AP: New Details on Tillmans Death – Forbes.com
Among other information contained in the documents:_ In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop “sniveling.”
_ Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.
_ The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman’s death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldnt recall details of his actions.
_ No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene – no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.
The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillmans death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers.
With questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached, Congress is preparing for yet another hearing next week.
The blogosphere is no doubt abuzz with speculation – new information about the death by “friendly fire” of Cpl. Pat Tillman points toward not just friendly fire, but a possible murder investigation. Doctors were suspicious about the grouping of the bullet wounds that killed him, and his actual last words were perhaps not as heroic and “media friendly” as previously reported. How high does it go? In a political climate where politically embarassing news is treated like something that lives in an outhouse frequented by traitors, maybe it goes pretty high.
