He was against the Iraq occupation.

>

> From: "Pierce R. Butler" <pbutler@igc.org>

> Date: 2005/09/27 Tue PM 12:45:59 EDT

> To: CCAWTtalk@yahoogroups.com

> Subject: Pat Tillman, Chomsky, & Pentagon coverups

>

> MNM1.DTL

>

> FAMILY DEMANDS THE TRUTH

> New inquiry may expose events that led to Pat Tillman's death

>

> Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer

> Sunday, September 25, 2005

>

>

> The battle between a grieving family and the U.S.

> military justice system is on display in

> thousands of pages of documents strewn across

> Mary Tillman's dining room table in suburban San

> Jose.

>

> As she pores through testimony from three

> previous Army investigations into the killing of

> her son, former football star Pat Tillman, by his

> fellow Army Rangers last year in Afghanistan, she

> hopes that a new inquiry launched in August by

> the Pentagon's inspector general finally will

> answer the family's questions:

>

> Were witnesses allowed to change their testimony

> on key details, as alleged by one investigator?

> Why did internal documents on the case, such as

> the initial casualty report, include false

> information? When did top Pentagon officials know

> that Tillman's death was caused by friendly fire,

> and why did they delay for five weeks before

> informing his family?

>

> "There have been so many discrepancies so far

> that it's hard to know what to believe," Mary

> Tillman said. "There are too many murky details."

> The files the family received from the Army in

> March are heavily censored, with nearly every

> page containing blacked-out sections; most names

> have been deleted. (Names for this story were

> provided by sources close to the investigation.)

> At least one volume was withheld altogether from

> the family, and even an Army press release given

> to the media has deletions. On her copies, Mary

> Tillman has added competing marks and scrawls -

> countless color-coded tabs and angry notes such

> as "Contradiction!" "Wrong!" and "????"

>

> A Chronicle review of more than 2,000 pages of

> testimony, as well as interviews with Pat

> Tillman's family members and soldiers who served

> with him, found contradictions, inaccuracies and

> what appears to be the military's attempt at

> self-protection.

>

> For example, the documents contain testimony of

> the first investigating officer alleging that

> Army officials allowed witnesses to change key

> details in their sworn statements so his finding

> that certain soldiers committed "gross

> negligence" could be softened.

>

> Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not

> widely known - a fiercely independent thinker who

> enlisted, fought and died in service to his

> country yet was critical of President Bush and

> opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour

> of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests

> ranged from history books on World War II and

> Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam

> Chomsky, a favorite author.

>

> Unlike Cindy Sheehan - who has protested against

> President Bush because of the death of her son

> Casey in combat in Baghdad - Mary Tillman, 49,

> who teaches in a San Jose public junior high

> school, and her ex-husband, Patrick Tillman, 50,

> a San Jose lawyer, have avoided association with

> the anti-war movement. Their main public allies

> are Sen. John McCain, RAriz., and Rep. Mike

> Honda, D-San Jose, who have lobbied on their

> behalf. Yet the case has high stakes because of

> Pat Tillman's status as an all-American hero.

>

> A football star at Leland High School in San

> Jose and at Arizona State University, Tillman was

> chosen Pac-10 defensive player of the year in

> 1997 and selected by the Arizona Cardinals in the

> NFL draft the following spring.

>

> He earned a bachelor's degree in marketing from

> Arizona State and graduated summa cum laude in 3

> 1/2 years with a 3.84 grade point average. Ever

> the student, Tillman not only memorized the

> playbook by the time he reported for the

> Cardinals' rookie camp but pointed out errors in

> it. He then worked on a master's degree in

> history while playing professional football.

>

> His 224 tackles in a single season (2000) are a

> team record, and because of team loyalty he

> rejected a five year, $9 million offer from the

> St. Louis Rams for a one-year, $512,000 contract

> to stay with Arizona the next year.

>

> Moved in part by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist

> attacks, Tillman decided to give up his career,

> saying he wanted to fight al Qaeda and help find

> Osama bin Laden. He spurned the Cardinals' offer

> of a three year, $3.6 million contract extension

> and joined the Army in June 2002 along with his

> brother Kevin, who was playing minor-league

> baseball for the Cleveland Indians organization.

>

> Pat Tillman's enlistment grabbed the attention

> of the nation - and the highest levels of the

> Bush administration. A personal letter from

> Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, thanking

> him for serving his country, now resides in a

> storage box, put away by Pat's widow, Marie.

