House Questions Info on Tillman, Lynch

This is a file photo of former POW Jessica Lynch before she made remarks from her wheelchair in the Elizabeth's town park Tuesday, July 22, 2003, in West Virginia. A House committee has scheduled hearings on the string of misleading statements by the military following the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and the kidnapping and rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch in Iraq, congressional officials said Tuesday, April 10, 2007. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, FILE) (Rick Bowmer - AP)

SAN FRANCISCO -- A U.S. House committee announced Tuesday it would hold hearings on misleading military statements that followed the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said an April 24 hearing would be part of its investigation into whether there was a strategy to mislead the public.

"The truth, the truth, this is only a search for the truth," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference in San Francisco. "It's about holding this administration accountable for the message that it sends out. ... It's about reality."

Word of the hearings comes two weeks after the Pentagon released the findings of its own investigations into Tillman's death, and three years after he was killed.

The committee has been quietly investigating the case since then and decided to add Lynch to the scope of its probe.

One or more members of the Tillman family will probably testify, the committee said. Tillman's mother and father did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday.

Lynch's spokeswoman, Aly Goodwin Gregg, said Lynch also will testify. "She was very interested in doing so. She's used every opportunity to tell what really happened and to talk about the real heroes of that day," Gregg said.

Tillman's family has said the previous probes were inadequate and did not sufficiently address the role of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in hiding from them for five week the true circumstances of the former NFL player's death. The Army publicly maintained during that time that Tillman had been killed by enemy fire, when in fact dozens of officers knew his fellow Rangers shot him after a chaotic ambush.

Tillman's death received worldwide attention because he had walked away from a huge contract with the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Lynch, a 21-year-old former Army supply clerk, became one of the most visible faces of the war when she was rescued from an Iraqi hospital after being captured by Iraqi forces April 1, 2003. Eleven U.S. soldiers were killed where her convoy was attacked, and six, including Lynch, were captured.

Her videotaped rescue by special forces branded Lynch a hero at a time the U.S. war effort seemed bogged down. It also stirred complaints of government media manipulation.

It wasn't clear if the committee planned to call officials with knowledge of the cases to testify during the hearing, titled "Misleading Information from the Battlefield."