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Bench Warmer
ESPN.com news services
WASHINGTON -- A Pentagon investigation will recommend that nine officers, including up to four generals, be held accountable for missteps in the aftermath of the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, senior defense officials said Friday.
The Defense Department inspector general will cite a range of errors and inappropriate conduct as the military probed the former football star's death on the battlefront in 2004, said one defense official.
The official, who like the others requested anonymity because the Army has not publicly released the information, said it appears senior military leaders may not have had all the facts or worked hard enough to get the facts of what happened on April 22, 2004, when Tillman, a corporal, was killed by members of his own platoon.
Dozens of soldiers -- those immediately around Tillman at the scene of the shooting, his immediate superiors and high-ranking officers at a command post nearby -- knew within minutes or hours that his death was fratricide.
Even so, the Army persisted in telling Tillman's family he was killed in a conventional ambush, including at his nationally televised memorial service 11 days later. It was five weeks before his family was told the truth, a delay the Army has blamed on procedural mistakes.
Defense officials say the report will not make charges or suggest punishments, but it will recommend the Army look at holding the nine officers accountable. Officers from the rank of colonel and up will be blamed in the report, according to one officer who has been informed of the findings. It appears, one official said, that the inspector general will not find there was an orchestrated cover-up in the probe, which has focused on how high up the chain of command it was known that Tillman's death was caused by his own comrades.
One defense official said it appears the inspector general will not conclude there was an orchestrated cover-up in the investigation.
According to government officials, the Department of Defense inspector general's report will be one of two released in separate briefings to the family, Congress and the media on Monday. IG's office, however, is solely focused on events that occurred after the death of Cpl. Tillman, including a review of how Army brass conducted its subsequent investigations, the withholding of information from his family, the question of potential cover-up and whether the military attempted to use his death for political gain by the awarding of a Silver Star and casting him in a heroic light.
Shortly after initiating its review in August of 2005, the IG's office also requested the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, the group historically known as CID and responsible for investigating felony crimes, to investigate events leading up to and the death of Tillman and a friendly Afghan soldier who was also shot by U.S. fire. Those findings are also expected to be released Monday.
Though it is making recommendations, the IG's office is not a member of the judiciary branch and is not empowered to impose sanctions or disciplinary action. "Our report will say, 'Here is what we found. Here are our recommendations. And it'll be turned over to the Army to act on those recommendations," Gary Comerford, spokesman for the Inspector General's office, told ESPN.com.
A key question has long been whether the awarding of the Silver Star to Tillman was a public relations move by Army brass? The news that American soldiers had gunned down Tillman could have been another negative headline if reported that way at the time. Rather, Tillman was cast as a war hero.
Less than 24 hours after Tillman was killed, military documents reviewed by ESPN.com reveal, Army brass told the captain who did the initial inquiry that fratricide was suspected. Army records show the Silver Star recommendation was submitted five days later, and before the investigation was completed. The recommendation was signed two days later by Gen. Wes Brownlee, then acting Secretary of the Army. The award was presented to the Tillman family a week later during a public memorial service in his hometown of San Jose.
Brownlee told ESPN.com this week that he acted on information provided him. Now retired, Brownlee also said he ordered a second official investigation after feeling the incident hadn't been fully explored. He retired before the report was completed.
Brownlee said he was interviewed for "an hour or two" several months ago by investigators at the Inspector General's office.
"They asked me if I'd come tell them what I knew about it and I said, 'Sure, I'd be happy to.' So I went over and talked to them," Brownlee recalled. "I don't think I offered them anything they didn't already know. I think people are just trying to do the best they can to make sure that once again everybody tries to say they did all they could. Of course, everybody was crushed and heartbroken about it, but it is a tragedy every time we lose any soldier."
As for his order of a follow-up investigation, Brownlee told ESPN.com, "I recall that I told them that after I had read the investigation that was done by the Ranger regiment, I was not satisfied with it. We went to brief Sen. [John] McCain. When I came back, I sat down and started putting some notes together, because I was pretty much convinced we needed to go beyond that. And I got a call from his office that the family had some additional questions after they were briefed or read the investigation. I then directed another investigation."
Brownlee said he passed the order onto Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, then commander of the Army Special Forces Command and also now retired, to assign an investigator.
Asked what concerned him about the earlier investigation, Brownlee said, "It is hard for me to remember now. I just remember that as I read the report there were other questions that came to mind that seemed to me that needed to be pursued. I can't remember the specifics of that, and I didn't bring anything with me [to the IG's office] that I can go back and look at and refresh myself.
