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<H2 style="MARGIN: 20px 0px 0px">Pentagon Cowers Behind Wordplay</H2>
<H5 style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 20px">By Robert Scheer, Truthdig<BR>Posted on March
28, 2007, Printed on March 31, 2007<BR>http://www.alternet.org/story/49867/</H5>
<P>C'mon! The Pentagon's inspector general concludes that nine top officers were
involved in the cover-up of NFL football star Cpl. Pat Tillman's "friendly fire"
death, yet insists that this apparent conspiracy to conceal the truth does not
rise to the level of criminality? Rather, it was "missteps" that led four
generals and five officers of lower rank to conceal from his family and the
American public the truth known instantly in the field: Tillman died not, as the
Pentagon first claimed, in a firefight with the enemy in Afghanistan but rather
at the hands of his fellow Rangers.</P>
<P>That family includes Tillman's brother Kevin, who fought alongside Pat in
Iraq and Afghanistan after ending his own sports career as a professional
baseball player and enlisting with Pat in response to the 9/11 attacks. Yet this
family, which sent two of its sons to fight in President Bush's wars, was
rewarded for its sacrifice with officially inspired fabrications enshrined in a
Silver Star commendation.</P>
<P>For five weeks of mourning, from Tillman's death on April 22, 2004, through
his nationally televised memorial on May 3, the U.S. government -- from the
president on down -- used the tale of Tillman's heroism to deflect the nation's
attention from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the escalating American
casualties in Iraq. Four generals were cited by the inspector general as
sacrificing the truth in Tillman's death. But another Central Command chief,
Gen. John Abizaid, who knew about the friendly fire death a week after it
occurred, was noticeably absent in the report released Monday.</P>
<P>The one officer who did pursue the truth was then-Capt. Richard Scott, now a
major, who had been assigned within 24 hours of Tillman's death to investigate
the fratricide. His report, submitted May 10, 2004, concluded that possible
criminal actions occurred. It was never officially accepted. He later testified
that witnesses had been allowed, in subsequent Pentagon investigations, to
change their testimony as to key details in the shooting.</P>
<P>As the Tillman family put it in a statement Monday: "The Army continues to
deny the family and the public ... access to the original investigation and the
sworn statements from that [Scott] investigation. ... His investigation
contained the unaltered statements, taken when memories were still fresh, by
witnesses to the events surrounding Pat's death. We know ... that more than one
of the original statements was altered, after Capt. Scott's investigation
'disappeared.' This is not a misstep. It is evidence tampering."</P>
<P>The family scorned the inspector general's conclusion of "missteps." "The
characterization of criminal negligence, professional misconduct, battlefield
incompetence, concealment and destruction of evidence, deliberate deception, and
conspiracy to deceive, are not 'missteps.' These actions are malfeasance."</P>
<P>The Tillmans noted the buck stops artificially with one of the generals
cited, Lt. Gen. General Philip Kensinger, now retired: "While he is not
blameless, we believe he is the pawn being sacrificed to protect the king ...
[former] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld."</P>
<P>The family points out that Rumsfeld was very familiar with the case. He had
written Tillman a personal letter thanking him for enlisting. Rumsfeld was
obviously aware that this was the most high-profile death in the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.</P>
<P>The family noted it is inconceivable that the Pentagon would have been able
to coordinate a carefully orchestrated campaign of lies converting Tillman's
death as a result of friendly fire into a Rambo-like assault on Taliban
guerrillas, while keeping the secretary of defense and the White House in the
dark.</P>
<P>Pat was a hero, saving the life of a fellow soldier who also was being fired
upon. He sacrificed not only a lucrative career but also an extraordinary
passion for life that included his marriage to a wonderful woman, his years of
education in which he was distinguished as a scholar as well as an athlete, and
the enormous love of his family and community.</P>
<P>He deserved the Silver Star granted him posthumously, but not for the phony
reasons cited in the declaration. As the Tillman family put it, "the award of
the Silver Star appears more than anything to be part of a cynical design to
conceal the real events from the family and the public, while exploiting the
death of our beloved Pat as a recruitment poster."</P>
<P>They are right. As the family stated, "In three years of struggling with the
Pentagon's public affairs apparatus, we have never been dealt with honestly. We
will now shift our efforts into Congress, to which we appeal for investigation."
A congressional investigation into the administration's cynical exploitation of
Tillman's sacrifice is long overdue. </P>
<P><I>Robert Scheer is the co-author of <A
href="http://www.alternet.org/fivelies/">The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us
About Iraq</A>. See more of Robert Scheer at <A
href="http://truthdig.com/">TruthDig</A>. </I></P>
<H5 style="MARGIN: 30px 0px 20px">© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights
reserved.<BR>View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/49867/</H5></DIV></BODY></HTML>