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THE TILLMAN FRATRICIDE: WHAT THE LEADERSHIP OF THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT KNEW

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

AUGUST 1, 2007

Serial No. 110–49

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on August 1, 2007 ............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Abizaid, General John P., former Commander, U.S. Central Command ..... 29

Brown, General Bryan Douglas, former Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command ........................................................................................... 29

Myers, General Richard, former Chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff ....................... 29

Rumsfeld, Donald, former Secretary of Defense ............................................ 16

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 14

Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, Army Regulation 600–8–1 ......................................................... 45

Maloney, Hon. Carolyn B., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York:

Letter dated June 28, 2002 ...................................................................... 40

Memo dated June 25, 2002 ....................................................................... 42

Rumsfeld, Donald, former Secretary of Defense:

Letter dated July 26, 2007 ....................................................................... 187

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 18

Waxman, Chairman Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the

State of California, prepared statement of ................................................. 5

(1)

THE TILLMAN FRATRICIDE: WHAT THE LEADERSHIP OF THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

KNEW

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry A. Waxman

(chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Waxman, Maloney, Cummings,

Kucinich, Davis of Illinois, Tierney, Clay, Watson, Lynch, Yarmuth,

Braley, Norton, Cooper, Van Hollen, Hodes, Sarbanes, Welch,

Davis of Virginia, Burton, Shays, McHugh, Mica, Platts, Duncan,

Turner, Issa, McHenry, Bilbray and Sali.

Staff present: Phil Schiliro, chief of staff; Phil Barnett, staff director and chief counsel; Kristin Amerling, general counsel; Karen

Lightfoot, communications director and senior policy advisor; David

Rapallo, chief investigative counsel; John Williams, deputy chief investigative counsel; David Leviss, senior investigative counsel; Suzanne Renaud and Steve Glickman, counsels; Earley Green, chief

clerk; Teresa Coufal, deputy clerk; Matt Siegler, special assistant;

Caren Auchman, press assistant; Zhongrui ‘‘JR’’ Deng, chief information officer; Leneal Scott, information systems manager; Will

Ragland, staff assistant; Bonney Kapp, fellow; David Marin, minority staff director; Larry Halloran, minority deputy staff director;

Jennifer Safavian, minority chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Keith Ausbrook, minority general counsel; Steve Castor

and A. Brooke Bennett, minority counsels; Susie Schulte, minority

senior professional staff member; Christopher Bright and Allyson

Glandford, minority professional staff members; Nick Palarino, minority senior investigator and policy advisor; Patrick Lyden, minority parliamentarian and member services coordinator; Brian

McNicoll, minority communications director; Benjamin Chance, minority clerk; and Ali Ahmad, minority deputy press secretary.

Chairman WAXMAN. I want to welcome everyone to our hearing

today. I do want to announce this is a hearing of Congress, and not

a rally or a demonstration. Please keep that in mind.

As of last night, 4,063 of our bravest soldiers have died in the

Afghan and Iraq wars. Each death has its own compelling story.

Each brought incalculable grief for the soldier’s family and friends,

and each is a tragic and irreplaceable loss for our country.

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In today’s hearing we will continue our investigation of the misinformation surrounding the death of one of those soldiers, Corporal Pat Tillman. We are focused on Corporal Tillman’s case because the misinformation was so profound and because it persisted

so long. And if that can happen to the most famous soldier serving

in Iraq and Afghanistan, it leaves many families and many of us

questioning the accuracy of the information from many other casualties.

To date there have been seven investigations into Corporal Tillman’s case, yet the Army announced sanctions against—yesterday

the Army announced sanctions against six officers, while important

questions still remain unanswered. Normally in investigations we

learn more, and the more we learn, the easier it is to understand

what actually happened. The opposite is true in the Tillman case.

As we learn more, everything that happened in 2004, from April

22nd, the day Pat Tillman died, to May 29th, the day the Defense

Department finally announced this was a friendly fire incident,

makes less sense.

One possible explanation is that a series of counterintuitive, illogical blunders unfolded, accidentally and haphazardly. As the

Army noted yesterday, in seven investigations into this tragedy,

not one has found evidence of a conspiracy by the Army to fabricate

a hero, to deceive the public or mislead the Tillman family about

the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death.

The other possible explanation is that someone or some group of

officials acted deliberately and repeatedly to conceal the truth.

Kevin Tillman, who served with his brother in Afghanistan, expressed that view in our last hearing. He said April 2004 was turning into the deadliest month to date in the war in Iraq. American

commanders essentially surrendered Fallujah to members of the

Iraq resistance. In the midst of this, the White House learned that

Christian Parenti, Seymour Hersh, and other journalists were

about to reveal a shocking scandal involving massive and systemic

detainee abuse in a facility known as Abu Ghraib. Revealing that

Pat’s death was fratricide would have been yet another political

disaster during a month already swollen with political disasters,

and a brutal truth that the American public would undoubtedly

find unacceptable. So the facts needed to be suppressed, and an alternate narrative had to be constructed. This freshly manufactured

narrative was then distributed to the American public, and we believe the strategy had the intended effect. It shifted the focus from

the grotesque torture at Abu Ghraib to a great American who died

a hero’s death.

Well, that was the view of Kevin Tillman. Our committee’s challenge is to determine which explanation is true. At our last hearing, Specialist Bryan O’Neal testified. Specialist O’Neal was standing next to Corporal Tillman during the firefight. He knew immediately that this was a case of friendly fire, and described what

happened in an eyewitness statement he submitted up his chain of

command immediately after Corporal Tillman’s death.

But Specialist O’Neal told us something else. After he submitted

his statement, someone else rewrote it. This unnamed person made

significant changes that transformed O’Neal’s account into an

enemy attack. We still don’t know who did that and why he did it.

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We just know that although everyone on the ground knew this was

a case of friendly fire, the American people and Tillman family

were told that Corporal Tillman was killed by the enemy, and that

doesn’t make any sense.

Our focus has been to look up the chain of command, but that

has proved to be as confounding as figuring out what happened to

Specialist O’Neal’s witness statement. We have tried to find out

what the White House knew about Corporal Tillman’s death. We

know that in the days following the initial report, at least 97 White

House officials sent and received hundreds of e-mails about Corporal Tillman’s death and how the White House and the President

should respond. Now, there is nothing sinister about this.

I want that sign down.

There is nothing sinister about this, and there is nothing sinister

in the e-mails we have received. Corporal Tillman is a national

hero. It makes sense that White House officials would be paying attention. But what doesn’t make sense is that weeks later, in the

days before and after the Defense Department announced that Corporal Tillman was actually killed by our own forces, there are no

e-mails from any of the 97 White House officials about how Corporal Tillman really died.

The concealment of Corporal Tillman’s fratricide caused millions

of Americans to question the integrity of our government, yet no

one will tell us when and how the White House learned the truth.

Today we will be examining the actions of the senior leadership

at the Department of Defense. Much of our focus will be on a ‘‘Personal For’’ message, also known as a P–4, that Major General Stanley McChrystal sent on April 29, 2004. This P–4 alerted his superiors that despite press reports that Corporal Tillman died fighting

the enemy, it was highly possible that Corporal Tillman was killed

by friendly fire.

Well, three officers received this P–4 report: Lieutenant General

Kensinger, General Abizaid and General Brown. General

Kensinger refused to appear today. His attorney informed the committee that General Kensinger would not testify voluntarily, and,

if issued a subpoena, would seek to evade service.

The committee did issue a subpoena to General Kensinger earlier

this week, but U.S. Marshals have been unable to locate or serve

him. So we will not be able to ask General Kensinger what he did

with the P–4. We won’t be able to ask him why he didn’t notify the

Tillman family about the friendly fire investigation, and we won’t

be able to ask him why he did nothing to correct the record after

he attended Corporal Tillman’s memorial service in early May and

he heard statements he knew were false.

Fortunately, we do have the other two recipients of the P–4, General Abizaid and General Brown, here this morning, and we will

ask them what they did after they received General McChrystal’s

message.

We are also grateful that General Myers and Secretary Rumsfeld, who rearranged his schedule so that he could be here today,

are here to testify. And we are pleased that you have taken this

opportunity to be with us.

Members of the committee, like Americans across the Nation, are

looking for answers to simple questions. Who knew about the

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friendly fire attack? Why wasn’t the family told? Why did it take

over a month for the leadership of the Defense Department to tell

the public the truth? Today I hope we will at least get answers to

these questions and bring clarity to this investigation.

I commend the Army for its continued investigation into the Tillman case, and Army Secretary Geren for the forthright approach

he is taking. Progress has been made, but we still don’t know who

was responsible for the false information and what roles, if any, the

Defense Department and the White House had in the deceptions.

We owe it to the Tillman family and to the American people to get

the answers to these fundamental questions.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. I want to now recognize Mr. Davis before we

call on our witnesses.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We continue

to join you today in pursuing key aspects of this investigation, because our duty to the Nation’s honored dead and to their families

is solemn and absolute. As a Nation and as a Congress, we owe

them our unity, our honesty and our industry, untarnished by selfinterest or partisanship. As long as the committee is seeking authoritative answers to necessary questions about the death of Corporal Pat Tillman, we will be constructive partners in that effort.

This much we know. There are no good answers to the necessarily tough questions raised about how the facts of this friendly

fire incident were handled, by whom and when. Testimony from

our previous hearing and the results of six separate Army investigations all showed the tragic truth can only fall somewhere between screw-up and cover-up, between rampant incompetence and

elaborate conspiracy. And once you are descending that continuum,

it almost doesn’t matter whether the failure to follow Army regulations about updated casualty reports and prompt family notifications was inadvertent, negligent or intentional.

As it has been observed, sufficiently advanced incompetence is

indistinguishable from malice, and the facts uncovered so far clearly prove this was advanced incompetence, serial ineptitude up and

down the Army and civilian chains of command.

Still, confounding questions persist about how and why the specifics of so high profile a death were so slowly and badly conveyed,

even after top Pentagon leaders and the White House were known

to be interested.

Since this committee’s first hearing on these issues 4 months

ago, the committee has received over 13,000 pages of documents

from the White House, the Department of Defense, the Inspector

General of the Department of Defense, and the Department of the

Army. Committee staff has conducted over a half dozen interviews

with those involved. Nothing in that material suggests the Defense

Secretary or the White House were aware Tillman’s death was a

friendly fire incident before late May, when his grieving family and

the rest of the Nation were finally told. But it is still not clear how

or why the Secretary, other defense leaders, and the White House

speechwriters remained impervious to the emerging truth while so

many others knew Corporal Tillman’s death was a fratricide.

Yesterday another Army review by General William S. Wallace

was conducted, and the secretary of the Army imposed disciplinary

action against senior officers involved in this sad cascade of mistakes, misjudgments, and misleading statements. Consistent with

the Pentagon Inspector General’s report, General Wallace found no

evidence anyone in the chain of command acted intentionally to

cover up the fact Corporal Tillman had died by friendly fire. Rather, the report determined, as had others before, the delay in notifying the Tillman family of the friendly fire investigation resulted

from well-intentioned but clearly wrong decisions to wait until all

investigations were complete. That, to me, is one of the more troubling aspects in this case, that the default setting for Army officers,

lawyers, and others was secrecy.

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This was their first friendly fire incident. No one apparently

bothered to read the regulations requiring immediate changes to

the casualty report, which in turn would have triggered additional

information going to the family, and presumably others. Yesterday

the Army Secretary said timely and accurate family notification is

a duty based on core Army values. But in this instance, undeniably

pernicious institutional forces devalued that ideal. Why? What has

been done to cure that organizational bias against the diligence

and candor owed the Tillman family and every American?

I believe the job of this committee is to ask the tough questions

and let the chips fall where they may. It is our not always envious

job to root out the facts and hold people accountable. That is what

we are doing today. As I noted earlier, nothing in our inquiry thus

far demonstrates the Defense Secretary or the White House were

aware this a was a friendly fire incident before late May. That we

have not learned otherwise may perplex those who are assuming

the worst, given the gross mishandling of this tragedy. But while

we continue to gather information and we together will leave no

stone unturned, let’s not let these assumptions color or cloud what

our investigation is actually finding.

All our witnesses have served our Nation with distinction, and

we are grateful for their continued service and support of this committee’s oversight. I am particularly glad former Defense Secretary

Rumsfeld decided to appear today. His perspective is an indispensable element of our efforts to complete this inquiry. We look forward to his testimony and that of all today’s witnesses as we seek

answers to these painful, but essential questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. Let me, before I recognize our witnesses, remind everyone in the audience that this is a serious congressional

investigation. If anyone holds up signs, we want to tell them not

do it. And if they do, we will ask them to excuse themselves from

the hearing room. We will insist on proper decorum.

I join with Mr. Davis in thanking each of our witnesses for being

here today, and certainly in the case of Secretary Rumsfeld, who

went to great pains to be here. And I appreciate the fact that he

did come. And also to all three of the generals that are with us

today, we want to hear from you.

It is the practice of this committee for all witnesses that we administer the oath, and I would like to ask all of you to please stand

at this time to take the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman WAXMAN. The record will reflect that each of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Secretary Rumsfeld, why don’t we start with

you. There is a button on the base of the mike. We would like if

you would make your presentation. If any of you have submitted

written testimony, the written testimony will be in the record in

full. And we want to hear what you have to say.

STATEMENT OF DONALD RUMSFELD, FORMER SECRETARY OF

DEFENSE

Mr. RUMSFELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. You have requested that we appear today to discuss our

knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the death of U.S.

Army Corporal Patrick Tillman.

First, I want to again extend my deepest sympathies to the Tillman family. Corporal Tillman’s death, and the deaths of thousands

of men and women who have given their lives in our Nation’s service, have brought great sorrow to the lives of their families and

their loved ones. Theirs is a grief felt by all who have had the privilege of serving alongside those in uniform. The handling of the circumstances surrounding Corporal Tillman’s death could only have

added to the pain of losing a loved one. I personally, and I am sure

all connected with the Department, extend our deep regrets.

One of the Department of Defense’s foremost responsibilities is

to tell the truth to some of the 3 million military, civilian and contract employees who dedicate their careers to defending our Nation;

to the military families who endure the extended absence of their

fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters; and to the

American people, for whom all of those connected to the Department of Defense strive each day to protect.

In March 2002, early in my tenure as Secretary of Defense, I

wrote a memo for the men and women of the Department of Defense titled ‘‘Principles for the Department of Defense.’’ I have attached a copy of that memo to my testimony. You will note that

principle No. 1, the very first, addresses the points that both you

and Mr. Davis have made. It says, ‘‘Do nothing that could raise

questions about the credibility of DOD. Department officials must

tell the truth and must be believed to be telling the truth or our

important work is undermined.’’

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Mr. Chairman, in your invitation to today’s hearing, you asked

that we be prepared to discuss how we learned of the circumstances surrounding Corporal Tillman’s death, when we

learned of it, and with whom we discussed it. I am prepared to respond to the questions which pertain to these matters to the best

of my ability.

In December 2006, I sent a letter to the Acting Inspector General

of the Department of Defense, Mr. Thomas Gimble, describing my

best recollection of those events, which by that point had occurred

some 21⁄2 years previously. The committee has been given a copy

of that letter, and I would like to quote a portion of it. ‘‘I am told

that I received word of this development sometime after May 20,

2004, but my recollection reflects the fact that it occurred well over

2 years ago. As a result, I do not recall when I first learned about

the possibility that Corporal Tillman’s death might have resulted

from fratricide.’’ I went on to say, ‘‘I am confident that I did not

discuss this matter with anyone outside of the Department of Defense.’’ Obviously, during that early period; I have subsequently to

that period.

What I wrote in December 2006 remains my best recollection

today of when I was informed and with whom I talked before May

20th. I understand that the May 20, 2004, date was shortly before

the Tillman family was informed of the circumstances on May 26,

2004.

Your invitation to appear before the committee also asked about

my knowledge of a ‘‘Personal For’’ or P–4 message dated April 29,

2004. That message was not addressed to me. I don’t recall seeing

it until recent days, when copies have been made available. There

are a great many, indeed many thousands, of communications

throughout the Department of Defense that a Secretary of Defense

does not see.

I understand that the Acting Inspector General’s report concluded that there were errors among some of those responsible for

the initial reports. Any errors in such a situation are most unfortunate. The Tillmans were owed the truth, delivered in a forthright

and timely manner. And certainly the truth was owed to the memory of a man whose valor, dedication, and sacrifice to his country

remains an example for all.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Rumsfeld.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rumsfeld follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. General Myers.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, FORMER CHAIR,

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

General MYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The only thing I

would like to say is just offer my condolences as well to the Tillman

family not only for the loss, but for the issues that they have been

struggling with since then, and the whole notification issue that is

being looked at by this committee. They clearly don’t deserve that

for Pat Tillman’s memory and for what he meant to this country

and to our Armed Forces.

And I would like—as the Secretary said, I would like to also add

my condolences, of course, to all those who have sacrificed to keep

us free, the men and women in uniform.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. General Abizaid.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL JOHN P. ABIZAID, FORMER

COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND

General ABIZAID. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Certainly we have lost a lot of good young men and women in

the past several years of combat. We have a tough fight ahead of

us, and we will lose more. I understand that one of the most important things we can do is help our families through the grieving

process. That requires accurate and timely information that goes to

them, and it certainly didn’t happen in the case of Corporal Tillman.

It is unfortunate that we did not handle it properly. Having had

a son-in-law who was wounded in combat, and having gone through

the notification process myself, I can only tell you it is a difficult

process in the best of times.