"I'm not sure how free I should be in discussing my testimony or whatever they want to call it. I was primarily concerned about what happened on the ground, and how and why. I was fairly certain that the investigation laid down maybe what happened. I just thought that it ought to be done at a higher level, and use that as a start point and go beyond that. that is what I felt. I actually had a small group, make sure they all read thoroughly brought them together and we discussed it in my office. And that is what I decided to do."
Brownlee is convinced what happened on the ground was an accident.
"Oh, I think it was clearly a thing that happens in the fog of war and the conditions," he said. "As you read through of the accounts of the thing, you just wanted to scream, 'Just don't do that.' If any one thing along the way - if somebody had acted differently it might [not] have come out that way. That's probably true of most accidents in a war."
Tillman's father, Pat, said Friday he had no intention of commenting on the IG report until he had heard the Army's briefing Monday.
The report's release comes with the Bush administration under fire from the public and Congress for the war in Iraq. Though the Afghanistan conflict has not drawn nearly so much criticism, the report could add to the drumbeat of negative stories the administration has had to endure over the treatment of wounded soldiers and the long deployments of U.S. troops.
To date, the Army has punished seven people, but no one was court-martialed. Four soldiers received relatively minor punishments under military law, ranging from written reprimands to expulsion from the Rangers. One had his pay reduced and was effectively forced out of the Army.
The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment was Col. James C. Nixon. Last year, he was named director of operations at the Center for Special Operations at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.
Nixon knew within about two days that Tillman's death was fratricide, another officer involved in the investigations told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The report's findings were first reported on Friday by CBS News.
Tillman died in Afghanistan's Paktia province, along the Pakistan border, after his platoon was ordered to split into two groups and one of the units began firing. Tillman and an Afghan with him were killed.
Since the incident, the Army has moved to improve the notification procedures and now requires an officer to review initial casualty information and verify that the families have been told the best, most accurate information.
The congressman who represents the San Jose region where Tillman grew up and where his parents live said he regretted that the family did not have the chance to review the findings before they were leaked.
"In light of what they have undergone, giving them a reasonable opportunity to review the findings would have only been fair and just," said Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, who communicates with the Tillman family and has pressed for a swift and thorough resolution of the investigations.
Information from ESPN.com investigative reporter Mike Fish and The Associated Press was used in this report.
WASHINGTON -- A Pentagon investigation will recommend that nine officers, including up to four generals, be held accountable for missteps in the aftermath of the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, senior defense officials said Friday.
The Defense Department inspector general will cite a range of errors and inappropriate conduct as the military probed the former football star's death on the battlefront in 2004, said one defense official.
The official, who like the others requested anonymity because the Army has not publicly released the information, said it appears senior military leaders may not have had all the facts or worked hard enough to get the facts of what happened on April 22, 2004, when Tillman, a corporal, was killed by members of his own platoon.
Dozens of soldiers -- those immediately around Tillman at the scene of the shooting, his immediate superiors and high-ranking officers at a command post nearby -- knew within minutes or hours that his death was fratricide.
Even so, the Army persisted in telling Tillman's family he was killed in a conventional ambush, including at his nationally televised memorial service 11 days later. It was five weeks before his family was told the truth, a delay the Army has blamed on procedural mistakes.
Defense officials say the report will not make charges or suggest punishments, but it will recommend the Army look at holding the nine officers accountable. Officers from the rank of colonel and up will be blamed in the report, according to one officer who has been informed of the findings. It appears, one official said, that the inspector general will not find there was an orchestrated cover-up in the probe, which has focused on how high up the chain of command it was known that Tillman's death was caused by his own comrades.
One defense official said it appears the inspector general will not conclude there was an orchestrated cover-up in the investigation.
According to government officials, the Department of Defense inspector general's report will be one of two released in separate briefings to the family, Congress and the media on Monday. IG's office, however, is solely focused on events that occurred after the death of Cpl. Tillman, including a review of how Army brass conducted its subsequent investigations, the withholding of information from his family, the question of potential cover-up and whether the military attempted to use his death for political gain by the awarding of a Silver Star and casting him in a heroic light.
Shortly after initiating its review in August of 2005, the IG's office also requested the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, the group historically known as CID and responsible for investigating felony crimes, to investigate events leading up to and the death of Tillman and a friendly Afghan soldier who was also shot by U.S. fire. Those findings are also expected to be released Monday.
Though it is making recommendations, the IG's office is not a member of the judiciary branch and is not empowered to impose sanctions or disciplinary action. "Our report will say, 'Here is what we found. Here are our recommendations. And it'll be turned over to the Army to act on those recommendations," Gary Comerford, spokesman for the Inspector General's office, told ESPN.com.