>

> Instead of going to Afghanistan, as the brothers

> expected, their Ranger battalion was sent to

> participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in

> March 2003. The Tillmans saw combat several times

> on their way to Baghdad. In early 2004, they

> finally were assigned to Afghanistan.

>

> Although the Rangers are an elite combat group,

> the investigative documents reveal that the

> conduct of the Tillmans' detachment - A Company,

> 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment - appeared to

> be anything but expert as it advanced through a

> remote canyon in eastern Afghanistan on April 22,

> 2004, on a mission to search for Taliban and al

> Qaeda fighters in a village called Manah.

>

> According to the files, when one of the humvees

> became disabled, thus stalling the mission,

> commanding officers split Tillman's platoon in

> two so one half could move on and the other could

> arrange transport for the disabled vehicle.

> Platoon leader Lt. David Uthlaut protested the

> move as dangerous, but he was overruled. The

> first group was ordered out in the late

> afternoon, with Pat Tillman in the forward unit.

> Kevin's unit followed 15 to 20 minutes later,

> hauling the humvee on an Afghan-owned flatbed

> truck. Both groups temporarily lost radio and

> visual contact with each other in the deep

> canyon, and the second group came under attack

> from suspected Taliban fighters on the

> surrounding ridges.

>

> Pat Tillman, according to testimony, climbed a

> hill with another soldier and an Afghan

> militiaman, intending to attack the enemy. He

> offered to remove his 28-pound body armor so he

> could move more quickly, but was ordered not to.

> Meanwhile, the lead vehicle in the platoon's

> second group arrived near Tillman's position

> about 65 meters away and mistook the group as

> enemy. The Afghan stood and fired above the

> second group at the suspected enemy on the

> opposite ridge. Although the driver of the second

> group's lead vehicle, according to his testimony,

> recognized Tillman's group as "friendlies" and

> tried to signal others in his vehicle not to

> shoot, they directed fire toward the Afghan and

> began shooting wildly, without first identifying

> their target, and also shot at a village on the

> ridgeline.

>

> The Afghan was killed. According to testimony,

> Tillman, who along with others on the hill waved

> his arms and yelled "cease fire," set off a smoke

> grenade to identify his group as fellow soldiers.

> There was a momentary lull in the firing, and he

> and the soldier next to him, thinking themselves

> safe, relaxed, stood up and started talking. But

> the shooting resumed. Tillman was hit in the

> wrist with shrapnel and in his body armor with

> numerous bullets.

>

> 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 Š I saw his head was gone." Two

> other Rangers elsewhere on the mountainside were

> injured by shrapnel.

>

> Kevin was unaware that his brother had been

> killed until nearly an hour later when he asked

> if anyone had seen Pat and a fellow soldier told

> him.

>

> Tillman's death came at a sensitive time for the

> Bush administration - just a week before the

> Army's abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq

> became public and sparked a huge scandal. The

> Pentagon immediately announced that Tillman had

> died heroically in combat with the enemy, and

> President Bush hailed him as "an inspiration on

> and off the football field, as with all who made

> the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror."

>

> His killing was widely reported by the media,

> including conservative commentators such as Ann

> Coulter, who called him "an American original -

> virtuous, pure and masculine like only an

> American male can be." His May 3, 2004, memorial

> in San Jose drew 3,500 people and was nationally

> televised.

>

> Not until five weeks later, as Tillman's

> battalion was returning home, did officials

> inform the public and the Tillman family that he

> had been killed by his fellow soldiers.

>

> According to testimony, the first investigation

> was initiated less than 24 hours after Tillman's

> death by an officer in the same Ranger battalion.

> His report, delivered May 4, 2004, determined

> that soldiers involved in the incident had

> committed "gross negligence" and should be

> appropriately disciplined. The officer became a

> key witness in the subsequent investigation. For

> reasons that are not clear, the officer's

> investigation was taken over by a higher ranking

> commander. That officer's findings, delivered the

> next month, called for less severe discipline.

>

> The parents, protesting that many questions were

> left unanswered, found a sympathetic ear in

> McCain, who Mary Tillman later said was greatly

> admired by her son. Tillman was well known in

> Arizona because of his success there as a college

> and pro football player. McCain began to press

> the Pentagon on the family's behalf, and a third

> probe finally was authorized. Its report was

> delivered in January.

>

> The military is saying little publicly about the

> Tillman case. Most Army personnel who were

> involved in the Tillman incident or the

> investigations declined to comment publicly when

> contacted by The Chronicle. The inspector

> general's press office also declined to comment,

> saying only that the new probe is openended.

