Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and several high-ranking military officials defended themselves Wednesday and shot down allegations of a cover-up in the death of Army Ranger and football star Pat Tillman.
Rumsfeld, with retired Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; retired Gen. John Abizaid, former head of the U.S. Central Command; and Gen. Doug Brown, former head of U.S. Special Operations Command, took no responsibility for the military’s response to Tillman’s friendly-fire death in Afghanistan more than three years ago.
The nation’s highest-ranking military officials at the time of Tillman’s death on April 22, 2004, admitted that they took little if any action after learning the former professional football player was killed by fellow Rangers rather than by enemy fire, as was claimed initially.
The hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was Rumsfeld’s first since President Bush replaced him with Robert Gates a day after the November midterm election.
A smiling Rumsfeld entered the hearing room with protesters’ calls of “war criminal” reverberating from the hallway. He shook hands and briefly chatted with Myers and Abizaid, both of whom now are retired, before joining them at the witness table. Rumsfeld did not react to activists in the room holding up signs reading “War criminal” or to one protester who shouted, “Are you not ashamed?”
Rumsfeld said he did not recall when he first learned that Cpl. Tillman’s death might have resulted from friendly fire.
“I am told that I received word of this development sometime after May 20, 2004, but my recollection reflects the fact that it occurred well over two years ago,” he said.
Rumsfeld said Tillman’s family deserved to know the truth about his death, but did not initially receive it. Tillman’s mother and several other family members sat at the back of the hearing room.
Much of the committee questioning revolved around the existence of a memo written by a top general seven days after Tillman’s death noting it was “highly possible” the Army Ranger was killed by his fellow soldiers and making clear the circumstances should be conveyed to the president. Two days after the memo, known as a “Personal For,” was sent, President Bush in a speech mentioned Tillman’s heroism without making any reference to how he died.
Democrats, together with Tillman’s family, are trying to get to the bottom of what they suspect is a cover-up going all the way to the White House.
“I know that I would not engage in a cover-up,” Rumsfeld told the committee. “I know that no one in the White House suggested such a thing to me. I know that the gentlemen sitting next to me are men of enormous integrity and would not participate in something like that.”
Abizaid, who was the main addressee of the “Personal For” memo dated April 29, 2004, said he received it around May 6, 2004, because of communications problems at his headquarters in Tampa, Fla. He said he immediately called Myers, who gave the impression that he knew that Tillman’s death could be the result of fratricide and that an investigation was under way. Abizaid said he talked to Rumsfeld about the incident towards the end of May.
Tillman’s family was notified May 26, 2004, and the Pentagon announced May 29 that Tillman’s death was a friendly-fire incident. Neither Abizaid nor Myers called the White House to talk about the possibility of fratricide, according to their testimony. Myers said: “I don’t think there’s any regulation that would require me to do anything, actually.” He said the Army was responsible for making the proper notifications.
A frustrated Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) charged: “You sat on your hands and you didn’t say anything about it. And I find that hard to understand.”
“Well, as you understand, I think, from the material that’s been presented to the committee so far and all the testimony, this is the responsibility of the United States Army, not of the Office of the Chairman,” Myers retorted.
The congressional hearing, seeking to unravel who was responsible for the false information and the Pentagon’s and White House’s roles in disseminating it, came a day after an Army investigation laid most of the blame for the bungled response to Tillman’s death on retired Gen. Philip Kensinger, who led Army special operations forces after Sept. 11, 2001.
Kensinger was singled out for knowingly misleading investigators and received a letter of censure. Army Secretary Pete Geren, a former Texas Democratic lawmaker, said he censured Kensinger for lying when he became aware that Tillman’s death may have been caused by his fellow soldiers. For five weeks, the Army knew that the former NFL player was killed by his fellow Army Rangers, but told the public and Tillman’s family that he died in a fight with enemy militia.
Geren stressed, however, that there was no intentional Pentagon cover-up and that Rumsfeld did not know the circumstances of Tillman’s death before the information became public.
“It’s very difficult to come to grips with how we screwed this thing up. But we screwed this thing up,” Abizaid acknowledged after hours of testimony. “No excuses can be offered,” he added.
Tillman’s death received widespread attention because he left behind a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army following the Sept. 11 attacks. He attracted the attention of Rumsfeld himself, who, after finding out that Tillman joined the Army Rangers, wrote a memo to then-Secretary of the Army Tom White, saying: “He sounds like he is world-class. We might want to keep our eye on him.”
Rumsfeld followed up with a letter to Tillman commending him on “a proud and patriotic thing you are doing."
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