We will answer your questions to the best of our ability. Thanks.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you.

General Brown.

STATEMENT OF GENERAL BRYAN DOUGLAS BROWN, FORMER

COMMANDER, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND

General BROWN. Mr. Chairman, I would also like to add my condolences to the Tillman family and to how poorly the notification

was done. I would also say that, like General Abizaid to my right,

I also had a son-in-law wounded, so I know what that call sounds

like. And my son-in-law, in fact, was wounded by fratricide in the

opening days of Afghanistan, so I know how important it is and

how the impact is on the family, although I didn’t lose my son-inlaw.

So I am ready for your questions, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Thank you.

Well, I want to begin the questioning by framing the issue for us.

The basic point that we want to learn is what did the senior military leadership know about Corporal Tillman’s death, when did

they know it, and what did they do after they learned it?

At our last hearing we reviewed a document known as Personal

For, or a P–4 memo. This memo was sent on April 28, 2004, by

Major General Stanley McChrystal, the Commander of the Joint

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Task Force in Afghanistan, where Corporal Tillman was killed in

2004. General McChrystal sent this P–4 memo to three people:

General Abizaid, from Central Command; General Brown, from

U.S. Special Operations Command; and General Kensinger, from

the Army Special Operations Command. The purpose of this P–4

was to have one or more of these generals warn President Bush,

the Secretary of the Army, and other national leaders that it was,

‘‘highly probable or highly possible that an ongoing investigation

was about to conclude that Corporal Tillman was killed by his own

unit.’’

General McChrystal explained why this P–4 message was so important. He stated, ‘‘I felt it was essential that you received this

information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country’s leaders which might cause

embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death

became public.’’

Well, this P–4 memo was sent on April 29th, 1 week after Corporal Tillman’s death. This was 4 days before the memorial service,

at which the Tillmans and the Nation were told Pat Tillman was

killed by hostile fire. And this was an entire month before the Pentagon told the Tillman family and the public that Corporal Tillman

was killed by U.S. forces.

For today’s hearing, we invited all of the recipients of the P–4

to determine how they responded. Did they, in fact, alert the White

House? Did they alert the Army Secretary, the Secretary of Defense? Did they pass it up the chain of command? One of the addressees is General Kensinger. He refused to appear voluntarily,

and apparently evaded service of the committee’s subpoena, so he

is not here today, but we do have two of the other addressees of

the P–4 memo, General Brown and General Abizaid, as well as

General Myers, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

and Secretary Rumsfeld. They are appearing here today voluntarily, and I thank you all for being here. They have had distinguished careers and have served our Nation with honor. They are

continuing to serve their country by cooperating with this congressional investigation.

General Abizaid, let me start with you. If you look closely at the

P–4, the third and fourth lines actually have different levels of addressees. General Brown and General Kensinger were listed as

info, which I understand is the equivalent of a CC, a carbon copy.

But you were listed as a ‘‘to.’’ So General McChrystal really wanted

this to go to you. When did you receive this memo?

General ABIZAID. I believe that the earliest I received it was on

the 6th of May.

Chairman WAXMAN. 6th of May. And why did it take so long?

General ABIZAID. Well, let me explain the timing sequence, if I

may, Congressman, starting from the 22nd, as I saw it. Would that

be helpful?

Chairman WAXMAN. Sure.

General ABIZAID. On the 22nd, the incident occurred. I believe

about the 23rd, General McChrystal called me and told me that

Corporal Tillman had been killed in combat, and that the circumstances surrounding his death were heroic. I called the chairman and discussed that with the chairman.

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Throughout that period I was in Iraq, Qatar, etc. On the 28th,

I went to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, I met with General Olson

and General Barnow, our commanders there, and I also had the

chance to talk to the platoon leader, who was Corporal Tillman’s

platoon leader, and I asked him about the action, and he gave no

indication that there was a friendly fire issue.

On the 29th, General McChrystal sent his message, and it went

to my headquarters in Tampa, and it was not retransmitted for

reasons of difficulties with our systems within the headquarters

until the 6th at the earliest, and it could have been later that I received it. But it is my recollection then on the 6th, probably the

6th, it is a guess, I can’t be sure exactly the date, I called the chairman. I told the chairman about having received General

McChrystal’s message that friendly fire was involved.

Chairman WAXMAN. You immediately told the chairman?

General ABIZAID. As soon as I saw the message. I can’t remember

how the existence of the message came to my attention, but it was

known within my staff that something was out there, and we found

it. I called the chairman. I told the chairman about it, and it was

my impression from having talked to the chairman at the time that

he knew about it.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Your staff seemed to know about it.

Was that they knew there was a memo, or they heard it might

have been friendly fire that killed him?

General ABIZAID. I think they had heard there was an investigation ongoing within the Joint Special Operations Command.

Chairman WAXMAN. Um-hmm. So you actually received the P–4

memo a week after it was written, but it was also 3 weeks before

the memorial service where the family still didn’t know. Your chain

of command, you were the Commander of CENTCOM; you had a

direct reporting requirement to the Defense Secretary. After you

read the P–4, who did you contact? Just General Myers?

General ABIZAID. I contacted General Myers. And my responsibility is to report to the Secretary through the chairman. I generally

do that. I talked to the Secretary a lot, I talked to the chairman

a lot during this period. But 90 percent of what I talked to him

about was what was going on in Fallujah, what was going on combat operationally throughout the theater. And as a matter of fact,

when I called the chairman, there was a whole list of other things

that I believe I talked to him about concerning the circumstances

in Fallujah in particular.

Chairman WAXMAN. What did you say to him about this P–4

memo?

General ABIZAID. I can’t remember exactly what I said to him.

I said it is clear that there is a possibility of fratricide involving

the Tillman case; that General McChrystal has appointed the necessary people to investigate to determine precisely what happened;

and that while it is likely that there is fratricide, we will know for

sure after the report is finalized, which will reach me when it gets

done.

Chairman WAXMAN. What did he say to you in response?

General ABIZAID. Like I say, he gave me the impression—I can’t

remember his exact words—that he understood that there was an

investigation ongoing.

32

Chairman WAXMAN. So he seemed to already know about the fact

there was an investigation?

General ABIZAID. He seemed to, yes.

Chairman WAXMAN. And what about your own reporting requirement to the Secretary? Did you ever discuss the fratricide investigation with Secretary Rumsfeld or his office?

General ABIZAID. No, I did not talk to the Secretary that I can

recall directly about it until I was back in D.C. around the time period of the 18th through the 20th. And at the time I informed him

that there was an investigation that was ongoing, and it looked like

it was friendly fire.

Chairman WAXMAN. The P–4 memo said the President should be

notified that Corporal Tillman was highly possibly killed by friendly fire. What steps did you take to make sure the President received this information?

General ABIZAID. I notified the chairman. I never called the

President direct on any operational matter throughout the 41⁄2

years of being in the theater.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Well, General Myers, let’s turn to you.

You were the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Under the

Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, you were the senior ranking member of the Armed Forces and the principal military adviser to the

President and the Secretary of Defense. The P–4 was not addressed

to you, but General Abizaid just said that he called you and told

you about the suspected fratricide. First of all, is that correct? Did

he call you?

General MYERS. I can’t recall specifically, but it is entirely likely

that it is exactly as he recalls it. I would trust his judgment in this

matter.

Chairman WAXMAN. You don’t remember what he said or what

you said back in that conversation?

General MYERS. No. No recall of that.

General ABIZAID. OK. General Abizaid testified, as you heard,

when he called you, you already knew about it. Is that accurate?

General MYERS. Yes. The best I can determine, once I got the letter from the committee and talked to some of the folks on my staff,

is that I knew right at the end of April that there was a possibility

of fratricide in the Corporal Tillman death, and that General

McChrystal had started an investigation. So when he called, if he

called later than that, then I would already have known that.

Chairman WAXMAN. How would you have known that? Who told

you?

General MYERS. I can’t tell you. I don’t know how I knew. To the

best of my knowledge, I have never seen this P–4. It could have

come several ways. The most likely is in our operations shop, we

have folks from Special Forces that—from Special Forces that

might have known this and passed it to me at a staff meeting. I

can’t tell you who passed it to me. I just don’t know. Or it could

have been I have read General Schoomaker’s testimony in front of

the DOD IG, and he said he might have called me. That is another

way it could have happened. I just can’t recall.

Chairman WAXMAN. General Myers, you told our staff last night

that at the time you received the call from General Abizaid, it was

common knowledge that Corporal Tillman had been killed by

33

friendly fire. Is that accurate? Was it common knowledge that the

fratricide was——

General MYERS. No. If I said that, it was a mistake. I don’t know

that it was common knowledge at that point.

Chairman WAXMAN. But you knew about it, and others around

you knew about it.

General MYERS. Yes, and I told—in working with my former public affairs adviser, I said, you know, we need to keep this in mind

in case we go before the press. We have just got to calibrate ourselves. With this investigation ongoing, we want to be careful how

we portray the situation.

Chairman WAXMAN. Yeah. Well, was it fair to say it was widely

known by people in the DOD?

General MYERS. You know, I can’t recall. As General Abizaid said

when he mentioned this to me, we probably talked about a lot of

other things, to include the situation in Fallujah, which was getting a lot of attention at the moment. But I just can’t recall.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Thank you.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. General Myers, when you learned that

this was a possible fratricide, what would Army regulations require

you to do or the chain of command to do at that point?

General MYERS. I don’t come under Army regulations, but—I

don’t think there is any regulation that would require me to do

anything actually. What I would normally do—it was in Army

channels. What I would normally do, if I thought the Secretary did

not know that, I would so inform the Secretary. I cannot recall

whether or not I did that.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. We are going to find out in a second.

General MYERS. Yeah, well, I think—you can ask the Secretary.

But I don’t recall if I did that.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. What would Army regulations have required at that point?

General MYERS. My understanding is the way the Army regulations were written, and this is from research here getting ready for

the committee, is that they should have notified the family at the

time that there was a possibility of fratricide as soon as they knew

it.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Nobody at the top was ensuring that—

really looked at the regulations at that point?

General MYERS. That wouldn’t be our responsibility. When I

learned that General McChrystal had initiated an investigation,

that was—that was good for me. I know he had worked for me before. I knew his integrity. I said, this is good, and they are going

to do an investigation. We will learn the truth.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with

us today. How and when did you learn that Corporal Tillman had

been killed? There is a button on the base.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t recall precisely how I learned that he was

killed. It could have been internally, or it could have been through

the press. It was something that obviously received a great deal of

attention.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Do you remember did you take any action at the time that you learned that he was killed? Obviously,

34

this was an American hero. This could be highly publicized and of

great concern to a lot of people.

Mr. RUMSFELD. The only action I can recall taking was to draft

a letter to the family.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. OK. Before he did so, were you aware

that President Bush was going to reference Corporal Tillman in a

correspondents’ dinner speech on May 1st?

Mr. RUMSFELD. No.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So to your knowledge or recollection, you

never had any conversations with the President or anybody at the

White House about that possibility?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I have no recollection of discussing it with the

White House until toward the—when it became a matter of public

record about the fratricide. At that point, and when the family was

notified, I am sure there were discussions with the White House,

but prior to that, I don’t have a recollection of it. Possibly Dick

does. Dick Myers and I met with the White House frequently, but

I don’t recall bringing this up.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. General Myers.

General MYERS. And I don’t recall ever having a discussion with

anybody at the White House about the Tillman case one way or another.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Secretary, were you aware in the period after Corporal Tillman’s death of the extensive media coverage

being given to this tragic event and Corporal Tillman’s service as

a Ranger?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t understand the question.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You were aware of the extensive media

coverage being given to this event?

Mr. RUMSFELD. When he was killed, absolutely.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Did you instruct your staff at any point

to try to influence in any way the coverage?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Absolutely not. Indeed, quite the contrary. The

Uniform Code of Military Justice and the investigation process is

such that anyone in the command, chain of command, is cautioned

to not ask questions, to not inject themselves into it, to not do anything privately or publicly that could be characterized as command

influence which could alter the outcome of an investigation. And as

a result, the practice of most Secretaries of Defense and people in

the chain of command is to be very cautious and careful about inquiring or seeming to have an opinion or putting pressure on anyone who is involved in any portion of the military court-martial

process or the investigation process. And as a result, I have generally stayed out over my tenure as Secretary of Defense.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Do you remember when you learned that

this was a possible fratricide?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Well, I don’t remember. And what I have been

told subsequently is that there was a person in the room when I

was—who says I was told when he was in the room. And——

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Do you remember when that was?

Mr. RUMSFELD. He said that he came back from Iraq on May

20th, and that, therefore, he assumes I was told on or after May

20th. Whether I was told before that, I just don’t have any recollecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41930.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
35

tion. And the best I can do is what I put in my letter to the acting

Inspector General, which referenced that instance.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. When you learned about this, then, for

the first time, do you remember did you decide you needed to tell

somebody else about this to convey this, make sure the family was

known, the White House or media people? Do you remember?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t recall when I was told, and I don’t recall

who told me, but my recollection is that it was at a stage when

there were investigations underway, in which case I would not

have told anybody to go do something with respect to it. And as

Chairman Myers says, this was a matter basically that the Army

was handling, and it was not something that I would inject myself

into in the normal course of my role as Secretary of Defense.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me just try to get to that. Your letter

says that I am told I received word of this development, i.e., the

possibility of fratricide, after May 20, 2004, because that is when

this person had returned——

Mr. RUMSFELD. Right.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA [continuing]. From Iraq.

Mr. RUMSFELD. That is where that came from.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Who was the person? Do you remember?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I do. His name is Colonel Steve Bucci, and he

told that to my civilian assistant.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. And the May 20th date, the significance

of that is the date he returned from Iraq?

Mr. RUMSFELD. That is my understanding.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So it would have been at that time or

a subsequent date in all likelihood.

Mr. RUMSFELD. That is my understanding. That is not to say

that was the time, because I just simply don’t recollect, but that

is my best information.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. As it gets refreshed. I understand.

When did you learn of the P–4 message? This message suggested

that senior leaders be warned about the friendly fire possibility.

And when you learned that these instructions had been heeded,

what was your reaction that there was a P–4 underway? Do you

remember that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t remember when or from whom I learned

about the P–4, if at all. I don’t recall even seeing it until recent

weeks in the aftermath of your previous hearings. But so I just

don’t have any recollection of having seen it until more recently.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. On March 6, 2006, you sent a snowflake

to your deputy, the Secretary of the Army, the Army Chief of Staff

and others, and in this memorandum you wrote, I am not convinced the Army is the right organization to undertake the fifth investigation of Pat Tillman’s death. Please consult with the right

folks and come back to me with options and a recommendation fast

with the right way to proceed.

Why did you believe the Army was not the right organization to

undertake the investigation which followed General Jones’ inquiry?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Well, I don’t remember the phraseology of that,

but my recollection is that I asked the question of the deputy, who

kind of is very deeply involved in the business of the Department,

that if there have been several investigations by the Army,

36

mightn’t it be logical, that if still an additional one was necessary,

that one ought to consider where is the best place to have that investigation conducted? I didn’t know the answer to the question,

but I raised it with the deputy, thinking that it is something that

ought to be addressed.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Did you believe the Jones investigation

was deficient in some way?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I had no reason to believe that, except that, as

I recall, we were moving into—the Army was moving into—the

command, whoever was doing the investigations, were moving into

the fifth one.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. So you were looking at fresh eyes, basically.

On March 10, 2006, the DOD Early Bird publication included a

column from the Arizona Republic which discussed the Tillman

family’s dissatisfaction with the notification process and the subsequent investigations. On March 13th, you sent a copy of this article, along with a memo, to the Secretary of the Army and to Pete

Schoomaker, the Army Chief of Staff. In this memo you said, I

would think you, Pete, would want to call and/or write a letter of

apology to the family and have it published. This situation has

been handled very poorly. It is not acceptable, and you may want

to say that. If you agree, you will need to set about fixing the system or process that produced this most unfortunate situation.

Do you remember that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I do. I don’t have it in front of me, but that

sounds about right.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Do you know if they did as you asked?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t. I know that—I have a vague recollection

that in one instance the Secretary of the Army came back to me

and indicated something to the effect that he agreed generally with

my note, but felt that he—they were taking the appropriate steps

or something. And I just don’t recall it.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. On March 13, 2006, 3 days later, the

DOD Early Bird publication included a column from the Atlanta

Constitution, which further discussed various complaints about the

notification process and the subsequent investigation of Corporal

Tillman’s death. Two days later, March 15th, you sent a copy of

this article, along with another memo, to the Secretary of the

Army. In this memo you said, here is an article on the death of

Corporal Tillman. How in the world can that be explained? I guess

did the Secretary offer any explanation on the various foul-ups in

this matter to you? And what was your reaction at this point to

any explanation he might have given?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Well, I can’t remember specifically, but as you

read those things, obviously, I, as Secretary of Defense—one feels

terrible that a situation like that is being handled in a way that

is unsatisfactory and that additional investigations were required.

On the other hand, a Secretary of Defense has to try to pose it as

questions rather than assertions, because I didn’t—I was not intimately knowledgeable of the nature of those investigations. I

wasn’t in a position to give direction without risking command influence, in my view. And as a result, I posed these memos to these

people responsible with questions rather than assertions.

37

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

I would just last, seeing where we are today and how this was

handled, you are Secretary of Defense, how do you feel about it?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Well, I feel, as I indicated in my opening remarks, a great deal of heartbreak for the Tillman family, and deep

concern, and a recognition that the way the matter was handled

added to their grief. And it is a most unfortunate situation that

anyone has to agree is something that the Department has to find

ways to avoid in the future. We owe the young men and women

who serve our country better than that.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. You think we certainly owe the Tillman

family an apology the way this was handled?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Indeed, as I said in my memo sometime back.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you.