>

> Over the coming weeks, Pentagon investigators

> are scheduled to carry out new interviews with

> many of the soldiers, officers and others

> involved in the incident. As they carry out their

> reassessment, potentially controversial points

> include:

>

> -- Conflicting testimony. In his Nov. 14, 2004,

> interrogation, the first investigator expressed

> frustration with "watching some of these guys

> getting off, what I thought Š was a lesser of a

> punishment than what they should've received. And

> I will tell you, over a period of time Š the

> stories have changed. They have changed to, I

> think, help some individuals."

>

> The investigator testified that after he

> submitted his report on May 3, higher-ranking

> officers permitted soldiers to change key details

> of their testimony in order to prevent any

> individual from being singled out for punishment.

>

> "They had the entire chain of command

> (inaudible) that were involved, the [deleted],

> all sticking up for [deleted] Š And the reason

> the [deleted] called me in Š because the

> [deleted] Š changed their story in how things

> occurred and the timing and the distance in an

> attempt to stick up for their counterpart,

> implied, insinuated that the report wasn't as

> accurate as I submitted it Š" the first

> investigator testified.

>

> In another section of his testimony, he said

> witnesses changed details regarding "the

> distance, the time, the location and the

> positioning" in Tillman's killing.

>

> Another disputed detail was whether the soldiers

> were firing while speeding down the canyon or

> whether they stopped, got out and continued

> shooting. In testimony in the third

> investigation, the soldiers said they did not

> stop. However, the medical examiner's report said

> Tillman was killed by three bullets closely

> spaced in his forehead - a pattern that would

> have been unlikely if the shooter were moving

> fast. Spc. Russell Baer, a soldier pinned down by

> gunfire on the hillside near Tillman, said in an

> interview with The Chronicle that at least two

> soldiers had gotten out of the humvee to fire

> uphill. One other soldier confirmed this account

> to a Tillman family member.

>

> One soldier dismissed by the Rangers for his

> actions in the incident submitted a statement in

> the third investigation that suggests the probe

> was incomplete: "The investigation does not truly

> set to rest the events of the evening of 22 April

> 2004. There is critical information not included

> or misinterpreted in it that could shed some

> light on who is really at fault for this," he

> wrote.

>

> -- Commanders' accountability. According to the

> documents and interviews, Capt. William Saunders,

> to whom platoon leader Uthlaut had protested

> splitting his troops, was allowed to change his

> testimony over a crucial detail - whether he had

> reported Uthlaut's dissent to a higher ranking

> commander. In initial questioning, Saunders said

> he had done so, but when that apparently was

> contradicted by that commander's testimony,

> Saunders was threatened with perjury charges. He

> was given immunity and allowed to change his

> prior testimony.

>

> The regiment's commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey

> Bailey, was promoted to colonel two months after

> the incident, and Saunders, who a source said

> received a reprimand, later was given authority

> to determine the punishment of those below him.

> He gave administrative reprimands to six

> soldiers, including Uthlaut, who had been

> seriously wounded in the face by shrapnel in the

> incident. Uthlaut - who was first captain of his

> senior class at West Point, the academy's highest

> honor - was dismissed from the Rangers and

> re-entered the regular Army.

>

> "It seems grossly inappropriate that Saunders

> would determine punishment for the others when he

> shares responsibility for the debacle," Mary

> Tillman said.

>

> Baer told The Chronicle that commanding officers

> were to blame for the friendly fire because they

> split the platoon and ordered it to leave a

> secure location in favor of a region known as a

> Taliban stronghold.

>

> "It was dumb to send us out during daylight,"

> said Baer, who was honorably discharged from the

> Rangers earlier this year and lives in the East

> Bay.

>

> "It's a well-known military doctrine that

> privates first learn going through basic training

> - if you are in enemy territory and you are

> stopped for a prolonged period of time, the best

> thing to do is to wait until nightfall. Why they

> thought that moving us out in broad daylight from

> our position, dragging a busted humvee slowly

> through a known hotspot after we had been

> stranded there all day was a good idea will

> forever elude me. Who made that decision? Bailey?

> Saunders? That's what I want to know."

>

> -- Inaccurate information. While the military

> code gives clear guidance for informing family

> members upon a soldier's death when cases are

> suspected of being a result of friendly fire,

> that procedure was not followed in the Tillman

> case. After Tillman's death, the Army gave

> conflicting and incorrect descriptions of the

> events.

>

> On April 22, the family was told that Tillman

> was hit with enemy fire getting out of a vehicle

> and died an hour later at a field hospital.

