N.Y. Times (July 16, 2008)

July 16, 2008

Editorial
Who Spread False Tales of Heroism?

Widespread — and, we suspect, self-induced — amnesia among high officials of the Bush administration and its Defense Department has made it impossible for House investigators to determine whether top officials helped spread two bogus stories of heroism used to bolster support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It now looks as if we may never know who kept stoking the impression that Cpl. Pat Tillman, an Army Ranger who became an icon of the administration’s war on terror, had been killed by the enemy in Afghanistan (in a battle that won him a questionable Silver Star) long after the military knew he had been killed accidentally by fire from American forces.

Nor are we apt to find out who promoted the false story that Pfc. Jessica Lynch had been captured in Iraq after a Rambo-like performance in which she emptied her weapon and was wounded in battle. In fact, she had been badly hurt in a vehicle accident during an ambush and was being well cared for by the Iraqis.

Although the administration made a show of cooperating with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Democratic investigators were frustrated by the professed inability of top officials to recall who knew what, and when. There was also a puzzling absence of documents that logic suggests should have existed. In some 1,500 pages of White House e-mail messages and other documents about Corporal Tillman, there is not a single mention of fratricide.

Republican staff members objected that the Democrats’ draft report drew unsupported negative inferences from faded memories and lack of e-mails. There was plenty of incompetence and negligence, the Republicans said, but no evidence that high officials manipulated information to build support for an unpopular war.

Corporal Tillman, who gave up a lucrative professional football career to join the Army, was welcomed with a personal letter from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who praised the “proud and patriotic thing you are doing.” Mr. Rumsfeld urged the Army to “keep our eye on” this world-class recruit.

But Mr. Rumsfeld’s own eye appears to have wandered when it comes to the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death. He testified that he couldn’t recall when he was told about possible fratricide, or by whom. Gen. Richard Myers, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he couldn’t recall if he had told Mr. Rumsfeld or the White House.

Only after a widely publicized, patriotism-drenched memorial service implying that Corporal Tillman had died heroically, and only after it became clear that the true story was coming out, did the military hold a briefing, on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

The military has conducted seven investigations and punished officers as high as a three-star general for their roles in the Tillman case. Investigators had hoped to learn whether the White House or high Pentagon officials also misrepresented what happened. Sadly, they could not supply a definitive answer.