Mr. RUMSFELD. And as I have said publicly here today.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Let me announce to the Members there are

votes going on, but we are going to continue the hearing. So if you

wish to respond to the vote and come back, we are going to proceed

on the line of questioning.

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank all the

panelists for your service and for cooperating with the committee

today.

I would like to followup on General Myers’ testimony, where you

testified that you learned that Corporal Tillman had been killed by

friendly fire at the end of April, and that you reached out to your

public affairs officer to calibrate your response in order to be absolutely accurate and precise in your response. Yet May 3rd, there

was a memorial service held for Corporal Tillman, which got a

great—he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. It was national

news that he had been killed in hostile fire. And at this memorial

service he received the Silver Star, if I recall. And yet the family

and the world at this point on May 3rd were told that he died with

hostile fire, when you knew, as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

that he died with friendly fire, and you knew this for a month before, and in your own words you wanted to be precise about this

information.

Why did you not come forward and tell the family and tell the

public the truth? The family was not told the truth until the end

of May.

General MYERS. Well, first of all, I did not know that Corporal

Tillman had been killed by friendly fire. I didn’t say that. What I

said was that I was informed that it is possibly friendly fire, and

that there is an investigation ongoing.

In terms of notifying the family, that is in Army channels, and

we have just talked about the regret there is for the fact that was

not done properly. If it had been done properly, my assumption

would be they would have known before the memorial service. So

I did not know it was friendly fire until the investigation.

Like Secretary Rumsfeld, when you are in a senior position, you

have to be very careful what you say about it. And that is why I

talked to the public affairs officer. By the way, I talked to my

former public affairs officer——

38

Mrs. MALONEY. Yet, General Myers, you knew that he died, that

there was a possibility that he died by friendly fire. We are told

all the time in the press possibilities. We are told, hopefully, the

truth. So at that point you knew then, I assume many people

knew, that there was a possibility that he died by friendly fire, and

yet that was not disclosed until a full month afterwards.

The family would have wanted to hear the truth. They testified

they would have wanted to hear the truth. And if there was a possibility, they would have wanted to hear the possibilities. And usually in this country what we hear is the possibilities, and hopefully

the truth coming forward. And yet in this, this was not—you sat

on your hands and you didn’t say anything about it. And I find that

hard to understand.

General MYERS. Well, as you understand, I think, from the materials that have been presented to the committee so far and all the

testimony, this is the responsibility of the U.S. Army, not of the Office of the Chairman. And so I regret that the Army did not do

their duty here and follow their own policy, which we have talked

about. But they did not. My assumption would have to be—my

assumption——

Mrs. MALONEY. General Myers, do you regret your actions that

you did not reach out—you were the head of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff. The Army is under you.

General MYERS. That is not entirely correct.

Mrs. MALONEY. Let’s get into what is right and fair and not

the——

General MYERS. What is right and fair is exactly what Secretary

Rumsfeld talked about. What was right and fair is to follow Army

policy and notify the family when they think there is a possibility.

Mrs. MALONEY. So the family should have been notified that

there was a possibility.

General MYERS. According to the Army regulations, as I understand them, that is correct. By the way, the Marine regulations

don’t. They don’t notify until they are for sure is my understanding.

Mrs. MALONEY. So the Army did not follow their guidelines that

they should have told the family and the public that there was a

possibility that our hero, our football hero and war hero, died by

friendly fire.

General MYERS. They should have talked about the possibility of

that as soon as they knew it, according to the regulations, absolutely.

Mrs. MALONEY. I would like to ask Secretary Rumsfeld, Corporal

Tillman was a very, very famous soldier when he enlisted. It was

very acknowledged by many people. He was a professional football

player; he was offered millions of dollars in a contract that he

turned down to serve our country. He captured your attention

when he enlisted in May 2002, and you sent a letter on June 28,

2002, which I would like to make part of the record. And in it you

write him and you say, I heard that you are leaving the National

Football League to become an Army Ranger. It is a proud and patriotic thing that you are doing.

We also received yesterday——

39

Chairman WAXMAN. Without objection that will be made part of

the record.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

[The information referred to follows:]

40

41

Mrs. MALONEY. We also received yesterday a snowflake that you

sent about Corporal Tillman that is dated June 25, 2002. And a

snowflake is a name that you give to memos that are sent to senior

defense officials. And you sent this snowflake to Thomas White,

then-Secretary of the Army. And the subject line is Pat Tillman.

And let me read what you said here. ‘‘Here is an article on a fellow

who is apparently joining the Rangers. He sounds like he is worldclass. We might want to keep an eye on him.’’

May I put this in the record, sir?

Chairman WAXMAN. Without objection, that will be ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

42

43

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. Did you

want to——

Mrs. MALONEY. May I ask for an additional——

Chairman WAXMAN. Were you leading to a question?

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes, I was.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Would you ask it quickly?

Mrs. MALONEY. When Corporal Tillman was killed in 2004, was

this a blow to you when you heard this news?

Mr. RUMSFELD. It is. Clearly it is a blow when you read of a

death of a young man or a young woman who is serving our country in uniform and gives their lives. It is always a heartbreaking

thing for anyone in a position of responsibility to read about.

Mrs. MALONEY. That’s——

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Maloney.

Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Myers, just for the record, you are not in the chain—you

were not in the chain of command as the Chairman of the Joint

Chiefs; is that correct?

General MYERS. No. The chairman is the principal military adviser to the President and the National Security Council, and I am

not in the operational chain of command, no.

Mr. ISSA. So your influence during your tenure there is designed

to be to make policy recommendations to the President, to the Secretary, that then at their discretion are implemented. And as a result, even though you are informed, and obviously you have the respect of the men that you have served with for so many years, in

fact, when we want to look at the chain of command, we should not

be looking at you as part of that except to the extent that you knew

about something; is that correct?

General MYERS. I think that is substantially correct.

Mr. ISSA. OK. And I am going to—first of all, I am going to join

with all of you in saying that we regret from the dais the heartburn, the heartache and the suffering that the Tillman family went

through, and that is one of the reasons that Government Oversight

and Reform has to take a role in seeing that this doesn’t happen

again, if at all possible.

I also want to make available for the record our assessment,

which is out of 41 Members on the dais here today, there are only

8 who ever served in the military. And all of us who served in the

military served, as far as I know, at the rank of captain or less.

So I am not going to claim, as one of those, that we are especially

knowledgeable of everything that could go wrong in every situation.

But let’s go through a couple of things that seem to be left unchanged.

We understand that a three-star general has lost a star as a result not just of ineptness during the process, but of false statements. Is that your understanding also?

Mr. RUMSFELD. No.

Mr. ISSA. That has not happened yet?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Not to my knowledge. I read the paper this

morning, and it said the issue as to whether or not he ought to

keep his third star is something that should be given to a review

panel, if I am not mistaken.

44

Mr. ISSA. OK. I think I will join with the recommendation that

the general’s lies—we are not a body in the military who accept

false statements. Mistakes, yes; false statements, no. So I would

hope that appropriate action is taken. But as far as I can tell, that

is the only lie.

But there is an unresolved issue, and I hope that is the focus

here today. As I understand it, the Army has a policy that during

an investigation of a possible fratricide, you do inform the family

that is a possibility. Is that all of your understanding here today

for the Army?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I have no knowledge of what that Army reg says.

General BROWN. It is my understanding and I think the policy

is no later than 30 days from the time that the investigation—that

there is an investigation, you must immediately notify the family,

but in no cases later than 30 days. I think that is a regulation that

came into effect about 2003. And I don’t know what the regulation

was before 2003.

Mr. ISSA. Army regulation 600–8–1 will be placed in the record

without objection.

Chairman WAXMAN. Without objection, that will be the order.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. ISSA. It is also my understanding as someone who has 44,000

Marines, some of them on their fourth deployment in Afghanistan

and Iraq at Camp Pendleton, that the Marines have the opposite

policy, that in fact if Corporal Tillman had been a Marine the policy is not to inform until the completion of the investigation period.

Is that also on your understanding to the extent that you know?

General ABIZAID. Yes, that is the Marine policy as I understand

it.

Mr. ISSA. Then I certainly think from the dais here today we

would hope, General Brown, to the extent that you convey it and

for those behind you taking notes that we can’t have two policies.

There has to be one policy because it is the only way that in a joint

world that we’re going to have the kind of joint understanding of

what to do. And Secretary Rumsfeld, you are one of the big cheerleaders and author of jointness. Wouldn’t you agree that we have

to, much as possible, not have two standards when people are

fighting side by side?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Congressman, we have different policies in the

respective services on literally dozens and dozens of things.

Mr. ISSA. I know, Secretary Rumsfeld.

Mr. RUMSFELD. You know that.

Mr. ISSA. I know, but the question here because we have this

O&R oversight we want to know why a legitimate hero who died

a hero, whose Silver Star should say he stood up to protect his men

while they were under friendly fire because he tried to stop that

firing from killing the rest of his unit, every bit as deserving of that

or even greater award, why that wasn’t correct. That is the oversight. We can’t change that. Others will have to.

But on the reform side—and I will ask indulgences for a moment

since we are a little short anyway—isn’t it appropriate that today

we consider or ask the DOD to consider as much as possible unifying those things? And General Brown, I will ask it to you because

you are the only one still on active duty. As a supreme commander,

as a combatant, as whatever role you are in the future when you

have multiple different forces, wouldn’t it be extremely desirable

for the Department of Defense to undertake unifying these standards to prevent the kind of misunderstanding that clearly Colonel

Nixon and others had in this process.

General BROWN. Absolutely, and I will be glad to take that back

to the Department of Defense and ask them to take a look at that.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Issa.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. Secretary Rumsfeld, I

want to ask how is it possible that you didn’t know before May

20th that Corporal Tillman died by friendly fire? And I will ask

you—we developed a chart which I will put up now on the wall.

In this chart, we show what the committee had learned up to that

point, which was that at least nine Pentagon officials, including

three generals, either knew or were informed of the suspected fratricide in the first 72 hours after it occurred. We have continued to

investigate.

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And now I would like to put up another chart. Here we identify

Pentagon officials who knew of the fratricide before the American

public and the Tillman family at the end of May 2004.

This chart shows that at least 30 people knew, including some

of the highest ranking military officials in our government. Even

this is not comprehensive. The committee interviewed Lieutenant

General John Craddock on July 27th. In 2004 he was your Senior

Military Assistant. He is now the head of NATO. He told us that

he didn’t learn of the fratricide in any official capacity but rather

from his neighbor, General Jim Lovelace, who was the Director of

the Army Staff. This is how General Craddock described it and we

will put that on the board. He said, Jim Lovelace is my neighbor

at Fort Myer. Because he was my neighbor, in a social setting we

had, I would say frequent, when a couple of times a month we

talked to each other outside or something on the weekend. The best

that I can recollect was over the fence at my quarters 1 weekend

Jim Lovelace said something to me that Tillman may have been

killed by friendly fire. I recall being surprised and taken aback

quite frankly.

If this was common knowledge among the top military ranks,

Secretary Rumsfeld, something that was talked about across the

backyard fences, how is it possible that you did not know?

Mr. RUMSFELD. You have a date, Congressman, on when this

backyard fence discussion took place?

Mr. CUMMINGS. No, he didn’t give us a specific date, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. RUMSFELD. You’re talking about an institution of something

like 3 million people. Active duty, reserve, guard, civilians, contractors. There are so many things going on in that Department in any

given year, there is something like 7,000 courts martial with probably that many investigations going on at any year.

It isn’t possible—it is like a city of 3 million people, it is not possible for someone to know all the things that are going on.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand, Mr. Secretary. Believe me, I would

not be asking you these questions if it were not for the fact that

we had a hero here, one that you were well aware of, and so I

thought maybe you might have knowledge of it.

I don’t want my time to run out because I have a rather more

pointed question that I want to get to. In our hearing in April, Pat

Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman, and this is one of the most

wrenching hearings I have attended in 11 years, was asked about

the possibility that you didn’t know and this was her response. And

I want you to listen to it. This is from a mother whose son had

been killed in war. She said, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about

former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. And I believe just from

what I learned about him as a person, and his expectations for his

staff, that he would have had this information.

I think what Mary Tillman said capsulates what many Americans feel. It does not seem credible that you didn’t know this information. But let me go back to what you said in your opening statement. And I was so impressed with the statement that you said—

that you put out. You said this and you wrote it. It says, when you

talk about what you expected of the military, you said: DOD officials must tell the truth and must be believed to be telling the

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truth or our important work is undermined. And then you said

something that was very interesting. You went on to say in the

closing remarks: Any errors in such a situation are most unfortunate. The Tillmans were owed the truth, delivered in a forthright

and a timely manner.

And then General Geren yesterday said that he didn’t believe

that there was a cover-up. I ask you, sir, most respectfully, do you

think that the Tillmans received the truth? And I ask all of you,

do you think there was a cover-up by DOD?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Let me respond this way. First, the words—I

read the testimony of your previous hearing. I agree with you that

they are—it was a heartwrenching hearing. And the words that

you cited from his mother obviously were the words of a grieving

mother. And as I recall the testimony, she did go on to say that

she has no facts nor paper, no information to confirm her belief,

which I thought was gracious of her, because I know of no facts to

confirm her belief. And I know of no one else who has any facts

or paper to confirm her belief.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Sir, are you claiming there was an error? You

mentioned error, error. Is there a difference between a lie and an

error, Mr. Secretary?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Well, certainly there is a difference between the

two. And I don’t know how many investigations—some people have

said five, some six, some seven—but every single one of them has

suggested that was badly handled and errors were made. But in no

instance has any evidence of a cover-up, to use the phrase you use,

been presented or put forward. I know of nothing that suggests

that.

I know that I would not engage in a cover-up. I know that no

one in the White House suggested such a thing to me. I know that

the gentlemen sitting next to me are men of enormous integrity

and would not participate in something like that. So of course there

is a difference between error and cover-up.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Cummings, your time is up but you did

ask a question that you wanted all of the witnesses to answer. And

I guess the question would be since the information was distorted

and O’Neal’s—Staff Sergeant O’Neal’s statement was rewritten to

give a different statement than what he put forward, and the family wasn’t informed for the longest time, and all these other problems, do any of you think there was a cover-up of the errors or actions below?

General MYERS. Mr. Chairman, I can only say that in the places

that I worked, I would agree totally with Secretary Rumsfeld that

whether it was the White House or in the Secretary’s office or

when the Joint Chiefs of Staff met or when I talked to General

Abizaid, there was no—never any attempt to cover up anything. In

fact this was not an issue that we discussed. I just didn’t discuss

this issue. We had a lot of issues. We mourn every death. We really

do. We cry with the parents and the friends and family.

Chairman WAXMAN. I guess the question is different. I am not

asking you whether you were a part of a cover-up. Do you think

there was a cover-up?

General MYERS. I have no way of knowing. I don’t have all the

information.

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Chairman WAXMAN. General Abizaid, do you have any comments?

General ABIZAID. No, sir, I don’t think there was a cover-up. I

think people tried to do the right thing and the right thing didn’t

happen.

General BROWN. I agree with General Abizaid, I don’t think

there was a cover-up.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Thank you. Mr. Mica has arrived. So we

will recognize you now.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Is that another vote? In any event, thank

you for yielding to me. Welcome, Mr. Secretary, and the generals.

I didn’t get a chance to make an opening statement but just a

couple of comments and a quick question or two. First, welcome

back, Secretary Rumsfeld. I have been around this place since

1970. My first boss was Congressman Cramer from Florida who

passed away some time ago. But I’ve never seen more dedicated

public servants—dedicated servant or service to this country than

Donald Rumsfeld has provided.

I think on my dying day I will remember September 11th when

I was with Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon for breakfast that

morning. He invited me and half a dozen Members, I think, over

to the Pentagon. And the subject of the conversation Donald Rumsfeld was interested in was the military had been downsized during

the nineties since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and what we were

going to do about a situation if we had another—the word used was

‘‘incident.’’ I remember in the conversation sitting in the room right

off of his office for coffee that morning, and he was trying to make

certain that we were prepared for something that we might not expect.

I was with Pete Geren, too, who is now the Secretary of the

Army and Pete has done an excellent job. He did an excellent job

for you then and he has done an excellent job for you too. I can’t

remember if he was a Democrat or a Republican. I think he was

a Democrat that you enlisted as an aide, well respected by everyone on both sides of the aisle.

There is a hero sitting right there, because that morning I left

just a few minutes—we learned together of the attack on the World

Trade Center. And this Secretary rolled up his sleeves and went

down to save people who had been victimized by the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. I just made it back here as the plane hit.

I will never forget that morning or your service to our Nation.

The purpose of this is, you know we do have a responsibility to

look into this, just as you do. But from the information you provided, I don’t see a cover-up. I see—and they are looking for the

higher level, I mean they are trying to get the trail to the generals

and to the Secretary and the White House if they can.

Let me read from this comment Pete Geren said: We have made

a number of mistakes. In fact, I cannot imagine the situation could

have been more poorly handled. And he does go on and tell how

I believe this is appropriately handled and those who made errors

were held accountable. 99.9 percent of the military do an outstanding job. And I thank you for setting an example. These folks were

held accountable; is that correct, General Myers, all generals?

General MYERS. From what I understand, that’s correct.