>

> Although there was ample testimony that Tillman

> died immediately, an Army report - dated April

> 22, 2004, from the field hospital in Salerno,

> Afghanistan, where his body was taken - suggested

> otherwise. While it stated that he had no blood

> pressure or pulse "on arrival," it stated that

> cardio pulmonary resuscitation had been conducted

> and that he was transferred to the intensive care

> unit for further CPR.

>

> On April 23, all top Ranger commanders were told

> of the suspected fratricide. That same day, an

> Army press release said he was killed "when his

> patrol vehicle came under attack."

>

> On April 29, four days before Tillman's

> memorial, Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S.

> Central Command, and other top commanders were

> told of the fratricide. It is not known if

> Abizaid reported the news to Washington. Mary

> Tillman believes that with her son's high

> profile, and the fact that Rumsfeld sent him a

> personal letter, the word quickly reached the

> defense secretary. "If Pat was on Rumsfeld's

> radar, it's pretty likely that he would have been

> informed right away after he was killed," she

> said. White House, Pentagon and Army spokesmen

> all said they had no information on when Bush or

> Rumsfeld were informed.

>

> On April 30, the Army awarded Tillman a Silver

> Star medal for bravery, saying that "through the

> firing Tillman's voice was heard issuing fire

> commands to take the fight to the enemy on the

> dominating high ground."

>

> On May 2, the acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee was told of the

> fratricide.

>

> On May 7, the Army's official casualty report

> stated incorrectly that Tillman was killed by

> "enemy forces" and "died in a medical treatment

> facility."

>

> On May 28, the Army finally admitted to

> Tillman's family that he had been killed by

> friendly fire.

>

> "The administration clearly was using this case

> for its own political reasons," said the father,

> Patrick Tillman. "This cover-up started within

> minutes of Pat's death, and it started at high

> levels. This is not something that

> (lower-ranking) people in the field do," he said.

>

> The files show that many of the soldiers

> questioned in the inquiry said it was common

> knowledge that the incident involved friendly

> fire.

>

> A soldier who on April 23 burned Tillman's

> bullet riddled body armor - which would have been

> evidence in a friendly-fire investigation -

> testified that he did so because there was no

> doubt it was friendly fire that killed Tillman.

> Two days later, Tillman's uniform and vest also

> were burned because they were soaked in blood and

> considered a biohazard. Tillman's uniform also

> was burned.

>

> The officer who led the first investigation

> testified that when he was given responsibility

> for the probe the morning after Tillman's death,

> he was informed that the cause was "potential

> fratricide.''

>

> After they received the friendly-fire

> notification May 28, the Tillmans began a public

> campaign seeking more information. But it was

> only when the Tillmans began angrily accusing the

> Pentagon of a coverup, in June 2005, that the

> Army apologized for the delay, issuing a

> statement blaming "procedural misjudgments and

> mistakes."

>

> -- Legal liability. In testimony on Nov. 14, the

> officer who conducted the first investigation

> said that he thought some Rangers could have been

> charged with "criminal intent," and that some

> Rangers committed "gross negligence." The legal

> difference between the two terms is roughly

> similar to the distinction between murder and

> involuntary manslaughter.

>

> The Tillmans demand that all avenues of inquiry remain open.

>

> "I want to know what kind of criminal intent

> there was," Mary Tillman said. "There's so much

> in the reports that is (deleted) that it's hard

> to tell what we're not seeing."

>

> In Congress, pressure is building for a full

> public disclosure of what happened. "I am

> committed to continuing my work with the Tillman

> family to ensure that their concerns are being

> addressed," said Rep. Honda. He added that he

> expects the investigation to do the following:

> "1) provide all factual evidence about the events

> of April 22, 2004; 2) identify the command

> decisions that contributed to Pat Tillman's

> death; 3) explain why the Army took so long to

> reveal fratricide as the cause of Pat Tillman's

> death; and 4) offer all necessary recommendations

> for improved procedures relating to such

> incidents."

>

> Patrick Tillman drily called the new Army probe

> "the latest, greatest investigation." He added,

> "In Washington, I don't think any of them want it

> investigated. They (politicians and Army

> officials) just don't want to see it ended with

> them, landing on their desk so they get blamed

> for the cover-up." The January 2005 investigation

> concluded that there was no coverup.

>

> Throughout the controversy, the Tillman family

> has been reluctant to cause a media stir. Mary

> noted that Pat shunned publicity, refusing all

> public comment when he enlisted and asking the

> Army to reject all media requests for interviews

> while he was in service. Pat's widow, Marie, and

> his brother Kevin have not become publicly

> involved in the case, and they declined to

> comment for this article.

