9 Officers Blamed in Tillman Death, but No Coverup Found

Former Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman, is shown in a June 2003 photo, released by Photography Plus. (AP)

A Pentagon investigation found yesterday that four senior Army officers -- including a three-star general now in charge of the military's most elite man-hunting units -- committed "critical errors" in judgment in handling the "friendly fire" death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, a former pro football star.

A separate Army probe found no criminal wrongdoing in Tillman's death on April 22, 2004, in a barrage of fire from fellow Rangers on a craggy mountainside near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

The report by the Pentagon inspector general recommended that four Army generals and five lower-ranking officers face "corrective action" for serious violations, including making false and misleading statements about what they knew about the Tillman fratricide, as well as inaccuracies in recommending Tillman, 27, for a Silver Star, the Army's third-highest combat award.

The high-level mistakes prevented Tillman's parents and wife from learning for at least five weeks that he was killed not while charging up a hill against enemy fighters but in a confused gun battle with elements of his Ranger platoon.

"We as an Army failed in our duty to the Tillman family," acting Army Secretary Pete Geren told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday. He announced an immediate review of the actions of all nine officers, to be led by Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of the Army's training command, with a preliminary report due in 30 days. Possible disciplinary actions range from no action and written reprimands up to courts-martial, said Col. Daniel McCallum of the Army's Judge Advocate General Office. Wallace will have "the full range of disciplinary options" available to sanction the officers, Geren said.

Some of the most serious failures were by Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., now retired, who at the time served as commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) at Fort Bragg, N.C. Kensinger "provided misleading testimony" to Army and Pentagon investigators "when he denied that he knew friendly fire was suspected before the memorial service" for Tillman, according to the inspector general's report.

Brig. Gen. James C. Nixon, then a colonel in command of the 75th Ranger Regiment, failed to take steps to initiate investigations of suspected friendly fire, the report found. Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, then chief of staff of USASOC and now retired, conducted a faulty follow-up investigation in which he did not interview all Rangers present or scrutinize the mishandling of evidence, it said. Soldiers burned Tillman's uniform and body armor the day after his death.

Nixon, along with Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who was the joint task force commander, were responsible for submitting a Silver Star recommendation for Tillman that included "inaccurate information and a misleading citation that implied CPL Tillman died by enemy fire," the report found. McChrystal is now a forward commander for the Joint Special Operations Command, which includes Army Delta Force operatives and played a key role in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq in June 2006.

Despite finding several errors, the report did not find evidence of a coverup. "There was a series of mistakes made. We never decided that there was any attempt to cover up," because the friendly-fire investigation was started quickly, said Thomas F. Gimble, acting Pentagon inspector general.

Tillman's family members have lashed out against the Army, saying that the military's investigations into Tillman's death were a sham and that the military and the government created a heroic tale about how he died to foster a patriotic response across the country. They have said they are certain they will never get the full story.

The Army waited until a formal investigation was finished before telling the family of the friendly fire -- weeks after a nationally televised memorial service on May 3, 2004, in which Tillman was honored and posthumously awarded a Silver Star. The Army decided this month to uphold Tillman's Silver Star for heroism, but it modified the citation's wording.

The incident -- one of 22 friendly-fire deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- prompted the Army to reform its casualty notification process in an effort to prevent mistakes.

Tillman's death was a huge blow to the image of the Army and one of its most elite infantry forces because of his storybook personal narrative. Tillman turned down a multimillion-dollar football contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He and his brother Kevin joined the Army Rangers and deployed to Iraq and later Afghanistan, hunting the Taliban and al-Qaeda through rugged terrain.

While the inspector general's report examined mistakes in the aftermath of Tillman's death, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, in a more than 1,000-page report released yesterday on a year-long investigation, detailed the accidents that led Tillman to be killed. The investigators revisited the scene of the fighting, finding Tillman's DNA on the bullet-ridden rock where he took cover.

The criminal investigators said failed radio communication and poor visibility led a separate element of Tillman's platoon to mistake Tillman's group for enemy fighters while escaping an ambush on a dusty mountain road. The platoon had split up because of a disabled vehicle.

Tillman's group heard explosions and saw tracer fire, leading them to believe that the second group had come under attack. Tillman, another soldier and an Afghan militia fighter who was part of their mission climbed a hill, hoping to clear the enemy fighters.

But a vehicle gunner and other Rangers from the second group rounded a bend in the road, and mistaking the bearded Afghan -- who was carrying an AK-47 -- for the enemy, opened fire within 15 seconds on Tillman's three-man squad 85 yards away.

Tillman and a soldier near the gunner yelled for them to cease fire, and other soldiers nearby waved their arms and yelled at them to stop. Tillman set off a smoke grenade in an effort to stop the firing, but he was already mortally wounded. The incident lasted 14 minutes.