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Mr. MICA. Pete Geren said here: But at no time did the Army

try to cover up the truth or deceive the American public about how

Colonel Tillman died. Would you say that is correct Mr. Secretary?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Congressman, thank you very much for your

comments. As you, I have a lot of respect for Pete Geren. And I

have every reason to believe that his investigation was thorough

and proper and that his remarks are correct. I was not involved.

I’m out of the Department now for many, many months, and I have

not reviewed the investigation by General Wallace and therefore I

can’t comment.

Mr. MICA. OK. Also in this memo from Pete Geren it says, it’s

important to note that consistent with the DOD’s Inspector General’s report, General Wallace found no evidence that anyone in the

chain of command sought to cover up the fact that Corporal Tillman died by friendly fire. General Myers, any of the generals know

anything other than this?

General MYERS. I know nothing other than that. I have not seen

the Secretary’s statement, but it is consistent with other things I

have seen.

Mr. MICA. OK. And when we held the last hearing on this, of

course our hearts go out to the Tillman family. The loss of anyone—any life is a tragedy. But I remembered at the hearing when

we first held this it was at the time of the Corzine accident in New

Jersey and the first media accounts came out that somebody had

cutoff the driver and some bad driver had caused the accident. And

then we found out through some investigation that they were actually going 90 miles an hour and the Governor didn’t have a seat

belt on.

Here is an incident that happened halfway around the world,

and in a combat situation and sometimes it is difficult to get those

reports and the information back. Is that not correct, General?

General Myers.

General MYERS. I think that’s absolutely correct. And you know,

around the Department of Defense we usually say the first reports,

just like aircraft accidents, other mishaps, are probably wrong and

we generally don’t react to first reports. We wait for other data.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. May the other gentlemen respond.

General ABIZAID. I would just say that reports initially of a combat action always have some inaccuracies of some sort and we always say the first report is always wrong. But I think again we

tried to clarify this as quickly as we could, and that’s where the

difficulties took place.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Anybody else want to respond? If not, Mr.

Tierney is recognized.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. If we direct our attention

back to the P–4, the P–4 memo that General McChrystal sent out,

you said he had become aware, ‘‘of suspected reports that POTUS,

the President of the United States, and the Secretary of the Army

might include comments about Corporal Tillman’s heroism and his

approved Silver Star medal in speeches currently being prepared,

not knowing the specifics surrounding his death.’’ So obviously the

objective of that P–4 was to get those specifics, the fact that there

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was a fratricidal investigation going on, to the appropriate people

to the White House.

General Abizaid, you were the primary addressee on the memo,

and I think it was not uncommon for the President to direct conversations with the combatant commander such as yourself. Did

you take any steps to alert the White House that Corporal Tillman’s death was suspected as friendly fire?

General ABIZAID. No, sir. I talked directly to the chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Having that direct relationship with the President

and knowing that it was specifically put in the P–4, that in fact

there was a concern that the President might make a statement

about the conditions surrounding that event, why didn’t you take

it up yourself to make sure that the White House was informed?

General ABIZAID. I did not take it upon myself to inform the

White House directly nor did I ever when I was in command. When

something would come up in our normal meetings with the President, I would have a free flowing conversation, but I usually commented through the chairman or directly with the Secretary.

Mr. TIERNEY. And that’s the case even when there is some immediacy in the memo indicating that the President might be in the

position to make an embarrassing statement unless he was warned

otherwise?

General ABIZAID. First of all, I received the message late, which

is clearly a problem within my own headquarters. When I received

the message late, I talked to the chairman. I also saw the two

other addressees, General Brown and the Army, and after having

talked to the chairman, it became clear to me that the chairman

knew about it and I presumed that the information flowed in

Washington through Army channels as I might have expected.

Those assumptions were obviously incorrect.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Brown, what about you? Did you notify the

White House about the possibility that Corporal Tillman was killed

by his own unit after you saw that memo?

General BROWN. No, sir. I didn’t.

Mr. TIERNEY. And why didn’t you do that knowing that there

was some immediacy to the memo?

General BROWN. Well, sir, first of all on the P–4, I was an info

addressee, which is not the primary addressee.

Mr. TIERNEY. If I could interrupt, I understand. But General

Abizaid said the reason that he didn’t do it was because you were

on the memo. So he must have expected that you would do something. That was ill placed?

General BROWN. No, I don’t think anybody would expect me to

call the President of the United States based on the comment made

on an info message where I was an info addressee.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Myers, at that time you were the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You were the principal military

adviser to the President and the National Security Council, the

Secretary of Defense. Did you advise the President or anyone at the

White House that there was a fratricide investigation?

General MYERS. Bear in mind again I had not seen the P–4. All

I knew was that there was potential for fratricide, there was an investigation ongoing. I do not recall and am fully certain I didn’t

talk to anyone at the White House about that.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Did anybody at your staff talk to anybody at the

White House?

General MYERS. I can’t tell you that. There are some things, by

the way, that circulate in public affairs channels that could be like

that. But I wasn’t aware of that.

Mr. TIERNEY. Who on your staff would have been in that loop,

the public affairs loop?

General MYERS. My public affairs officer was then Captain Frank

Thorpe, and I do remember talking to him about the potential of

fratricide and saying we have to be cautious here; if we make any

comments, we have to bear that in mind.

Mr. TIERNEY. And who would that person’s contact at the White

House be?

General MYERS. I don’t know. Routinely he would never talk to

the White House. They would talk to the services’ public affairs officers. He would also talk to the Office of Secretary of Defense’s

public affairs folks. But I can’t imagine him ever talking to the

White House, unless it was on a conference call where he was included.

Mr. TIERNEY. Secretary Rumsfeld, let me ask you the same question to close things out. Did you advise the President or anyone at

the White House that there was evidence that Corporal Tillman

was killed by friendly fire at any time?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t recall. Clearly it would be logical that I

would have or someone in my office would have after the information became readily available and the family was notified and it became a subject of interest. Then one would want to know—make

sure that the White House was aware of it and there were daily

calls back and forth between the National Security Council and the

office.

Mr. TIERNEY. General Myers indicated at one point there was

fairly common knowledge around this. Who in your office or the

Secretary’s office would have had the kind of contact with the National Security Council staff or the White House on a subject like

that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. There are multiple contacts each day and they

would happen throughout military assistants, they would happen

through the civilian assistants, they would happen through the

public affairs. General Myers and I would meet with the President

at least once a week.

Mr. TIERNEY. Setting aside——

Mr. RUMSFELD. Just a second, please, and let me just complete

the thought. And in addition, we were in National Security Council

meetings and principal committees meetings on a regular basis

during the week. Probably five times a week.

Mr. TIERNEY. You are telling me that neither you or General

Myers have any recollection of either of you gentlemen telling anybody, so who on your staff—who would you suggest on your staff

that we could talk to that might have had conversations with the

White House on that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I just don’t know other than my response to you

as to the kind of contacts that took place on a regular basis.

General MYERS. I would agree. I wouldn’t know who to say.

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Mr. TIERNEY. You don’t know who made those contacts on a regular basis?

General MYERS. There were multiple people depending on the

subject. But on this subject, I wouldn’t know of anybody.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Tierney, your time has expired. Mr.

Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding

this hearing as we continue to address this very important matter.

And I know that all of us here, both our witnesses, those in the

audience and committee and staff, continue to have the Tillman

family and all the families of our courageous men and women who

have given their lives in defense of our country in our prayers. And

I know certainly with the four of our witnesses, given your distinguished careers and patriotic service to our Nation, that you all

share in the regret that we all feel in how the Tillman family

learned of the true manner in which their loved one gave his life.

And I certainly appreciate your volunteering to be here today so

that we can get to the bottom of this.

I want to followup, I know my colleague Mr. Issa of California

asked the question about uniformity and, General Brown, you stated that you would take that recommendation back. I want to add

my support for the services coming together as one who has followed up with 17 families in my district, either whose loved ones

gave their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, off the coast of Djibouti, and

knowing how those families want as much information as possible

and have followed up with me, and we worked with the various

military branches.

Sometimes it is difficult as a Member in working with families

because of the variances in the branches, in how we get noticed

and when we get noticed and how we can then help the families.

I want to echo Mr. Issa’s suggestion that this be pursued. And in

addition, General Brown, you doing it within the ranks of Secretary

Rumsfeld and General Myers and General Abizaid, given your historic and great service and your knowledge of the importance of

these issues, would encourage you to even on the civilian side to

join in in helping to push that issue forward for uniformity within

the branches.

Secretary Rumsfeld, I want to followup a question that Ranking

Member Davis asked. A memo of March 2006 where you, in communicating to the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of

the Army, of the unacceptable nature of how things played out and

that they need to address it. As we are here today—because I think

the reminder that we’re Oversight and Government Reform and to

me what I hope we get out of today is how to make sure this never

happens again—is with, Secretary Rumsfeld, you or other witnesses, your knowledge of what changes have been made to ensure

this does not repeat itself.

Mr. RUMSFELD. Well, I very briefly, I am sure there have been

a great many changes made that I am not aware of. But in the

aftermath of the early investigations, I am told that the Army instituted a number of changes and adjustments in how they handled

things and that those have been reported to the committee and the

Congress.

Mr. PLATTS. General Brown, could you comment on that?

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General BROWN. Well, I think the big—I think Secretary of the

Army Geren said yesterday the changes are important, but you

have to execute the changes and execute the process the way it is

designed if you are going to change the process.

And the fact that the Army regulation we talked about earlier,

600–8 I think it is, that requires the family to be notified and I

think in that regulation it also says to keep them constantly updated and no later than 30 days, I think that regulation is the answer to a lot of these problems, having been through fratricide

problems before in my career; that proper execution of that process

will help us not to have these kind of problems in the future.

While I’m on it, I would also totally agree with you. I think the

way that is written today sounds to me, and I am not familiar at

all with the Marines’ policy or Air Force policy or any of those, but

it sounds to me like the right policy or the right regulation for all

the services.

So I think you can—they have made changes, I think, but you

have to execute the changes the way they are designed if you want

to solve, fix this very difficult process.

Mr. PLATTS. General Abizaid.

General ABIZAID. Congressman, if I may, we found out a lot of

things in the course of this conflict about systems that we have in

place that really don’t make sense for the modern world. In the

world of e-mail and in the world of telecommunication, phones with

the soldiers in the field, cameras, etc., that it is almost impossible

to stop the flow of information from the field.

I can remember when my daughter was informed about her husband’s being wounded it came not from the Department of the

Army initially, but from an e-mail that came from somebody in the

field. Not only was it incorrect in the way that was initially conveyed to her but it had some other bad information in there.

Nevertheless, what we have to do is figure out how to deal with

these communications means that are ubiquitous in the field and

figure out how we are going to deal with them when these bad

things happen which will continue to happen.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, General Abizaid. My time has expired.

My sincere thanks for each of you being here and my thanks for

your service to the Nation.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Platts. Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. I want to address my questions to Secretary Rumsfeld. On July 26, 2007, you wrote a letter to the committee which

I’d like to make part of the record. And in that letter you made the

following statement: The Tillmans were owed the truth, unvarnished and delivered in a forthright manner, and the Department

owed it to the memory of a man who sacrificed his life, gave up a

very lucrative career, to serve his country.

And I certainly could not agree more. And in fact I believe it is

the standard that everyone in the Department should be held to—

everyone, including yourself. But my question is whether or not

you met this standard. We sent you a list of six questions and you

did not address those questions. And within your letter you said I

don’t recall and I’ve not been here the full time, but quite frequently you have said I don’t recall.

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Now I have a document here that the IG sent, and there is a

copy of it probably up on the marquees for all of you to see. And

it is a memo, six pages, with over two dozen specific investigative

questions, many with subparts, about your involvement in handling the case. Do you remember the Inspector General’s questions?

Do you remember this document that was sent to you?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I do.

Ms. WATSON. OK. And I won’t read all of them. But here is one

particular one. When you were told friendly fire——

Mr. RUMSFELD. What number is that?

Ms. WATSON. Let’s see, I am just going to read it to you. They

are listed here, and there is a number. Let’s see if I can find the

one I am reading. Let me read it to you.

When you were told friendly fire was suspected, did you know

the family was told that enemy fire caused Corporal Tillman’s

death?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I’m sorry, could you repeat that? Your voice

dropped and I missed a word or two.

Ms. WATSON. Sorry, I’m a little ways from the mic. When you

were told friendly fire was suspected, did you know the family was

told that enemy fire caused Corporal Tillman’s death and the family was not to be informed the death was under investigation? Do

you recall that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. No, I did not know that the family—I did not

know what you just said.

Ms. WATSON. OK. You did not know that the family—I just want

to get it for the record. You did not know that the family was told

that enemy fire caused Corporal Tillman’s death and the family

was not to be informed that death was under investigation? You

did not know that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I have no recollection that anyone ever said to

me that the family should not be told the truth or that it was possibly friendly fire or friendly fire. I have no recollection of anyone

suggesting that.

Ms. WATSON. You were unaware the family was told that it was

enemy fire that caused Corporal Tillman’s death?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I think everyone was told that.

Ms. WATSON. No, did you?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I was aware from the press and I knew nothing

other than in those early days, April 22nd, when he was killed. I

did not have knowledge other than what was in the press that he

was killed by enemy fire.

The information that it first was a possibility of fratricide came

later and in no instance was I told that people had the belief that

it might have been fratricide and that no one should tell the family

that. I had no knowledge of that, which I believe was your question.

Ms. WATSON. OK. I’m just giving you an example of what was

asked of you and my question is whether you remember these

questions.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I’ve got them in front of me.

Ms. WATSON. Do you remember them?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I remember—I do not remember them from the

time they apparently were originally provided. But I do—have seen

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them, I’ve read them and I believe I have answered all of those

that I am able to answer.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Watson, your time is up.

Ms. WATSON. Maybe he can answer—I just wanted to mention

this so maybe he can respond while he is answering some other

questions.

Mr. RUMSFELD. Mr. Chairman, could I make a comment on a

couple of things that have gone prior to this? One is there were a

couple of charts shown up there. I couldn’t read any of it and I

don’t want to have anyone to believe that I could read those two

charts that were put up.

Second, the Congressman asked the chairman if he was in the

chain of command and of course he answered he was not. I would

not want that to leave anyone with the question that he did not

have the same standard of care with respect to his public or private

utterances with respect to the risk of command influence. Because

in his position as chairman, clearly he had to exercise the same degree of care that I did with respect to that issue.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. McHugh.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen,

for being here. I appreciate deeply your service. Just to kind of fill

in the blank a little bit for some who may not be aware of the military parlance. Let me start with General Abizaid. General Abizaid,

what is a P–4? What exactly does that designate?

General ABIZAID. A ‘‘personal for’’ communication is usually a direct command communication from one commander to another or

to a series of commanders designed to pass information that is considered very, very important.

Mr. MCHUGH. And this P–4——

General MYERS. If I can, Mr. McHugh, it is also my understanding of the P–4 as well is that it is supposed to be pretty closely

held. It is personal for the addressees to and the info columns.

Mr. MCHUGH. An e-mail for eyes only?

General MYERS. Pretty much. It’s not supposed to get wide distribution.

Mr. MCHUGH. This particular e-mail, this particular P–4 was addressed to whom now? General Abizaid, General Brown?

General ABIZAID. It was addressed to me and it was addressed

personal for U.S. Commander CENTCOM, commander U.S.

SOCOM, commander USASOC.

Mr. MCHUGH. Secretary Rumsfeld, would it be the normal course

of business in the Pentagon for the Secretary of Defense to review

or have synopses of or be informed of on a routine basis P–4s at

combatant command level?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t recall in 6 years every seeing one until

this hearing—prior to this hearing. It may be that I have, but I

just don’t recall them. And there is certainly no one who reaches

in and grabs communications that are addressed to other people

and then gives me a synopsis of them. It just doesn’t happen that

way.

Mr. MCHUGH. So it would not? I heard Secretary Rumsfeld—and

if others have responded, I apologize, this vote schedule has been

an inconvenience to our guests, certainly, but to Members as well.

I heard Secretary Rumsfeld say that at no time does he recall having a conversation early in the process about the fratricide involved

with—in the Tillman case, but I didn’t hear the same question directed to General Myers.

General, did you ever have a discussion with the White House,

with the President prior to the final determination as to this case?

General MYERS. I cannot recall any time that I had a conversation with the White House with anybody.

Mr. MCHUGH. Speechwriters included?

General MYERS. Speechwriters included, about this case one way

or the other.

Mr. MCHUGH. General Abizaid, you were a frequent visitor to the

Hill, we were always bringing you back here time and time again.

I suspect while you were under command performance at Capitol

Hill you perhaps stopped by and had a chat at the White House.

Do you recall addressing this case with the President or any of his

key operatives?

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General ABIZAID. I didn’t expect once I retired I would continue

this, but so it is. I was in Washington from the 18th to the 20th

and I talked with the Secretary during that period, and I believe

during that period I discussed with him the fratricide investigation.

Mr. MCHUGH. The Secretary of Defense?

General ABIZAID. Right. I don’t recall mentioning it to the President except perhaps after the period where I signed off on the report that said it was absolutely friendly fire. Once we confirmed

the friendly fire, which was on the 28th.

Mr. MCHUGH. Have you had a chance to review General Wallace’s report?

General ABIZAID. I have not seen General Wallace’s report.

Mr. MCHUGH. General Brown, I see you shaking your head.

General BROWN. No, sir.

Mr. MCHUGH. General Myers, have you?

General MYERS. No, sir, I haven’t.