A key question has long been whether the awarding of the Silver Star to Tillman was a public relations move by Army brass? The news that American soldiers had gunned down Tillman could have been another negative headline if reported that way at the time. Rather, Tillman was cast as a war hero.
Less than 24 hours after Tillman was killed, military documents reviewed by ESPN.com reveal, Army brass told the captain who did the initial inquiry that fratricide was suspected. Army records show the Silver Star recommendation was submitted five days later, and before the investigation was completed. The recommendation was signed two days later by Gen. Wes Brownlee, then acting Secretary of the Army. The award was presented to the Tillman family a week later during a public memorial service in his hometown of San Jose.
Brownlee told ESPN.com this week that he acted on information provided him. Now retired, Brownlee also said he ordered a second official investigation after feeling the incident hadn't been fully explored. He retired before the report was completed.
Brownlee said he was interviewed for "an hour or two" several months ago by investigators at the Inspector General's office.
"They asked me if I'd come tell them what I knew about it and I said, 'Sure, I'd be happy to.' So I went over and talked to them," Brownlee recalled. "I don't think I offered them anything they didn't already know. I think people are just trying to do the best they can to make sure that once again everybody tries to say they did all they could. Of course, everybody was crushed and heartbroken about it, but it is a tragedy every time we lose any soldier."
As for his order of a follow-up investigation, Brownlee told ESPN.com, "I recall that I told them that after I had read the investigation that was done by the Ranger regiment, I was not satisfied with it. We went to brief Sen. [John] McCain. When I came back, I sat down and started putting some notes together, because I was pretty much convinced we needed to go beyond that. And I got a call from his office that the family had some additional questions after they were briefed or read the investigation. I then directed another investigation."
Brownlee said he passed the order onto Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, then commander of the Army Special Forces Command and also now retired, to assign an investigator.
Asked what concerned him about the earlier investigation, Brownlee said, "It is hard for me to remember now. I just remember that as I read the report there were other questions that came to mind that seemed to me that needed to be pursued. I can't remember the specifics of that, and I didn't bring anything with me [to the IG's office] that I can go back and look at and refresh myself.
"I'm not sure how free I should be in discussing my testimony or whatever they want to call it. I was primarily concerned about what happened on the ground, and how and why. I was fairly certain that the investigation laid down maybe what happened. I just thought that it ought to be done at a higher level, and use that as a start point and go beyond that. that is what I felt. I actually had a small group, make sure they all read thoroughly brought them together and we discussed it in my office. And that is what I decided to do."
Brownlee is convinced what happened on the ground was an accident.
"Oh, I think it was clearly a thing that happens in the fog of war and the conditions," he said. "As you read through of the accounts of the thing, you just wanted to scream, 'Just don't do that.' If any one thing along the way - if somebody had acted differently it might [not] have come out that way. That's probably true of most accidents in a war."
Tillman's father, Pat, said Friday he had no intention of commenting on the IG report until he had heard the Army's briefing Monday.
The report's release comes with the Bush administration under fire from the public and Congress for the war in Iraq. Though the Afghanistan conflict has not drawn nearly so much criticism, the report could add to the drumbeat of negative stories the administration has had to endure over the treatment of wounded soldiers and the long deployments of U.S. troops.
To date, the Army has punished seven people, but no one was court-martialed. Four soldiers received relatively minor punishments under military law, ranging from written reprimands to expulsion from the Rangers. One had his pay reduced and was effectively forced out of the Army.
The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment was Col. James C. Nixon. Last year, he was named director of operations at the Center for Special Operations at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.
Nixon knew within about two days that Tillman's death was fratricide, another officer involved in the investigations told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The report's findings were first reported on Friday by CBS News.
Tillman died in Afghanistan's Paktia province, along the Pakistan border, after his platoon was ordered to split into two groups and one of the units began firing. Tillman and an Afghan with him were killed.
Since the incident, the Army has moved to improve the notification procedures and now requires an officer to review initial casualty information and verify that the families have been told the best, most accurate information.
The congressman who represents the San Jose region where Tillman grew up and where his parents live said he regretted that the family did not have the chance to review the findings before they were leaked.
"In light of what they have undergone, giving them a reasonable opportunity to review the findings would have only been fair and just," said Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, who communicates with the Tillman family and has pressed for a swift and thorough resolution of the investigations.
Information from ESPN.com investigative reporter Mike Fish and The Associated Press was used in this report.