>

> Yet other Tillman family members are less

> reluctant to show Tillman's unique character,

> which was more complex than the public image of a

> gung-ho patriotic warrior. He started keeping a

> journal at 16 and continued the practice on the

> battlefield, writing in it regularly. (His

> journal was lost immediately after his death.)

> Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat's even arranged

> a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar

> author, to take place after his return from

> Afghanistan - a meeting prevented by his death.

> She said that although he supported the Afghan

> war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11

> attacks, "Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq

> war."

>

> Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a

> year in Iraq and Afghanistan, told one anecdote

> that took place during the March 2003 invasion as

> the Rangers moved up through southern Iraq.

>

> "I can see it like a movie screen," Baer said.

> "We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq)

> watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We

> were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we

> weren't in the fight right then. We were talking.

> And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f-

> illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he

> was. He totally was against Bush."

>

> Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to

> be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for

> Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2004 election,

> Sen. John Kerry.

>

> Senior Chief Petty Officer Stephen White - a

> Navy SEAL who served with Pat and Kevin for four

> months in Iraq and was the only military member

> to speak at Tillman's memorial - said Pat "wasn't

> very fired up about being in Iraq" and instead

> wanted to go fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He

> said both Pat and Kevin (who has a degree in

> philosophy) "were amazingly well-read individuals

> Š very firm in some of their beliefs, their

> political and religious or not so religious

> beliefs."

>

> Baer recalled that Tillman encouraged him in his

> ambitions as an amateur poet. "I would read him

> my poems, and we would talk about them," Baer

> said. "He helped me grow as an individual."

>

> Tillman subscribed to the Economist magazine,

> and a fellow soldier said Tillman created a

> makeshift base library of classic novels so his

> platoon mates would have literature to read in

> their down time. He even brought gourmet coffee

> to brew for his platoon in the field in

> Afghanistan.

>

> Baer said Tillman was popular among his fellow

> soldiers and had no enemies. "The guys who killed

> Pat were his biggest fans," he said. "They were

> really wrecked afterward." He called Tillman

> "this amazing positive force who really brought

> our whole platoon together.

>

> He had this great energy. Everybody loved him."

> His former comrades and family recall Tillman as

> a born leader yet remarkably humble. White, the

> Navy SEAL, recalls one day when "some 19-year-old

> Ranger came and ordered him to cut an acre of

> grass.

>

> And Pat just did it, he cut that grass, he

> didn't complain. He could have taken millions of

> dollars playing football, but instead he was just

> taking orders like that."

>

> Mary Tillman says that's how Pat would have

> wanted to be remembered, as an individual, not as

> a stock figure or political prop. But she also

> believes "Pat was a real hero, not what they used

> him as."

>

> For the moment, all that is left are the

> memories and the thick binders spread across Mary

> Tillman's dining room table in San Jose. As she

> waits for the Pentagon investigators to finish

> their new probe, she wonders whether they will

> ask the hard questions. Like other family

> members, "I just want accountability," she said.

> "I want answers."

> __________

>

> 'IT'S HARD TO KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE'

>

> That's the lament of Mary Tillman, above, a

> teacher of special education in a San Jose public

> school. She has long pressed the Army to reopen

> its investigation into the friendly-fire killing

> of her son, Pat Tillman, in a canyon in

> Afghanistan on April 22, . The persistence of

> Mary Tillman and her former husband, Patrick

> Tillman, was rewarded when the Pentagon's

> inspector general opened a new inquiry in August,

> the fourth such probe. Mary Tillman says she

> hopes questions created by discrepancies in past

> testimony will finally be answered.

> __________

>

> STORY CHANGES OVER TIME

>

> An officer in Pat Tillman's Ranger battalion who

> directed the first investigation into the

> soldier's death served as a witness on Nov. 14,

> 2004, in the third investigation, which was led

> by Brig. Gen. Gary Jones. The first investigator

> complained that the officers in charge of the

> second investigation had allowed Rangers involved

> in the shooting to change their testimony.

>

> THREAT OF PERJURY CHARGES

>

> An excerpt from a March 3, 2005, memorandum by

>

> Brig. Gen. Gary Jones describes how Capt.

> William Saunders, the commander of Pat Tillman's

> Ranger company, was threatened with perjury

> charges. Jones' memo said Saunders made false

> claims that he had informed his superiors that

> platoon commander Lt. David Uthlaut had protested

> orders given to him leading up to the incident.

> Despite this threat, Saunders was allowed to

> change his testimony and was granted immunity.

>

> E-mail Robert Collier at rcollier@sfchronicle.com.

>

>