Mr. MCHUGH. This is perhaps in that context not the fairest

question I might ask, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Welcome to

Congress. Based on what you heard about it, do you have any exceptions, objections, comments, anything that you find remarkable

about it or just merit having it entered upon this record? Let’s go

from the right to the left, no political indication intended.

General BROWN. Is the question—I’m not sure I understand the

question. I haven’t seen——

Mr. MCHUGH. You haven’t seen it, but you have heard about it.

Based on what you have heard would you like to make any comments?

General BROWN. No, I don’t think I would like to make any comments.

Mr. MCHUGH. It is not the fairest question without having had

it before you. General Abizaid.

General ABIZAID. No, sir, I don’t have any comments on it.

Mr. MCHUGH. General Myers.

General MYERS. No, sir, I don’t have any comments on it. Back

to my previous statement on the White House. It would have been

logical in our many meetings with the White House for the President or the Secretary or I to regret the Tillman death, because it

was widely known. But it would have been a 5 or 10-second affair.

And I don’t recall that, but it would have been logical that we

would have done something like that.

Mr. MCHUGH. But not about the questions was this a friendly

fire or other kind of death?

General MYERS. I don’t recall that we ever talked about that.

Mr. MCHUGH. I see my time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. McHugh.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Corporal Pat Tillman committed to serve his country, not to serving as a symbol for promoting President Bush’s war. Corporal Tillman’s mother, Mary, believes that this has been a complete donkey show and I certainly

agree with her assessment.

The Tillman family gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country

and they deserve to know the full truth behind Corporal Tillman’s

death.

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Let me ask the entire panel, on April 30, 2004, the Army Special

Operations Command announced that Corporal Tillman has been

posthumously awarded the Silver Star. The award of a Silver Star

was a major development. It was rushed through so it would be

ready in time for the memorial service for Corporal Tillman on May

3, 2004, which was widely covered by the press.

According to Pentagon regulations, the Silver Star is to be

awarded for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United

States. And before I turn to the specifics of the award, can anyone

on the panel tell me who officially awarded the Silver Star to Corporal Tillman? Can anyone answer that? Mr. Secretary?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I have no idea who the individual was who actually awarded the Silver Star. I do know that the process does not

include the Secretary of Defense at all. It is signed off on only by

the Secretary of the Army and the recommendation comes up from

the command to the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the

Army signs the certificate. Who was physically present to present

that to the extent it was presented posthumously, I don’t know.

But I wasn’t involved in the Silver Star at all.

Mr. CLAY. General Myers, would you know?

General MYERS. My understanding was it came up from the Department of the Army channels and was approved by the Secretary

or the Acting Secretary at the time. In my prep for this I was told

that there was a board that usually meets on those high level

awards to approve the award. The chairman’s office was not involved in this award in any way. It was an Army matter.

Mr. CLAY. General.

General ABIZAID. Sir, the awards go through service channels,

not through joint channels.

General BROWN. Sir, I agree with everything they said, but I do

not know who awarded the Silver Star at the memorial service.

Mr. CLAY. The answer is President Bush. And let me put up a

copy of the Silver Star citation. As you can see, it says the President of the United States of America has awarded the Silver Star

to Corporal Patrick Tillman. So this is important. I know the President didn’t actually review the supporting documentation for this

award, but this award was given in the President’s name. And that

authority should be exercised only with the utmost care. But that

didn’t happen. Instead the Silver Star citation was false.

And here is what it says: Corporal Tillman put himself in the

line of devastating enemy fire as he maneuvered his fire team to

a covered position from which they could effectively employ their

weapons at known enemy positions.

In his March 26, 2007, report, the Defense Department Inspector

General concluded that the Silver Star citation and supporting documents had materially inaccurate statements and erroneously implied that Corporal Tillman died by enemy fire. Everyone on this

panel learned before the Tillman family and the American public

that Corporal Tillman was likely killed by his own unit.

Can each of you please explain why you did not intervene to correct the record? I guess we will start with you, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. RUMSFELD. As I said, the Office of the Secretary of Defense

is not involved in the Silver Star award at all. I was not knowlVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00196 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41930.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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edgeable about it, did not sign off on it, did not know of the language at all.

Mr. CLAY. Do you think he should have been awarded it?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I think from what I understand, the language of

the award is to be reviewed or has been reviewed in view of the

facts that are subsequently available.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. General Myers.

General MYERS. My response is essentially like Secretary Rumsfeld’s. The chairman’s office, the Joint Staff is not involved in these

awards. This is an Army responsibility. And like the Secretary, I

understand that the wording is being looked at and I also understand—and I can’t tell you where I heard this—it may have been

in the prep—that General McChrystal thought the actions were heroic whether or not they came from enemy fire or friendly fire.

That was his determination.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. General.

General ABIZAID. Sir, in General McChrystal’s personal forward

he said the potential that he might have been killed by friendly fire

in no way detracts from his witnessed heroism or the recommended

personal decoration for valor in the face of the enemy. I believe

that the Army has looked at the award on several different occasions. They have upheld it on every occasion. Whether or not the

wording was correct or not in the initial stage, I do believe that the

Corporal Tillman deserved the award that he received.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for your response. General, please?

General BROWN. Sir, I believe that I agree with General Abizaid.

I have talked to General McChrystal several times and the actions

of Corporal Tillman, based on the discussion I had with General

McChrystal, certainly would warrant a Silver Star. Awards goes

through service channels, as everyone else here has mentioned

here, and do not go through Special Operations Command, Tampa,

FL. It is an administrative command, goes through the administrative chain, which is U.S. Army, not Special Operations Command.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for your response, and over and over and

again what we have heard—Mr. Chairman, may I conclude?

Chairman WAXMAN. If you will conclude.

Mr. CLAY. We have heard the excuse that the military did not

want to tell the Tillman family and the American public about the

fratricide until the investigation was complete. As General

McChrystal put it, they didn’t want to put out a half baked story.

But they did put out a half baked story. It was the Silver Star.

They didn’t wait for the results of the investigation. They rushed

forward with false statements, and that is why the military now

faces such skepticism about its motives.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Clay.

Mr. Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, Mr. Chairman, it is sad that the incidence of what historically has been

called blue-on-blue is as old as warfare itself. And it doesn’t make

it any easier to address this issue.

You know, Mr. Chairman, this hearing really strikes home in a

lot of ways. I was just sitting here thinking about the Tillman family and, let’s face it, when you lose a child, you lose a son or a

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daughter, in the best of situations it is a tragedy and a family crisis. Add blue-on-blue and it just adds that much weight on your

back.

And I must apologize, Mr. Chairman, I don’t know how much of

this hearing I’m going to sit through. I just realized that today is

the 23rd anniversary of my first son dying and I just kind of relate

to what would happen if Philip had been the young man who died

in a blue-on-blue incident.

But let me just sort of back up and say, Mr. Secretary, we’ve always give the different branches of the armed services flexibility to

create a lot of their own internal policies, but on this one and the

notification and the procedures on not just blue-on-blue but also

any armed service death, do you think we should be developing a

uniform strategy that will be required to be carried out by the Marines the same as the Army or any other armed services or do you

believe that we should still maintain the flexibility allowing the individual services to handle the situation in their manner?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I think the views of the general officers here and

their indication that they think this is something that might best

be handled in a uniform manner are persuasive to me. I do think

that I am not in a position to say that all of the differing positions

and policies that the services have necessarily ought to be exactly

the same. I am a great believer in jointness and we have given

enormous effort to that over the past 6 years.

But as one example, the tours of Army people tend to be a year

and the tours of Marines tend to be 7 months, and that creates a

perceived inequity on the part of some families and other people.

And I have had meeting after meeting on it suggesting that they

find a common length of time for a tour, and they believe very

deeply that the differences fit the respective services properly. So

I think one size doesn’t fit all, necessarily.

Mr. BILBRAY. Let me say as somebody who was raised in a military family, I support that concept that the services are different

and they are designed to be different. The big decision we made

after World War II was not to make them a uniform service, specifically to give that kind of diversity of service.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to close by saying that I think

the frustration of any family that loses a child is that you always

look around and say what went wrong? Who is lying to me? What

information doesn’t happen? And with a blue-on-blue situation it is

just really aggravated and I hope that we have learned from this.

But as somebody who has now reflected after 23 years of loss of

a child that if there is anything that we ought to understand is

that it is not only a responsibility of us to inform properly, but it

is the right of the family. Nothing else, no matter how much you

may think you are trying to protect them, the worst thing you can

do is not give the family the truth up front as soon as possible. And

I think that is a right that every family has and that every armed

service member has earned for their family, that the truth is something that is the minimum that the families are deserving of.

And I yield back to the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman. And because in recognition of

the Tillman family being here today, we have talked about them

a lot without fully trying to do what we can to correct what is left

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of the situation. I would like to go back to the Silver Star. My understanding, correct me if I am wrong, Corporal Tillman stood up

to identify his unit, left a position where he could have survived,

in order to stop the friendly fire. Is that correct? Anyone dispute

that? OK.

So the bottom line is one of the most heroic acts anybody could

do is what Corporal Tillman did that day. Is there anything in our

regulations that would prevent him from receiving a Silver Star

simply because he stood up to protect his people from friendly fire?

General MYERS. No.

General ABIZAID. No.

Mr. ISSA. So as we sit here today, Corporal Tillman is every bit

entitled to and will continue to be a person who earned a Silver

Star, and maybe more. And the point of how he died is that, and

not who fired the shots. Is that correct for the record?

General MYERS. I believe that is correct. Absolutely correct.

General ABIZAID. I agree.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Secretary?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Yes.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr.

Braley.

Mr. BRALEY. Secretary Rumsfeld, does the name Michael Mullen

mean anything to you?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Of course.

Mr. BRALEY. And can you tell us how you became aware of the

name of Michael Mullen?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Oh, I can’t. He was the, as I recall, the deputy

to Admiral Vern Clark, if you are talking about the father. There

is also a son named Mike Mullen who is, I believe, a lieutenant

junior grade.

Mr. BRALEY. The Michael Mullen I am referring to was a young

man who was killed in 1970 while serving with the 198th Light Armored Americal Division near Chu Lai. His mother, Peg Mullen, is

a constituent of mine, who lives in Waterloo, IA, and was the subject of a book called Friendly Fire, that traced the history of fratricide, and specifically the problem of fratricide in Vietnam.

And as part of a congressional delegation who went to Vietnam

early in the 1960’s during the Americanization effort there and was

part of a comprehensive investigation of some of the U.S. economic,

military, and assistance programs, and came back to Congress as

a young Member of Congress very critical of the way some of those

programs were being operated, I just was wondering whether during this period of time you were aware of the problem of fratricide,

specifically because of the visibility that this one particular incident presented?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Obviously, I was responding to the name Mike

Mullen referring to the current Chief of Naval Operations and his

son, as opposed to the individual you are referring to. Needless to

say, I have been aware of fratricide as a problem for many, many

decades.

Mr. BRALEY. In fact, General Stonewall Jackson was an early example of fratricide that a lot of people in the military are taught

during military history courses. So this concept of fratricide and

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the impact it has on unit morale is something that has been known

a long time. Would you agree with that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Yes.

Mr. BRALEY. One of the concerns that Peg Mullen raised when

she embarked on this crusade to educate the American public

about the problem of fratricide in Vietnam, was a concern that the

American people, and specifically American families, were not

being given the whole truth about the circumstances of their loved

one’s death. And yet the example that we have been covering during these two hearings seems to suggest that very little has been

learned in terms of how the military chain of command is dealing

with fratricide.

What lessons would you like us to take away, as the body responsible for oversight, on what we can do better to make sure that future families, like the Tillman family, don’t have to go through

this?

Mr. RUMSFELD. You are addressing that to me?

Mr. BRALEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I think the comments that have been made, and

some of the corrections that have been taken by the Army, and the

indication that General Brown has discussed with respect to greater degree of uniformity in reporting requirements are probably all

steps in the right direction. I think what you are dealing with here

is you are always dealing with human beings, and human beings

make mistakes, and human beings do things they shouldn’t do.

And it is tragic and it is unfortunate, but it is reality.

Mr. BRALEY. And isn’t it one of the most important lessons we

teach our children that when you make a mistake, you become accountable for that mistake and you vow not to repeat the mistake?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Absolutely.

Mr. BRALEY. And do you feel that the Army’s response to this

tragedy has been a good example to the children of this country of

accepting responsibility and accountability for how this evolved?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I expressed myself on a number of occasions in

memorandums that were read earlier in the hearing that indicated

my concern about the way the Army was handling the matter. I am

not in a position to comment on the most recent effort that Secretary Geren and General Wallace have undertaken, because I just

simply have not read what they have decided to do. But there is

no question but that there were—that this has been a terribly unfortunate matter, and the handling of it has contributed to the grief

that fine family has experienced.

Mr. BRALEY. General Myers, my next question is for you. You

made the comment during your testimony, we need to keep this in

mind—this reference to fratricide that we have been discussing and

the P–4 memo. In case we go before the press, we need to calibrate

this thing with that in mind. Do you recall that testimony?

General MYERS. Absolutely.

Mr. BRALEY. What steps did you take, as the Chairman of the

Joint Chiefs, once you became aware that the dissemination of information about this event was inaccurate and potentially misleading?

General MYERS. Well, I didn’t become aware of that until much,

much later. All I was referring to at that point was, as the SecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00200 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41930.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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retary discussed, and I think I discussed as well, is that we knew

two things. We knew that Corporal Tillman had been killed, and

then a few days later we knew that there was a possibility of fratricide.

So my comment was on, given that there is an investigation ongoing, we have just got to be careful how we speak about this because of the command influence. And that is what defense lawyers

use to get people off, when there is undue command influence. You

have to be very careful what you say.

Mr. BRALEY. In fact——

General MYERS. That was the context of what——

Mr. BRALEY [continuing]. Those are similar to the precise concerns raised in this P–4, where the author said suspected reports

that POTUS, the President of the United States, and the Secretary

of the Army might include comments about Corporal Tillman’s heroism in speeches currently being prepared. And then it says, ‘‘I felt

that it was essential that you receive this information as soon as

we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by

our country’s leaders which might cause public embarrassment if

the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death become public.’’ And

the circumstances he is referring to here are the circumstances involving fratricide. Correct?

General MYERS. The possibility of fratricide, right.

Mr. BRALEY. So if you had access to the potential that fratricide

was involved and you were aware that public statements were

being made by the President and others about Corporal Tillman’s

heroism, can you explain to the committee what steps you took, as

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to raise concerns that this information might be misleading?

General MYERS. Bear in mind I did not see the P–4, so I didn’t

have the benefit of General McChrystal’s wisdom.

Mr. BRALEY. Let’s eliminate the P–4.

Ms. NORTON [presiding]. Let him answer the question, and then

the gentleman’s time has expired.

General MYERS. Can I finish answering?

Ms. NORTON. You can finish answering the question.

General MYERS. What logically I would have done, and I do not

recall this nor does the Secretary recall, that we would have had

a discussion that there is potential for fratricide. And that would

have been probably—I didn’t know the President was speaking

about Corporal Tillman. I mean, that would not be something I

would know.

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Shays for 5

minutes.

Mr. RUMSFELD. Madam Chairman, may I just make a comment

on that same point?

Ms. NORTON. Yes, you may. Go ahead.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I indicated that I have been reading some of the

materials, and there has been some confusion, I think, about the

White House. I have never heard of this person who apparently

sent an e-mail to the Pentagon. But the person who responded

from the Pentagon was described in a hearing as a speechwriter.

And she was actually a fact-checker, not a speechwriter.

198

And second, my understanding of the e-mails that went back and

forth, which I was not aware of at the time but I have familiarized

myself with since, is that the subject that they were discussing in

the e-mails was not the nature of his death, but rather the nature

of his enlistment, and that was the subject that was being asked,

apparently, by the White House of a fact-checker in the Pentagon.

Thank you, Mrs. Chairman. Thank you.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Shays for 5 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. We all agree that Pat Tillman is a true

American hero, however he died. He died in battle risking his life,

and he volunteered for service. And it is also clear he was such a

high-profile member of the Army and the Special Forces, it is understandable his death would have gotten special attention. And

frankly, it would be surprising if it didn’t.

Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for being here today. I want

to thank you for rearranging your schedule to be here. I think this

is perhaps one of the first appearances you have had in Congress

since you have retired as Secretary. And I want to thank you,

Chairman Myers, and Generals Abizaid and Brown, for being here.

And I want to say I did not choose to ask questions at the beginning. I think it centers around, you know, two issues. Who knew

what when, and who did they tell? And those answers have come

by pretty quickly. So, you know, it is almost like let’s get on with

it. And we have General Kensinger, who clearly needs to be here.

But you really answered the questions. And you are on record, and

you are under oath, and so—but what I wrestle with in this committee is we had one hearing where we were going to subpoena

Condoleezza Rice on yellowcake to try to determine that—we had

a hearing this week on the embassy in Iraq, and the whole focus

was on a temporary structure that wasn’t built as well as it could

have been electronically for $6,000, when we have learned that the

embassy in fact is on schedule and is built under cost. And now we

have this hearing.

And what I am wrestling with, and I just want to say this,

Madam Chairman, is there are a lot of important issues. I mean

I have had differences with the Secretary and others that it would

have been interesting to have a dialog about that. Our men and

women are risking their lives every day. I mean I wrestled with

Abu Ghraib, one, that it should never have happened, but we spent

a whole year exposing our dirty laundry while our men and women

are risking their lives. I am hard-pressed to know how this is going

to save one American life. I am hard-pressed to know how this is

going to help us achieve the results that we need to achieve in Iraq

or Afghanistan. And we have asked some of our best and brightest

to come and spend their time talking about this.

