Rumsfeld Denies Accountability In Tillman Death

Testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld denied any Administration or Pentagon attempts to cover-up the circumstances surrounding the death of Pat Tillman, one of the highest profile soldiers -- and deaths -- associated with the war on terror.

Rumsfeld's insistence that there was no cover-up flies in the face of the timeline of events. It also flies in the face of medical evidence revealed in July: Tillman was shot in the forehead three times by an M-16 fired from 10 yards or so away. (tip)

Want to explain how you can kill a fellow soldier from 30 feet by accident? Nope -- the Pentagon just keeps saying "there was no cover-up," as if repeating the phrase often enough will either a) make it true or b) exhaust people so that they stop asking questions.

Talk about discrepancies: the LA Times reported in 2005:

The soldier next to him testified: “I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, ‘Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f—ing Tillman, dammit.' He said this over and over until he stopped,” having been hit by three bullets in the forehead, killing him.

The soldier continued, “I then looked over at my side to see a river of blood coming down from where he was … I saw his head was gone.”

I have trouble balancing the soldier's statement that "his head was gone" with the medical examiner's report of three bullet holes close together.

Moreover, according to additional documents released under a FOI request, "Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments."

And the White House again cited executive privilege and refused to release documentation of communication between the White House and the Pentagon regarding Tillman's death.

Timeline
Events of that spring provide a rationale for a deliberate attempt to squash the story:

• 18 April 2004: The Seattle Times (my home town paper) releases images of flag-draped coffins on its front page. The Defense Contractor subsequently fires the employee.
• 22 April 2004: The same day that Tillman dies, The Memory Hole publishes coffin images obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
• 22 April 2004 - Pat Tillman killed in "friendly fire" (aka "fratricide")
• 23 April 2004 - All top Ranger commanders told of the suspected fratricide
• 28 April 2004: CBS broadcasts images of the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
• 29 April 2004 - Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time and the current commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, sent a high-priority "Personal For" cable to four-star Gen. John Abizaid, head of Central Command, advising of probable fratricide. He "suggested that Abizaid contact 'POTUS' (the president of the United States) 'in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment.'" Abizaid told the Inspector General that he was in Iraq did not receive the cable for '10-20' days; this is what the IG's report concludes. However, according to the Army's website, Abizaid was at Central Command headquarters "engaged in a teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon."
• 30 April 2004: U.S. Army Special Operations Command awards Tillman posthumous Silver Star for combat valor.
• 30 April 2004: The New Yorker publishes its first analysis of Abu Ghraib, written by Seymour Hersh.
• 30 April 2004: April was the bloodiest month for US troops in the year-old invasion. The 127 Americans killed in "hostile" events more than doubled the prior "record." Until this milestone, the bloodiest month had been November 2003, with 73 killed in hostile actions.
• 1 May 2004: The one-year anniversary of Bush's speech that hostilities had ended in Iraq.
• 1 May 2004: In a speech to the White House Correspondents Association annual dinner, Bush mentioned Tillman.
• 3 May 2004 - Bush Administration orchestrates nationally-televised memorial, with the public story still being Tillman was killed by enemy fire; features Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Denver Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer and Maria Shriver.
• 8 May 2004 - Formal report of investigation -- verdict, fratricide -- by Capt. Richard Scott is delivered to Col. James Nixon, the 75th Ranger Regiment's commander. Nixon is officially appointed to run the case.
• 28 May 2004 - Gen. John Abizaid, CENTCOM's commander in chief, approved the investigation's conclusions (under an aide's signature).
• 29 May 2004 - Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr. made the first public announcement that Tillman had probably been killed by friendly fire; announcement made at at Fort Bragg, NC.
• 19 September 2004 - Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots football game in Arizona; halftime featured a video tribute to Tillman with comments from President Bush and McCain.
• January 2005 - The Pentagon concluded that there was no "cover-up" despite the fact that Capt. William Saunders, the commander of Tillman's company, was able to skirt perjury charges by being allowed to change his testimony and he was granted immunity.
• July 2007: Retired Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., a senior officer in the chain of command for Tillman's unit, was censured "for knowingly trying to mislead investigators." Earlier news reports suggested he was going to be demoted. Army Secretary Pete Geren has "asked a military review panel to decide whether Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, who led Army special operation forces after the Sept. 11 attacks, should also have his rank reduced."

In July AP reported:

[Military medical examiners] were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime... the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away... The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described...

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case.

"He said he talked to his higher headquarters and they had said no," the doctor testified.

Why was the medical examiner's recommendation ignored? WHO ignored it? The record does not show.

And we still don't know who ordered Tillman's unit to be split up:

The 2nd Platoon commander -- Lt. David Uthlaut, a recent graduate of West Point -- objected to the decision to split the group. In an e-mail to the operations center, dated 5.03 pm, he said: "I would recommend sending our whole platoon up to the highway and then having us go together to the villages." Splitting the platoon would be fruitless because it would be dark before the group could reach Manah, and procedures prohibited search operations after dark.

The "I don't remember" defense may have run out for Kensinger. But the rest of the Pentagon brass keeps preaching ignorance and incompetence -- even the IG report shows a lack of competence in simply taking Abizaid's word that he was not at CenComm when the cable came in.

Plausible deniability? I don't think so.

Updated:
BlackFive (a military blog) is talking about the ME report. Despite the troll (who claims Tillman deserved to die because he was a moonbat), the comments are interesting. Such as ... "It is highly unlikely that someone could take three rounds to the head accidentally." (Note - Uncle Jimbo also asks why is this the first media mention of three rounds to the head. It's not - the LA Times reported this in 2005.)

^{Originally Posted @ 3.21 PM 1 August}