Pat Tillman's Mother: McChrystal Lied At Hearing

CNN:

The latest explanation for why Pat Tillman's Silver Star citation failed to mention that friendly fire killed the former NFL star in Afghanistan is another lie by the U.S. military, Tillman's mother said Tuesday.

Mary Tillman was responding to remarks made Tuesday by the general nominated to lead Allied forces in Afghanistan, who apologized before a Senate committee for his role in the matter.

Read the whole story: CNN

Comments

[GuyMontag451]

General McChrystal should not be confirmed as a four star general. First, he's got to learn how to lie better. The first rule of lying is to stick to your story. Don't change it, keep it simple.

I've simply taken the time to look at the written record of the past investigations. McChrystal's testimony yesterday at the Senate hearing just dug a deeper hole. Lies that should "hoist him by his own petard":


1.) McChrystal said that he first learned of suspected fratricide and told of the 15-6 investigation after returning back to Afghanistan from a meeting in Qatar with General Abizaid (CENTCOM) on about April 23rd. But, a comparision of testimony shows that McChrystal, Nixon, and/or Abiziad lied about when they learned about fratricide:

[GuyMontag451]

During the 2004 Jones 15-6 McChrystal said that he "was in Qatar when I was told, about a day or two after the incident ...". [At the hearing he said he heard after Qatar].

But, the DoD IG Chronology (Appendix B) states that after COL Nixon was told of possible fratricide and the 15-6 on the 23rd, Nixon only told McChrystal only of the "death" [no fratricide] of Tillman and then McChrystal told Abizaid only of Tillman's "death".

General Abizaid told Congress on 8-01-07 that "on about the 23rd, Gen McChrystal called me and told me that CPL Tillman had been killed in combat and that the circumstances his death were heroic." Further, during his DoD IG interview that "Gen McChrystal informed him of CPL Tillman's death while they were in Qatar in a meeting .... he received no details and did not know friendly fire was suspected." [So which is it? heroic or no details?] So we're to believe McChrystal didn't tell Abizaid about fratricide that same day while they were together in Qatar!

Someone was lying during their interviews with the DoD Inspector General. Either Nixon lied if he said that he only passed "death" to McChrystal or McChrystal lied to the IG by saying he was only told of death on the 23rd! Abzaid or McChrystal lied; how can McChrystal learn of fratricide on the 23rd and only tell Abizaid of "death" the same day?

[GuyMontag451]

2.) McChrystal testified that he waited for the outcome of the investigation before making conclusions, he "wanted some level of truth" before he sent the information on:

There was never anything “potential” or "suspected" about Tillman’s friendly fire death. Many of the Rangers on the ground knew immediately what had happened (they saw the other Rangers shooting at them!). On the 23rd word was passed up “70% sure” to by the CSM to COL Nixon. And on the 24th, the initial investigating officer CPT Scott passed on verbal confirmation (“I’m certain, I’m sure”) to LTC Bailey, who then called COL Nixon (McChrystal was next in the chain of command). Are we believe Nixon never told McChrystal of confirmation during the following days they were working together on the Silver Star? The Army knew of confirmed FF two days after Tillman’s death!


3.) General Kensinger was blamed for failing to notify the family because he supposedly had the “administrative” responsibility to do so.

Yet, if you look at “Appendix D: Casualty Reporting & Next of Kin Notification Process” in the IG report, the flowchart clearly shows that McChrystal had that responsibility (and it’s noted both he and his Chief of Staff failed to make that notification despite knowing about fratricide NLT April 25th.

[GuyMontag451]

4.) General Wallace cleared McChrystal of wrongdoing because he only signed off on the Silver Star and had no reasonable basis to question recomendations send up from the field:

But, during Tuesday's hearing, McChrystal said he sat down with the Ranger officers (Nixon, Kauzerlich, Hodne, Bailey) and went over Tillman's actions on a whiteboard to satisfy himself that Tillman's actions merited a Silver Star! McChrystal wasn't just signing a piece of paper that dropped on his desk!

5.) McChrystal said that the Silver Star cititation wasn't well written and that he didn't read it close enough to catch that it could "imply" Tillman wasn't killed by friendly fire:

Absolute bull. I encourage anyone to look at the IG report and check out the Appendices. The IG concluded that anyone reading the citation would assume Tillman was killed by enemey fire. In fact, Maj Hodne even said that he edited the narrrative to ensure it didn't mention friendly fire! And the damning fact that the witness statements were altered by "someone in the approval chain" to remove references to friendly fire (ie Nixon, McChrystal, Kauzerlich). The IG never bothered to really try to determine who did that.