And so as far as I am concerned, gentlemen, you have answered

the question. And I am particularly grateful, Mr. Rumsfeld, that

you called their bluff, because really what they wanted is for you

to not show up, in my judgment. For you not to show up, and then

they could keep criticizing you.

So is there anything that you all would like to put on the record

that you think needs to be put on the record that isn’t part of the

record? And I would be happy to use my time that way.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Would you yield?

199

Mr. SHAYS. Absolutely.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Let me ask a question. General Abizaid,

you said personal e-mails from the field are a common method of

communication. I think we have all been there and seen that and

talked to families. Do you or any of you know whether the Inspector General or the CID investigation looked at personal e-mails

about the Tillman matter sent from the battlefield?

General ABIZAID. Sir, I don’t know. I believe that every record

was open to them. They came to my headquarters. I think they

went to all the headquarters.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Personal e-mails wouldn’t have been part

of that necessarily, would they?

General ABIZAID. I can’t tell you whether they looked at that or

not, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. That could be a source of information

from the committee dealing with what happened down on the

ground, Mr. Shays, not what happened here. I think these members, they have come up here and they have spent the morning

with us, but I am not sure they have a lot to share. But thank you

very much.

General ABIZAID. Although I would say, Congressman, that I

think from Afghanistan it is a lot different than Iraq. Afghanistan

is very, very isolated, and it is difficult for information to flow as

freely from that theater as Iraq.

Mr. SHAYS. Reclaiming my time, I want to be on record with the

fact that I think this was a huge screw-up, bordering on the lines

of malfeasance, and I think we all agree with that. So I am not belittling the issue. I am just simply saying this committee should be

spending time dealing with some other issues that we clearly have

to wrestle with.

Ms. NORTON. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentlelady. I think it is very important for this committee to put into context the Tillman case, because there is an underlying question here that I don’t believe has

been probed adequately. With respect to my good friend on the

other side of the aisle, when you are talking about matters of fact

and fiction in a war, it is incumbent upon this Congress in its oversight capacity to be able to determine whether or not there was a

particular type of management of the news of the war.

And so in connection with that, Mr. Rumsfeld, can you tell this

committee whether or not in your capacity as Secretary of Defense

you had discussions within the White House regarding press strategies that would be involved in the communication of the events of

the war to the American people?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I can say without qualification that I can’t recall

ever having a discussion with anyone in the White House on press

strategy relating to the Tillman matter in any aspect of it.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did you ever have discussions in the White

House, generally speaking, about press strategies with respect to

the conduct of the war in Iraq?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I am sure that the subject of the press and the

government’s dealing with the press has come up on a number of

occasions. I can recall one when General Casey was out there and

there were questions raised about the relationship that the comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00203 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\41930.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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mand had with some Iraqi press people. And there was a criticism,

for example, of the fact that stories were ending up in the articles

which were accurate, but would not have been in there had there

not been some relationship between his command and the reporter.

And there was a big debate on that.

I remember another example, which General Myers will remember well, and that is the very phrase ‘‘global war on terror’’ and the

differences that some people had, thinking that terror is not—you

don’t war on terror. Terror is a technique of choice, a weapon of

choice for a terrorist, but it is not something you necessarily war

against. And that type of thing would be discussed. And I frequently would end up using the phrase that this was the first conflict of the 21st century, and it was really a struggle against violent

extremists.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was there a press strategy in the White House

with the war in Iraq?

Mr. RUMSFELD. You would have to ask the White House. I am

not——

Mr. KUCINICH. Was there a press strategy that the Department

of Defense was expected to be mindful of with respect to the conduct of the war in Iraq?

Mr. RUMSFELD. To my knowledge there was no White House

press strategy that the Pentagon was told to be mindful of.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was there a Department of Defense press strategy with respect to the war?

Mr. RUMSFELD. If there was, it obviously wasn’t very good.

Mr. KUCINICH. You know, maybe it was very good, because you

actually covered up the Tillman case for a while, you covered up

the Jessica Lynch case, you covered up Abu Ghraib. So something

was working for you. Was there a strategy to do it, Mr. Rumsfeld?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Well, Congressman, the implication that you said

‘‘you covered up,’’ that is just false. You have nothing to base that

on. You have not a scrap of evidence or a piece of paper or a witness that would attest to that. I have not been involved in any

coverup whatsoever, and I don’t believe there is an individual at

this table, who I know well and observed at close quarters in very

difficult situations, who had any role in a coverup on this matter.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you for acquitting yourself. I was speaking

of the Department of Defense, and I was speaking of things that

are manifest and obvious.

We held a hearing on the Tillman case, we held hearings on Abu

Ghraib, and the hearing on this. You have not been able to establish how is it that this news could get out; no one managed it, no

one communicated it to the American public, it just happened. I

mean you haven’t really given this committee a good explanation

as to how it happened, Mr. Rumsfeld.

Mr. RUMSFELD. This committee has held many hours of hearings

on the subject, and they have had the witnesses of the people who

were responsible for the management of this issue, and it was the

U.S. Army.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was there any outsourcing of that message? Was

the Rendon or Lincoln Group involved in communicating any

messages——

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Mr. RUMSFELD. You would have to ask them. You would have to

ask the Army.

Mr. KUCINICH. Did the Department of Defense have any connection at all with any outside individuals to communicate messages

to the general public to help in the shaping of that message? Was

there a press strategy involved?

Mr. RUMSFELD. On this subject, not to my knowledge.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was there a press strategy involved?

Mr. RUMSFELD. On this subject, not to my knowledge.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was there a press strategy involved generally

that you used——

Mr. RUMSFELD. I have already answered that question.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, I don’t think you have. Not to my satisfaction.

Mr. RUMSFELD. To the best of my ability.

Mr. KUCINICH. Was the Rendon Group involved in communicating a press strategy on behalf of the Department of Defense with

respect to the war in Iraq?

Mr. RUMSFELD. You would have to ask the people in the Department.

Mr. KUCINICH. You have no knowledge of this whatsoever?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I am aware that there have been, over the years,

contracts with that organization from various entities within the

Department and outside of the Department. Whether there was in

a manner that would fit your question, I am not in a position to

answer.

Mr. KUCINICH. You just said that you have some awareness of it.

Could you elaborate on that, sir?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I elaborated to the extent of my ability. I know

that there are some entities in the Department that have used contractors for some things of that type over the years. And you would

have to ask experts on that subject, not me.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I think it is very important that

this committee determine whether or not the outsourcing of press

was one of the elements responsible for communicating to the public something that seemed to be beyond the understanding of the

Department of Defense.

Chairman WAXMAN [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Kucinich.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. Mr. Yarmuth.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all the

witnesses. I apologize if the questions I ask will cover ground that

has already been covered.

Secretary Rumsfeld, you testified on a number of occasions that

you don’t remember when you were first alerted to the fact that the

Tillman death had been mischaracterized. Do you remember

whether you were satisfied or dissatisfied as to whether you had

been notified in a timely fashion?

Mr. RUMSFELD. You are directing the question to me?

Mr. YARMUTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I tell you, earlier on in this hearing I indicated

that there was the problem of command influence. And I think I

indicated that it is not a surprise to me that the Secretary is not

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brought into periodic reports on what is taking place with various

investigations of a criminal nature—potentially criminal nature.

Mr. YARMUTH. I am speaking before there would have been any

reason for an investigation. When you were—at some point you obviously knew that—you came to know that there was suspicion

that the Tillman death had not been characterized appropriately or

accurately.

Mr. RUMSFELD. True. And at that moment there was already an

investigation going on, because it was a——

Mr. YARMUTH. My question, though, sir, is do you remember

whether you were upset that you had not been notified, or was this

something that you would have expected not to be notified about?

Did this bother you that you weren’t notified?

Mr. RUMSFELD. As I say, the fact that I was not an addressee

on the P–4 did not surprise me. There are all kinds of communications that I was not engaged in.

Mr. YARMUTH. So you would not necessarily have expected to be

notified about this on a timely fashion. That is the question I am

asking.

Mr. RUMSFELD. It does not surprise me that I was not. It was

not something that I would have had a voice in or a role in.

Mr. YARMUTH. How did people who worked for you know when

to tell you about things that they thought you ought to know?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Oh, goodness. How did they know? You would

have to ask them. But what we had is frequent meetings. We had

a roundtable session almost every day. And the senior people from

the various entities within the Department were there, and their

task was to raise issues that they thought the group and I ought

to be aware of. And General Myers participated in those every day.

Mr. YARMUTH. So you didn’t have any policy as to what people

should bring to your attention and what they shouldn’t?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Except the one I mentioned earlier, which is the

one of command influence, where the general counsel issued regulations—not regulations, recommendations for the senior people in

the Department to be very careful about getting into and commenting on, internally or externally, investigations and matters that potentially could end up in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as

indeed this has.

Mr. YARMUTH. General Abizaid, what about you? Did you have

policies as to when you should be informed about things such as

whether a casualty had been mischaracterized?

General ABIZAID. Yes, sir. I wanted to know right away what

happened. Of course.

Mr. YARMUTH. And were you satisfied in this case that you were?

General ABIZAID. No, I was not satisfied.

Mr. YARMUTH. Some of this seems—and maybe I am naive—but

seems surprising to me, because we have this perception of there

being fairly rigid lines of command in the military. And it seems

to me it would be fairly simple—and I hope you will explain to me

why I am wrong—to go down that line of command, starting at the

top, and say, basically, did you know? Why didn’t you know? And

to follow that line down. Is that not a reasonable expectation?

General ABIZAID. I think that this was a simple case that should

have been transmitted efficiently and quickly. It was not. It should

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have been transmitted the day after the P–4 arrived in my headquarters. But as I have testified, there was a problem somewhere

between the 28th, and I guess that probably the earliest I would

have told the chairman is the 6th. But I called him from Qatar. I

was in Qatar the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th. And when I called him

I was embarrassed about it. And I do take responsibility for the

fact that my headquarters screwed up. I didn’t punish anybody. We

fixed the problem. It wasn’t the first P–4 that went astray and it

wasn’t the last one. But it happened, and that is all I can say about

it.

Mr. YARMUTH. I know my time is about to expire, so I just want

to ask one further question of Secretary Rumsfeld. Was there ever,

other than this particular—you talked about the investigation. Was

there any other circumstance in which the people who worked for

you were directed not to inform you about certain things? Were

there things that they were told you weren’t supposed to be informed about?

Mr. RUMSFELD. No. And I did not want to leave the impression

in this instance that I was—instructed anybody to not inform me

of something like that. What I was describing was the admonitions

that the general counsel issued directly to me and to others that

you must not get—you should not get involved in matters where,

as the general said, a defense attorney could allege that you had

exerted undue command influence in a way that damaged the case

or polluted the environment for the defendant, either favorably or

unfavorably. And that is something that people were aware of. Not

that they shouldn’t tell me something, but that I shouldn’t get involved in those things. And people watched a pattern of behavior,

I suppose, and I didn’t get involved with them, except one time.

Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Burton, do you seek recognition?

Mr. BURTON. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, I am late. Mr. Secretary,

it is nice seeing you again.

Mr. RUMSFELD. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. June 25, 2002, you wrote a snowflake to Army Secretary Tom White, and you wrote, ‘‘Here is an article on a fellow

who is apparently joining the Rangers. He sounds like he is world

class. We might want to keep our eye on him.’’ Can you tell us

what you meant by that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Exactly what I wrote. That a fine individual who

was quite prominent had joined the Rangers. And that was a good

thing.

Mr. BURTON. Well, when you said to Secretary White keep his

eye on him, you meant that he has potential?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I wouldn’t know that. I just think here is an individual who is serving his country and is prominent and gave up a

good deal to do that; and that we, as people in the Department,

ought to acknowledge that and be grateful for his service, as I was.

Mr. BURTON. You didn’t single him out asking for progress reports or anything like that?

Mr. RUMSFELD. No. Of course not.

Mr. BURTON. OK. Thank you very much.

Chairman WAXMAN. Let’s see, the next one in line is Mr. Hodes.

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Mr. HODES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, as I understand it, there have been at least six different investigations into this matter. It appears that each of those

investigations had serious flaws. First there was Captain Scott’s investigation, completed within 2 weeks of the incident. Second, Colonel Kauzlarich’s investigation—I don’t know whether I have butchered his name—which was finished on May 16, 2004.

The DOD IG concluded that these two investigations were,

‘‘tainted by the failure to preserve evidence, a lack of thoroughness,

and the failure to pursue investigative leads.’’

Third was an investigation by General Jones completed 6 months

later. The IG had similar criticisms of that report.

Fourth, the IG report itself, issued in March of this year. But the

IG was unable to determine who doctored key witness statements

supporting the Silver Star award.

And fifth, was an Army Criminal Investigation Division investigation finished at the same time as the IG investigation. This report inexplicably concluded there were no rules of engagement violations, even though there was a friendly fire fatality and multiple

injuries.

And finally, as of yesterday, General Wallace has completed his

investigation. General Wallace’s investigation apparently suffered

from an overly narrow scope, failing to examine the actions of key

military leaders. And we have before us the top military brass involved in these questions at the time: General Brown, General

Abizaid, General Myers, and Secretary Rumsfeld.

Now, let’s put aside for a moment the merits of each of the individual investigations. Do you all, gentlemen, agree that it should

not take six different investigations, 3 years, congressional investigations, and millions of taxpayer dollars to address the significant

failures that have occurred in this case?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Absolutely.

General MYERS. Agree.

General BROWN. Yes, sir.

General ABIZAID. Agree.

Mr. HODES. Secretary Rumsfeld, the approach of ordering a series of military investigations that are limited in scope and that do

not address the question of what top officials knew appears to be

the Department of Defense’s MO when it really doesn’t want accountability.

When the allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib arose in 2004, the

Pentagon took the same approach. First, there was the Taguba investigation, limited to the conduct of the military police at Abu

Ghraib. Second was the Fay investigation that examined the conduct of the military intelligence personnel at Abu Ghraib, but there

was no inquiry into the involvement of the civilian leadership.

Third was the Army Inspector General’s investigation, which focused on interrogation practices in general in Iraq and Afghanistan, without examining the role of top Pentagon leadership. In all

there were over a dozen investigations by the Pentagon into detainee abuse issues, but none has resulted in a full understanding

of the civilian leadership’s involvement in the abuses. None has resulted in a full understanding of your involvement or the involvement of the White House.

205

Mr. Secretary, do you see the parallels here? Do you see why

some would think that in the case of both Abu Ghraib and in the

Tillman investigation there were deliberate efforts to avoid accountability? And if you see that, the manner in which this serial

kind of narrow investigating, never answering the questions about

who at the top knew what is a problem, what do you think ought

to be done so that the American people can be assured that the top

leadership in this country is accountable, is willing to come forward

and tell the truth, and is going to take the actions to reassure the

American public that abuses won’t happen again?

Mr. RUMSFELD. Congressman, I don’t obviously agree with your

characterization of the history of this. There was an independent

panel that looked at Abu Ghraib at the senior level and issued a

report. There is a problem, I don’t disagree at all, with the perception that you end up in a situation like the Tillman case, where

you have five, six or seven separate investigations. And there are

a variety of reasons as to how they got from where they were to

where they are today with the most recent Army investigation and

announcement.

None of the answers are satisfactory. It is unfortunate. It is

harmful. It causes exactly the perception that you are promoting.

And it is regrettable.

Mr. HODES. What should be done about it?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t know. I wish I had some brilliant answers. One of the things I might just mention is that under Goldwater-Nichols, the command responsibility is separated from the

organized train-and-equip responsibility. And as a result, you end

up with people who are down one of those chains of accountability

and responsibility, and some people who are down the opposite

chain, the administrative as opposed to the command. However, in

the middle at various places, there are individuals who have a hat,

if you will, in both of those. And you end up frequently with a long

pause as to who should do what, who has the responsibility. Should

it go up? Should the court martial or the investigation be done at

this level or that level? Should it be done in the administrative

chain or the command chain? Obviously, the problems usually happen in the command chain, so there is a tendency to be biased toward that.

On the other hand, you take a man like John Abizaid, who was

the combatant commander in that case, he was fighting a war. He

was busy. He was traveling all over the world. And there is an attraction to moving the responsibility for such an investigation over

to the administrative chain, because those individuals are not engaged in the actual chain of command and wrestling with those

problems.

I don’t know what the answer is. But I know that there is a tension there that I find confusing as to who is going to take responsibility for it from the bottom up. And you end up—possibly one of

these gentlemen who have lived it can make a better analysis than

I have, but I have been concerned about it, and expressed concern

about it within the Department, and I think it in some way contributes to the problem that you are talking about.

Mr. HODES. Thank you. I see my time is up.

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Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time is up, but General

Abizaid, did you want to comment on that point?

General ABIZAID. Sir, I think it is very important to understand

that the way the warfighting system is designed is to keep the

operational commanders’ hands free with forward-looking battlefield activities and operational decisions. The administrative chain

of command in this case, going through the Department of the

Army, handles things like notification of families, awards, logistics,

etc. And I think it would not be beneficial to try to saddle the combatant commander with all the administrative functions, because it

would cause his staff to become too big, too unwieldy, and would

frequently cause that person to take their eye off of the immediate

actions going on in the battlefield.

And I would like to point out that during this time period, if it

had been the only event that was occurring in the theater, it could

hardly be understood that the information didn’t flow freely. But

the battle of Fallujah was taking place around this time, all sorts

of various military activities, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, 27 different countries in the region responding to various political-military activities, etc.

