tillman.
Enough already you STUPID MORON, stop pedalling crap and digging bigger hole for administration.
I don't remember the fictionalization. Can you point to a contemporaneous story from the Army that was fictionalized?
I'm not contesting your statement, I simply don't recall any, and would be interested to see if there were stories like that at the time.
I think you miss some of the point. Of course anyone would be angry at being lied to, and it goes without saying that I would be devastated to lose a loved one. However, I would like to think that at some point my common sense would click in and I would realize that no matter how angry I might be, at some point I would have to accept that no one had intentionally caused my pain. Lashing out would not lessen that pain. If changes in policy could be made to rectify the situation, by all means I would try to get the policy change made. But in the case of Friendly Fire there aren’t any substantive changes that can be made. No one charged with the safety of his men would let something like this happen on purpose. If the “fragging” stories have been looked at and found to have no merit, can you tell me what can be accomplished?
There are many people who gave up no money but joined out of pure patriotism to fight after 9-11. Some probably dies by friendly fire. The Army probably takes at least a month to investigate friendly fire incidents before telling the family the details. I am sure there is a standard “in the line of duty” when the parents are told.I smell a rat. I hope the government can come up with proof this was SOP.
Amen!
I misunderstood what you wrote. Please accept my sincere apology.
Preliminary reports of persons on the scene did not indicate friendly fire.
The Army considered it a combat death, and the Tillman family were informed of this before they buried their son.
In the meantime, the Army continued to gather information. Statements that were originally made did not add up, and so a formal inquiry was launched.
A few weeks later it became apparent that the original reports were simply not accurate.
The Tillman family is now alleging that the Army "knew" that it was friendly fire the day they buried their son, that the Army "lied" to them on purpose to make sure that Tillman's memorial would be good press and they are even suggesting that Tillman was killed intentionally - i.e. murdered - by his own brothers-in-arms, because Tillman had allegedly concluded that the war in Iraq was "illegal."
From the Army's perspective, they have admitted that maybe they should have told the Tillman family that some doubts were emerging on the original account of Tillman's death due to discrepancies in timelines, etc. - but I'm wondering how much responsibility the Army really has to report painful rumors that have not yet been substantiated.
The Tillman family are beginning to push a conspiracy narrative tailor-made by enemies of this Republic.
...well maybe fictionalize is the wrong word....but the field command misrepresented the facts and a Pentagon report a few months ago with 9 high ranking officers including 4 generals came to this conclusion....I think Tillman was and is a hero....and I’m not bashing the military at all....just this specific incident
You should make a distinction between the ENTIRE Army, and those who specifically dealt with the Tilman issue and were found to have made grave errors in determining what to do with the information that they had AT THE TIME.
For the family to think Bush knew, they are being grandiose. Yes, the President probably knew Tilman was serving and he may have heard that he died. But, does this mean he had an after-action report on his desk that was completed and accurate during the time frame that the family suspects? They are not thinking this through.
The president is the executive of the nation, with so many responsibilities on his desk. I doubt he was holding his breath waiting to hear all the details about Tilman. It was the underlings job to fill him in after they had all the information.
But they aren't - what they are is complaining that the inquiry the Army unilaterally undertook wasn't fast enough and didn't publicize the findings widely enough for their taste.
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