[GuyMontag451]

6.) McChrystal was praised by the Secretary of the Army for acting "reasonably and quickly" by sending his “timely” P4 memo to alert his superiors on the 29th:

There was nothing quick about it. Even McChrystal said he learned of suspected fratricide on the 23rd. Yet he didn’t send out his P4 until the 29th? How is waiting four to six days “timely”? [and as I pointed out, he actually have verbal confirmation of fratricide on the 24th!] Of course, in reality McChrystal told Abizaid on the 23rd, and then it was passed onward to the Secretary of Defense and White House.

Tuesday's Senate hearing was just the final layer of fertilizer upon the high mound of Army and Congressional "investigations" of Tillman's death. It's a travesty of justice that Pat Tillman's family were handed a tarnished Silver Star, while General McChrystal will be confirmed, promoted to the highest rank in the Army, and handed his fourth star.

[S1m0n]

I'm sure the president would *like* to have more honorable generals from which to choose, but the President *needs* to get the best result attainable in Afghanistan .

But as the man said, you go to the war with the army you have. The last administration gravely corrupted much of the military, apparrently on purpose. It'll be a while before these weeds can be rooted out, and in the meantime, the US is still at war.

[Kristin262]

I'd like to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt on his pick of McChrystal for leading forces in Afghanistan. It's very sad that Tillman died in Afghanistan. That he was killed by friendly fire, to me, is no different than being killed by an enemy. He was in a war zone. The fact is, is that he was a hero, and he died for his country. It was not intentional, it was an accident. I wish his family peace, and I wish we'd get the #ell out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Village]

Commandos kill each other. It may not be right, but it has always been that way. And nothing is going to change. They are trained killers. What do you expect?

[writerjohnny]

Seriously, are you paying attention to the thousands of words written on this subject? Yes it happens but the cover-up SHOULDN'T!

[aznurse]

What does that have to do with his lying about it? I bet the family could have accepted that truth, it was the out and out lying and covering up that is so very wrong. They treated Pat's funeral like a publicity stunt. Pat Tillman was always honest.
There must be another general that could do this job.

[factotem]

It's still screwed up!

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/83803/thumbs/s-MCC-AND-TILLMAN-large.jpg

[factotem]

Hey HP, your teaser image makes no sense:

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/83803/thumbs/s-MCC-AND-TILLMAN-large.jpg

[CigarGod]

If you want real change in how our military behaves, It all starts with training/indoctrination.

West Point, Annapolis and all other officer training schools should have their curriculum investigated and revised.
All enlisted boot camp and advanced training centers should be investigated and revised where needed.

[who38]

Bingo!

[sviolette]

Military leadership should be purged. These people are all complicit in torturing people. The only way we can honestly say it won't happen again is to get rid of the torturers and the people that ordered it.

[takeyourballandgohome]

Lets' see, who started this phoney war? I am very, sad, very sorry for her loss, and Bush will have to answer on his way to the pearly gates for all these troops deaths and innocent prisoners he had executed in Texas....operative words "on his way"....pray for him as he knows not what he did.

[Montgriz]

In case you missed it, Bush is now gone and Obama is not going to change a thing...in fact, he is enlarging the problems. This appointment should have been cancelled. Now, we have a liar leading oru troops, but that might be appropriate since the war he is involved in was created by liars and justified by lies......this government is broken....

[edwcorey]

The U.S. is the most hypocritical nation on earth. And it's not just because the Republicrits have been running the show for the past thirty years. LBJ, for all his civil rights advances, still ran a crooked war. Kennedy ducked civil rights and let the CIA push him around. Eisenhower gave the okay for assassinations of elected leaders like Patrice Lumumba, thought about atomizing Vietnam, and let the Dulles brothers stomp murderously all over Nicaragua on behalf of United Fruit and a sympathetic dictator. Truman allowed the use of atomic weapons to shorten a war already won. Over a thousand U.S. military bases exist around the world, in 156 countries. http://sirenschronicles.com/2009/05/14/how-many-military-bases-do-we-have-around-the-world//). The Department of Defense is the world's largest landlord and still demands more each year for its wasteful extravagances.

[fedupnVa]

As usual the families of these soldiers and the general public has more respect and honor for the rank and file members of our military than do their commanding officers and our civilian leaders. Sad but true.