It is absolutely essential that we keep track of what is happening

in order to make sure that the right resources are applied at the

right place and that lives are preserved in the way that we conduct

our military operations.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, General. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I have had my time.

Chairman WAXMAN. Oh, you have had your time. So the next

would be Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Rumsfeld, I understand that Mr. DiRita was one of

your closest advisers. And I would like to ask about your knowledge of Mr. DiRita’s actions with respect to the White House. In

the 1970’s you issued your famous Rumsfeld’s Rules, with lessons

for the Secretary of Defense. Here was one of those lessons: ‘‘Manage the interaction between the Pentagon and the White House.

Unless you establish a narrow channel for the flow of information

and tasking back and forth, the process can become quickly chaotic.’’

Was Mr. DiRita your channel to the White House?

Mr. RUMSFELD. No, Mr. Congressman, he was not. He was a link

in the sense that he was in charge of the Public Affairs Office. And

the public affairs officers in the executive branch of the government

do communicate on a regular basis, including the White House.

There were multiple channels to the White House. There was not

a single one. There can’t be, regrettably. I mean the chairman has

already indicated he not only was the senior military adviser to me,

but also to the President, to the Secretary of State, the National

Security Council, and the Vice President. But the principal link

tended to be my senior military assistant.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. This may have been mentioned earlier,

but we have a copy of an e-mail dated April 23, 2004, the day after

Corporal Tillman was killed, from Jeanie Mamo, the White

House——

Mr. RUMSFELD. From whom?

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Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mamo. From Jeanie Mamo, who was the

White House Director of Media Affairs, to Mr. DiRita. The e-mail

asked for information about the circumstances surrounding Corporal Tillman’s death. The question I wanted to ask, though, is

were you aware that the White House contacted Mr. DiRita and requested information?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I have no recollection of that from that time, and

I have not heard of this e-mail even in the preparation for this

hearing.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Let me ask, could there have been some

reason that Mr. DiRita didn’t inform you of these communications,

or would it be normal for him to inform you that he had been contacted by the White House?

Mr. RUMSFELD. When he was head of Public Affairs, which I

think is the case at this time, he met in the roundtable, he met

every day with the chairman and with me. What he decided to inform me of was his call.

But someone just put this in front of me, and I have not read

it. It says, ‘‘Jeanie, is there anyone who can hook me up with someone at the Pentagon that can give me an off-the-record brief on the

mission in Afghanistan where the former NFL star Pat Tillman

was killed yesterday?’’ and that was from a press person, I believe.

Jeanie Mamo, I don’t know who that person is. I think it is a press

person, not the White House, but I just don’t know. It says Sports

Illustrated.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Well, when he replied to the White

House, Mr. DiRita stated, ‘‘See what we can do. Details are sketchy

just now.’’

Mr. RUMSFELD. Apparently this is a request from someone in the

press for him to give him some information. And the—it looks like

the request, this Jeanie Mamo is from the press or else—and sent

it to the White House or to DiRita. I just don’t know. I don’t know

anything about it.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Except that memo is actually a White

House official.

Mr. RUMSFELD. She is?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Yes.

Mr. RUMSFELD. OK.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. But my question is did Mr. DiRita ever

tell you what information, if any, he ultimately gave to the White

House?

Mr. RUMSFELD. No, I have no idea. Normally what he would do

would be to talk to the Army and see what the Army had to say,

was saying publicly about it, and then have the Army talk to the

White House or the press person.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. One person the committee interviewed

was NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Vance J.

Craddock, who previously served as your senior military assistant.

Mr. RUMSFELD. Right.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. General Craddock told us bluntly that

Mr. DiRita often cut him out of the loop on military matters. And

here is what General Craddock said, ‘‘I will tell you there could

have been discussions and meetings that I would not have been

privy to, because occasionally that happens. The fact of the matter

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is, and I will just tell you that DiRita and I occasionally got into

a bit of a dither over the fact that I felt he was not informing me

of military issues or that he felt I was usurping his authority to

deal with political issues.’’

General Craddock told us there were oftentimes events that happened in Public Affairs that were, quite frankly, between Mr.

DiRita and the Secretary. And I guess what we are trying to find

out here is were there communications back and forth between you

and Mr. DiRita that the military people were not getting?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I am sure that if you take the senior 8 or 10 people that reported to me, that in each case there were activities that

I would deal with them individually on and not include the whole

group. There is no way the whole group could be involved in every

single thing that was going on.

For example, the senior military assistant might be involved in

military personnel matters, whereas DiRita would not be in Public

Affairs. And vice versa. There might be some Public Affairs issue

that the senior military assistant might not be involved in.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. It has expired?

Chairman WAXMAN. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So it is possible that Mr. DiRita and

yourself could have had discussions or communications about military matters that——

Mr. RUMSFELD. No. No. That would be highly unlikely. I just

can’t imagine it. No. The military matters I dealt with basically

were through General Myers and General Pace. And to the extent

the senior military assistant was appropriate to have him involved,

he was involved. But there was generally a division of labor. It is

not a perfect division. There is no way you can say this matter was

only military or only public affairs. Obviously, the Tillman matter

was a combination of military and public affairs problems. And so

too with any number of things. So frequently the group discussed

things in the roundtable meetings.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So you disagree with General Craddock.

Thank you very much.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I can’t do that. General Craddock is a terrific officer. I don’t know what he said. I don’t know the context of the

questions he was asked. And therefore, to say I disagree with him,

I think probably wouldn’t be accurate unless I invested some time

to really understand what he was saying.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Mr. McHenry.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you all

testifying today.

The one thing that has not been read into the record—it has

been submitted to the record—is the chairman at the beginning of

this meeting, of this hearing, spoke of the word ‘‘embarrassment’’

in the P–4 memo. What he did not actually highlight, which I think

we all should highlight, is that there was a man involved here. And

I say this to my colleagues and I say to all of those who were listening, there was still heroism involved in this incident. And I

think some of this is about trying to point fingers and score political points.

209

I don’t think that is what it should be about. Let’s talk about

who Corporal Tillman was. And from this P–4 memo, the potential

that he might have been killed by friendly fire in no way detracts

from his witnessed heroism or the recommended personal decoration for valor in the face of the enemy. I think that is what this

hearing should be about, that valor in the battlefield of putting

himself in harm’s way, not about pointing fingers after the fact.

I think this has been much covered, that there were screw-ups

in the bureaucracy. And there were screw-ups. And I think everyone agrees. I don’t think there was a coverup. I think there was

a screw-up, and that has had a lot of coverage.

Corporal Tillman was killed in a complicated battlespace geometry involving two separate Ranger vehicle serials traversing

through severe terrain along a winding 500- to 600-foot defile in

which friendly forces were fired upon by multiple enemy positions.

This is a complicated battlefield environment. And I know from the

gentlemen testifying here today who are generals or retired generals, you have been under fire. And you know how complicated

this is.

So let us think and give Corporal Tillman his due for that heroism in the battlefield. Let us give him his due, and let’s properly

quote the record of what he submitted himself to in the battlefield.

And so with this, I would be happy to yield to my colleague from

California, Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman. I think you characterized a lot

of what this committee hearing should be about. I want to take

note of how it was advertised, to be quite frank. I think that is appropriate at this point, the Tillman fratricide, that is fair.

What Defense Department officials knew, you know, I don’t think

that is what this hearing realistically is about. I think it has become pretty obvious that at the lowest levels people understood

there were a problem. At the level of a full colonel, it was reported

and reported promptly. Clearly, there was some confusion about

when who got told during the specific investigation, because those

investigations don’t just find out was it friendly fire. They find out

how it happened so it wouldn’t happen again.

General Brown, is that essentially the real reason behind what

I think is, what, a 15–6, is to make sure these don’t happen again?

General BROWN. Right. A 15–6 is a military investigation.

Mr. ISSA. Right. So the fact is that there was a failure to disclose,

pursuant to Army regulations that were about 2 years old, to disclose that it may have been friendly fire to the family. And that

is certainly beyond regrettable.

But the actual investigation, I just want to get this into the

record, was begun promptly, related to how he was killed and the

possibility it was friendly fire. Is that correct?

General BROWN. That is my understanding from General

McChrystal. He called me the day that he was going to initiate the

15–6.

Mr. ISSA. And at the end of that, is there an after-action report?

Are we better able to prevent this from happening in the future as

a result of that investigation? Has that circle of quality been adhered to?

210

General BROWN. I think it has. We had that discussion I guess

before I left command, to ensure that we were doing a good job of

capturing lessons learned to ensure that these kind of events didn’t

happen again. I think in the TTP, or tactics, techniques, and procedures that were used that day, the radio problems, all the other

issues I think have been addressed, and they are trying to use that

15–6, at least at the Rangers and down at General McChrystal’s

organization, to ensure we don’t have those kind of problems again.

Mr. ISSA. Additionally, at the Department of Defense, as a result

of the pain and suffering the Tillman family went through because

of the misinformation, has it been made clear that this should

never happen again, that the family has a right to be informed

promptly so that this particular mistake couldn’t happen again?

General BROWN. Well, I can speak for SOCOM, but at the Special

Operations Command it is perfectly clear.

Mr. ISSA. OK. I thank the chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to be clear that the family asked this committee to

investigate the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death, and that

Kevin Tillman himself indicated that this hearing was no reflection

upon the bravery of this hero. And no implication should be left

that our continuing investigation is anything but an attempt to do

what this family wants done.

Secretary Rumsfeld, you have indicated, I think quite eloquently,

that it is your responsibility, the responsibility of the military, to

tell the truth. And I want to make sure this also involves uncovering the truth, particularly in light of allegations that have been

made in the press and elsewhere about whether you sought

deniability in reconstructing what you were told and when in responding to the Inspector General in particular.

Your lawyer, in preparing a response to the DOD Inspector General, said that you asked a junior staff member in your office to

help determine when you learned that Corporal Tillman’s death

was a possible fratricide. The staff of our committee then contacted

that staff member, and he told us of placing a few phone calls,

found a person who had been in a meeting with you on May 20,

2004, during which he said Corporal Tillman’s case was mentioned.

Now, this person claimed, however, that he was not the source of

the information and cannot remember who was. This does not

sound like the most thorough attempt to reconstruct what you

knew or what actions you took.

During our own investigation, the committee staff talked with

Lieutenant General Craddock. Now, he was your senior military

assistant at the time in 2004. And he told us that he worked closely with you on a daily basis, sometimes in touch with you many

times a day. But he says that your office never contacted him to

ask for his recollection or documents. I am asking, why did you not

consult this close assistant of your own, General Craddock, before

responding to the Attorney General [sic] concerning what you knew

and when you knew it?

Mr. RUMSFELD. My recollection of this is close to that. It was

the—I believe the last series of days I was in the Department.

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There were a great many things going on. The Inspector General

asked some questions. And my civilian assistant, Mr. Rangel, as I

recall—I said figure out if there is any way we can know when I

was told, because I don’t remember.

Ms. NORTON. Your Senior Military Assistant might have been

one way you might have known.

Mr. RUMSFELD. He, of course, was gone.

Ms. NORTON. That didn’t keep him from being consulted.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I understand that. I am going to answer your

question. He then checked with some people, and one of the individuals said what you said he said; namely, that he was in the

room when I was told, and it was on or after he got back from Iraq.

And that was this Colonel Bucci who has been mentioned previously. We were not asked—we were asked what we recalled and

recollected. We were not asked to undertake an investigation and

go back and consult a series of people and find out the answer.

That was the job of the Inspector General. I think you said Attorney General, and I think you meant Inspector General.

Ms. NORTON. Inspector General, sir.

Mr. RUMSFELD. That was his job to try to fashion all of that. And

he did, and he produced a report, and he said he felt that my responses were—met his question.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Secretary, he was trying to find out something

very specific, what you knew and when you knew it. And his job

was to question you and to find out, to the best of your ability,

what you knew and when you knew it. And here was your senior

military assistant, the one person we would have expected you to

consult with, and he was not consulted. And I am asking why was

he not consulted?

Mr. RUMSFELD. My guess is there were any number of people

who were not consulted. And I guess the answer to that question

is one would have to ask the Inspector General or ask Mr. Rangel.

Ms. NORTON. No, I am asking you, because you didn’t consult

them, sir.

Mr. RUMSFELD. No, they asked me what I recalled, and I told

them what I recalled.

Ms. NORTON. I am simply noting that you did consult a junior

member of your office, but not the man who would have been most

likely to know, the man who reported to you several times a day.

You didn’t consult as well with Mr. DiRita, your director of communications, who during this period had been in touch with the White

House. Didn’t you feel it important to consult with him before responding?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I did not consult with a junior member of my office. I consulted with the senior civilian assistant, who is your principal assistant as Secretary of Defense, along with your senior military assistant. Mr. Rangel was that individual. He is the one who

then talked to people to find out, and one of the people he talked

to was Colonel Bucci. Mr. DiRita also was no longer in the Department. There are any number of people one could have—we could

have gone to Dick Myers, who was no longer in the Department.

And there must have been 20, 30 people who were in the roundtable meeting, where I may very well have been informed. But I

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was asked what I recalled, and I gave a very direct, honest answer

to that.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I understand. The point

is when the Inspector General is trying to find out something that

is very difficult for you, yourself, out of your own consciousness, to

have remembered, to have consulted with those most likely to have

helped you remember would have seemed to be appropriate in uncovering the truth.

Thank you very much.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

Mr. Welch is next, but Mr. Davis wanted to just make a statement.

Mr. DAVIS OF VIRGINIA. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to note for

the record you and I have signed a letter to Claude Kicklighter, the

Inspector General, and to Brigadier General Rodney Johnson, the

Provost Marshal and the Commanding General from the Army

Criminal Investigation Command, asking if they did look at the

personal e-mail accounts of soldiers, which was a common means

of communication over there, as we said, to try to keep all the

stones, look under every one of them. We think this will make the

investigation more complete. I want to note that for the record.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you. We have joined together in that

letter. Mr. Welch.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for conducting this hearing.

There are, I think, two issues. One is the treatment of the family

of the fallen soldier. My impression and experience here so far in

Congress is that the military takes very, very seriously its obligation to the soldier and to the family members to try to provide

them with as much information as possible, understanding the desperate need that a mom and a dad have, a brother and a sister,

to know as much as they possibly can about the circumstances of

their loved one’s death. And we have been through that here with

you, and I don’t think I will go onto that enormously.

I think there is a second issue that has been raised, and it is

whether the pressure on the administration to give good news versus bad news about its initial decision to go to war at times causes

the information to be emphasizing the good instead of the bad, and,

at its worst, to actually distort what the facts are.

What is significant about this war, in contrast to any other in

our history, is that the sacrifice associated with the war has been

borne entirely by the men and women and their families of an allvolunteer military. It is the first war where we have had multiple

tax cuts. It is the first war where we have paid for it by going off

budget. It is the first significant war where it has been an all-volunteer force, and there has been no draft requiring middle-class or

well-to-do families to be part of it, whether they wished to or not.

And the question I have, and I am going to direct this initially

to General Myers, is this. General, in contrast to Vietnam, which

was a war that was going on when I was in college, every time

there was a fallen soldier whose remains were returned to Burlington, VT, or Springfield, MA, or Chico, CA, the local press was

there. It was a solemn occasion. It was sad, but it was real. And

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it conveyed to that local community the awesome price that this

war was inflicting on the lives of their neighbors.

It is my understanding that the Pentagon policy in this war is

to deny access to the press upon the return, the official return of

the soldier’s remains. And can you advise me whether I am correct

on that?

General MYERS. My understanding is that the policy for the folks

returning through Dover, that there is no press there. It is a policy

in respect for the families. Other than that, you are absolutely

right. And I think, by the way, that is appropriate. I don’t think

it is appropriate to hide the fact that the men and women in this

country are dying in the defense of this country. And we should

never do that, because people need to understand the sacrifice. And

as you pointed, out too few people understand that.

I might just add it is not the military; there are Ambassadors,

foreign service officers, a lot of American civilians and third-country nationals that share this risk with us in Afghanistan and are

killed, as well in Iraq.

Mr. WELCH. This policy was changed. In the past the press has

been allowed to document the arrival of our returning fallen soldiers. Correct?

General MYERS. I can’t tell you. I do not recall if it was changed.

Mr. WELCH. I mean you are my age or older.

General MYERS. Right. Yeah. It must have been somewhere

along the line, if you recall it that way. I was overseas for most

of the sixties when Vietnam was going on and part of that process,

so I don’t remember what was happening back home frankly.

Mr. WELCH. Secretary Rumsfeld, could I ask you to comment?

What would be the rationale for the Pentagon denying access to a

respectful press to document the return of the remains of a fallen

soldier?

Mr. RUMSFELD. I think you would have to ask the Department

of Defense Public Affairs people, but my recollection is the same as

General Myers’; that the policy at Dover is that the press does not

cover that arrival, but that it is up—I thought it was up to the

families to determine the extent to which the press would or would

not be involved in the actual memorial services or burial services,

and that—it leaves it to the families to make those decisions.

Mr. WELCH. But the official return in the custody of military personnel of a casket——

Mr. RUMSFELD. They remain in the custody of the military personnel until they reach the family.

Mr. WELCH. But it is different the way this is handled in this

war, Iraq and Afghanistan, than it was, for instance, in Vietnam.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I don’t know that. I accept your comment but I

just——

Mr. WELCH. General Abizaid.

General ABIZAID. Sir, I don’t know what the policies are on returning soldiers. I do know that since I have been retired, the press

certainly covers those services that take place in northern Nevada

and eastern California, and they always do so in a most respectful

way.

Mr. WELCH. And the soldiers when they return initially, they arrive at Dover?

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General ABIZAID. Most remains go through Dover, yes, sir.

Mr. WELCH. And no press is allowed to document their return?

General ABIZAID. I don’t know. I think it would be best for me

not to answer. I don’t know.

Mr. WELCH. All right. I waive the balance of my time. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LYNCH [presiding]. The gentleman yields. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Idaho.

Mr. SALI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Either General Abizaid or General Brown, it would be fair to say

that when there is an event that is suspected of involving friendly

fire, that has an impact on morale on your troops, doesn’t it?

General BROWN. Absolutely.

General ABIZAID. That is correct.

Mr. SALI. And if I understand things correctly, at this point you

really have to choose what the procedures will be for the military.

If you have an allegation of friendly fire, which I understand was

already in the works on April 23, 2004, you knew that there was

some suspicion at least.

You have to choose at that point whether you disclose to the family or whether you don’t disclose to the family and wait until the

outcome of the investigation before you announce that there was or

was not some, perhaps, involvement with friendly fire from the

death.

You have to choose between one of those two things; is that correct?

General BROWN. I don’t think you have to choose. I think that

is maybe part of the problem. There are people that believe that

you have to wait until the investigation is fully completed before

the family is allowed to be told. I believe those were older Army

regulations.

The current Army regulation, as I understand it, is that you immediately notify the family if there is an investigation going on,

but in all cases sooner than 30 days. No later than 30 days the

family has to be notified if there is an investigation going on and

kept informed of the ongoing investigation, as I understand the

regulation.

Mr. SALI. Am I correct from the time of Corporal Tillman’s death

to the time the investigation was finished was, in this case, 37

days?

General BROWN. I’d have to look at the time line. I don’t know,

Congressman.

General ABIZAID. Congressman, on the 28th I approved the report that came from General McChrystal’s command as being definite proof of friendly fire. The May 28th.

Mr. SALI. May 28th, a little over 30 days in this case, versus

what you are telling me now, General Brown, is that the requirement is now 30 days.

General BROWN. The requirement is no later than 30 days.

Mr. SALI. But it could be up to the full 30 days.

General BROWN. And I’m not sure why the regulation is written

that way. I am assuming there could be some extenuating circumstances that they give you the 30 days, but I think the requirement is to notify the family immediately, but no later than 30 days.

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Mr. SALI. Immediately following what?

General BROWN. Immediately following the beginning of an investigation.

Mr. SALI. But that could be up to 30 days later?

General BROWN. I believe that’s what the regulation says, and I’d

be glad to take it for the record and provide that Army regulation

to you.

Mr. SALI. OK. I would appreciate it if you would do that.

It seems like we’re fighting over about 6 days here in difference

in time. If you are saying that it could be—within 30 days, no

longer than 30 days would meet the current regulation; is that correct?

General BROWN. Well, I think it goes back to my earlier point

that it doesn’t matter what the regulation says, it has to be followed. So if there were errors made in the execution of that policy

or there were people that didn’t understand that was the policy,

then that is where there may be a problem.

Mr. SALI. The regulations that were in place at the time were followed; is that correct?

General BROWN. I don’t know. I’d have to go back and see what—

the regulation that we are talking about that is the current regulation, as I understand it, was enacted in 2003.

Mr. SALI. Can you let me know about that?

General BROWN. I will be glad to.

Mr. SALI. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the

gentleman from California.

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman. I just want to—I hated to get

into Vietnam, but we have gotten into it. I want to go through a

couple of quick things.

During Vietnam, we drafted men and women. Several of you are

Vietnam vets. At that time, as I understand it, we were drafting

those who didn’t go to college, those who couldn’t get deferments,

that was a war of the poor and a war of the minorities. At the time,

that was the way it was said, and as someone who entered the

service in 1970, I saw it that way.

Today, isn’t it true that every man and every woman joins the

military voluntarily, we have no draftees left on active duty, they

have all either enlisted or reenlisted; that every one of these people

for the first time is somebody who went to war knowing they were

going to war?

Certainly Corporal Tillman enlisted knowing that our Nation

was at war. Isn’t that true?

And I appreciate—General Brown? I have just two quick questions. One as a Vietnam era vet, a Vietnam vet actually.

General BROWN. Right.

Mr. ISSA. You remember the military where, if you were a rich

college kid, you didn’t go for the most part; and we had the minorities as draftees, the poorest as draftees, versus today every man

and woman enlisted, and we have no draftees on active duty.

General BROWN. Correct.

Mr. ISSA. I wanted to make clear that Corporal Tillman, like

every one of the men and women serving today, did so voluntarily.

The Vietnam War was not a panacea of the right way to do it.

What we’re doing today is the right way, and I think you would all

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agree this is the right way to run the modern military as volunteers, knowing volunteers.

General BROWN. Sir, it is my opinion—I served in the draftee

Army, and I served in Vietnam; and I also served in the all-volunteer Army, and the all-volunteer Army is better.

Mr. LYNCH [presiding]. The panelists are allowed to answer the

gentleman’s question if they would like to elaborate.

OK. The Chair yields himself 5 minutes.

Gentlemen, I want to extend my thanks for your willingness to

come forward and help the committee with its work. I want to acknowledge the Tillman family, and my heart goes out to them for

having to relive this every time a hearing is held.

Now, a number of us, including Mr. Murphy, Mr. Welch, Mr.

Shays and others, have been out to the area where Mr. Tillman

was ambushed. And we certainly appreciate the complex battle

space, as you have described it, and we can understand that there

was some chaos in this firefight.

However, I do want to follow the time line here because Chairman Waxman spoke earlier about the testimony of Specialist

O’Neal. And as you may remember, Specialist O’Neal was with

Corporal Tillman on the ground there, on that canyon road near

Manah. And Specialist O’Neal went back to Salerno, just north of

that area, a couple of days after the firefight, and actually he wrote

a witness statement in the immediate aftermath of Corporal Tillman’s death that made it quite clear that this was a case of friendly fire.

But then something happened. Someone rewrote that statement

and the revised version—we had Specialist O’Neal in, and we

showed him the statement and we asked, Did you write this part?

No, I didn’t. Did you write this part? No, I didn’t.

So there was a drastic revision between what the eyewitness

wrote and what eventually went to the press and went to some of

you. And we don’t know if it went to the President or not, but it

served at least in part as the basis for the Silver Star citation. We

know that.

And while we understand the chaos that might have occurred

during this firefight, this rewriting, this revision, happened after

the fact, after the smoke had cleared. And I can appreciate the

frustration of some of my colleagues who feel that something else

is going on here, and we’re not sure what.

Some people think it was a mix-up, not a cover-up; and I can certainly appreciate them feeling that way. But we have had an opportunity, all of us, a lot of us, to go out there and also observe

the high excellence of our military, the high excellence of our military officers and folks in uniform. And they have performed brilliantly. And yet here we have this major, major disconnect between

what the people on the ground observed and recounted, and then

the report that gets out to the press and the public and to the family.

And another issue that is confusing is the P–4 memo. It was

written explicitly to warn the senior defense officials and the President that Pat Tillman, it was highly possible that he died of friendly fire. But from the testimony today it would seem that no one

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dent. And knowing what I know about the best of the military, I

find that mind-boggling, just stunning, that this happened.

I want to ask you—because I haven’t heard a good explanation

today, I have to say that, and I am trying to pull all of this together—we talked about six different investigations. Can anybody

on this panel give me an answer, how that happened, that the specialist, on-the-ground eyewitness right beside Corporal Tillman,

right in the unit, wrote an accurate description of what happened

indicating friendly fire; and yet downstream we follow that time

line, we in the Congress and the American people got a different

story. And I need to know the answer to how that happened.

That’s why we are having—we owe this to the family. And I understand that there was some element of this that folks wanted to

honor the memory of Corporal Tillman in the highest tradition of

the military. And he was a hero; the minute he put on that uniform, he was an American hero, and nothing changes that.

But we also owe it to our servicemen to accurately account for

them. And we owe it to their families who offer up their sons and

daughters to serve this country.

So I ask you, can anybody here on this panel explain how that

happened? Explain to the American people how that happened?

Mr. Secretary.

Mr. RUMSFELD. I—needless to say, it happened the way you’ve

described it and the way the various investigations have reported

it. It happened in the field that somebody took somebody else’s

words and altered them. I have no idea who did it. I have no idea

what their motive might have been.

I had no knowledge that had happened.

Mr. LYNCH. General Myers.

General MYERS. It would be extremely difficult to divine that. I

would really like to know, obviously, why somebody would do that.

I don’t have any idea.

And certainly it is the way you described it. I haven’t seen how

the words were altered, but it is inappropriate and inexcusable.

But I don’t know why.

Mr. LYNCH. General Abizaid, good to see you again, sir.

General ABIZAID. Sir, it is good to see you as well.

It is very difficult to come to grips with how we screwed this

thing up, but we screwed this thing up. It was clear to me on April

28th, when I talked to the platoon leader who was Corporal Tillman’s platoon leader, that he did not think of it as being anything

other than an enemy action. We didn’t talk long about it. He had

been wounded. But he didn’t give any indication of friendly fire at

that time.

Clearly, General McChrystal knew by the 29th that there was a

high probability, as he described in his message, that there was

friendly fire. The message that General McChrystal sent to me,

which was delivered late for problems that took place at my headquarters—as a result of problems that took place at my headquarters, undoubtedly delayed the information being relayed to the

chairman in the manner that it should have been.

When I discovered the problem, I relayed it to the chairman in

as timely a manner as I could, given the circumstances. But it was

clear that somewhere between the 29th and the—and the period

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where I notified the chairman that this P–4 just hadn’t gone to me.

It had gone to General Brown, it had gone to the Department of

the Army, and it was my supposition that the Department of the

Army was acting on the notion that friendly fire had occurred,

which can probably be the reason that the chairman accounts for—

and again this is supposition on my part, it is not a fact, I don’t

know what happened—which is why the chairman recollects having heard it as early as the 30th or the 31st, whatever day it happened.

Again, no excuses can be offered, but I can tell you a couple of

facts. General McChrystal reported the incident in a forthright and

in a timely fashion.

That the information flowed poorly through the chain of command to include me is a problem of the chain of command, both

administrative and operational. It should have been handled better

and it wasn’t. From that, a lot of other bad things may have

flowed.

But it is clear that all along fratricide was called as early as the

April 29th, and that on May 28th, we conclusively stated it was

fratricide, a report that I rendered to the chairman and to the Secretary.

In terms of fratricide investigations, by the way, that’s not a slow

investigation. That’s a fast investigation. In looking back, of how

we go about investigating these things after they’ve happened, it

may seem slow; but in my experience with a lot of fratricides, it

went probably faster than most.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you.

General Brown, any conclusion?

General BROWN. Sir, I’d just say, as I mentioned earlier, as Secretary of the Army Geren said, it could not have been more poorly

handled. I think it was a process—it is a difficult process to start

with, and it was just very poorly handled.

When I got the P–4, I made the assumption—and probably a bad

assumption, since I was an ‘‘info’’ addressee and not the ‘‘to,’’ that

flow of information would flow through the chain of command. It

would have been simple for me to pick up the phone and call the

General. I didn’t.

I did respond to the P–4, back to General McChrystal. But, quite

frankly, I just made the assumption—a bad assumption now, I

know—that normal P–4 traffic moves pretty fast, that would go to

the chairman immediately.

So it’s unfortunate it was poorly handled, and unfortunately it is

the Tillman family that had to pay the price for it.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, sir.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy, for 5 minutes.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand we have

votes pending, so I will be brief.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here today. I joined

Representative Lynch and some others of our colleagues in a trip

earlier this year to Iraq and Afghanistan; and frankly, as someone

who has never worn the uniform or fired a gun or been shot at, I

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tion for what our men and women are doing there. And I thank you

for your role in leading them.

My question is this: It is my understanding that the Pentagon

regulations require that a family be notified that a fratricide investigation is pending even before the official results are concluded.

And I have a little bit of trouble—and I will present the question

first to General Myers—with the contention that simply because

the malfeasance wasn’t in your direct chain of command that the

leaders of the military didn’t have an accompanying personal or

moral responsibility to act on what they knew was misinformation

being given to the public—and certainly, if not misinformation, a

complete lack of information given to the family.

I know this is a complex question for military leaders when you

have a responsibility to break outside of the chain of command,

when you know that something is being miscommunicated or you

know that something is being uncommunicated. I will ask it of

General Myers first.

There are a couple of weeks, 2 or 3 weeks, that you have been

informed that there is a fratricide investigation going on. The family has not been notified. There are Sports Illustrated articles and

much public awareness of the initial conclusion of death of Mr. Tillman. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in retrospect, do you

feel that you had a personal or moral responsibility to alert the

family even though the chain of command may not have dictated

that it was your responsibility?

General MYERS. I think it would have been absolutely irresponsible of me to interfere with the Army procedures, frankly. First of

all, they are not Pentagon regulations; they are Army regulations.

The Army was the one that had the regulations that said we have

to notify the family as soon as we know of the possibility.

And frankly, with the investigation ongoing, what I was concerned about was exerting any kind of undue command influence

if this ever got to UCMJ, if it ever got to the Secretary’s desk; if

he ever said, What do you think, which would have been the only

reason I would ever look at it—if the Secretary would say, Give me

your opinion on this.

You want to stay out of those matters so that you cannot be used

by some defense attorney that, Gee, we have had Myers saying this

and the Secretary saying this; therefore, my client who is accused

of wrongdoing is not guilty. There is obviously command influence.

So it didn’t occur to me at the time, clearly. I knew there was

an investigation ongoing. I thought that was appropriate. I didn’t

know what had been told to the family or not been told. I just

wasn’t aware.

I mean, it sounds harsh, and it is harsh, but the reality is there

is a lot of things going on, and this—Corporal Tillman’s death was

significant, but it wasn’t the kind of issue that occupied a whole

lot of time. As John said, we were working on the battle of

Fallujah. We had a myriad of issues. Abu Ghraib had just broke;

we spent a lot of time in the media with Abu Ghraib. There were

a lot of issues taking our attention.

I think it would have been irresponsible for the chairman to get

involved in what are Army matters. I would have to override the

Secretary of the Army, acting Secretary. That would be something

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that would be totally inappropriate, or get into General

Schoomaker’s, Chief of the Staff of the Army’s, business.

Mr. MURPHY. I appreciate there were a lot of pressures occupying

your time and occupying an immense amount of the public’s time.

There were some things that many, many people were paying attention to. Do you feel, in retrospect, that you should have asked

during those intervening weeks whether or not the Tillman people

knew?

General MYERS. No, the matter should have been handled by the

Army. And it would not—I mean, I don’t think it would have occurred to me to say, Gee—I mean, this was not—unfortunately, not

the first fratricide, not the first death.

Even if it is not fratricide, there are issues with the family members that the services are handling. And I don’t think it is my position, certainly not in any of the statutes or even morally, I believe,

to get involved when other people are trying to handle that.

I mean, that’s the services’ business, and it is pretty explicit. It

would have been very unusual for me to ask those kinds of questions, and frankly, it didn’t occur to me.

Mr. MURPHY. General Brown, do you regret not looking back, not

asking more questions about what the family knew? Do you feel

you had an obligation, whether or not it was within the direct

chain of command, to intervene and try to make sure—I am concerned mostly about the family, I think. As the family has noted,

this was a fraud perpetrated on the American public as well. But

specifically, in relation to the family, why weren’t more questions

being asked within the chain of command of whether or not the

family was being told?

General BROWN. What I would say is that the Army ran this investigation. They also run the casualty notification process, and so

do it routinely. And so when you see them doing the actions that

they are supposed to be doing, I was not questioning them every

day, were you doing every step in the process.

Quite frankly, when I found out there was an issue that the family hadn’t been notified, by asking the question—which was before

the press release, I asked the question, had the family been notified by the Army and our Army component, and I found out that

they had not.

And then we tried to take actions to help facilitate getting the

family notified before the press release came out, when I did ask

the question.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman WAXMAN [presiding]. Thank you Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Honda.

Mr. HONDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the witnesses’ presence and your endurance at this time. Let me get back

to the P–4 discussion, quick question.

P–4 is the classified memo to those that the memo has been written to; is that correct?

General ABIZAID. That’s correct, sir. I mean, it is—in the channels that this was sent, it was actually sent in very highly classified channels.

General MYERS. But a P–4 can be unclassified.

Mr. HONDA. So it was an important memo?

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General ABIZAID. There are a lot of different P–4s that are sent

around, but it is usually commander-to-commander communication.

Mr. HONDA. And these are for the eyes, including those who are

cc’d?

General BROWN. I’m sorry. I didn’t understand the question.

Mr. HONDA. It is also not only for—the memo is directed to a

couple of people, but someone said that the others were cc’d.

General BROWN. Right.

Mr. HONDA. And that also means that this was meant for your

eyes also?

General BROWN. Right.

Mr. HONDA. I’d like to read the last sentence of the P–4 memo

and ask for a clarification of the gentlemen here.

In this sentence, General McChrystal writes that he feels it is essential that the three generals receive information about Corporal

Tillman’s death, and here is why.

He says, ‘‘In order to preclude any unknowing statements by our

country’s leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the

circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death becomes public . . .’’

He says, ‘‘if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death are

ever made public.’’ For the record, were you involved in any discussion about withholding information about Corporal Tillman’s death

from his family or the American public?

Second question: Was there any conversation that the information about his death would never be released to his family or the

public?

General BROWN. There was no conversation about his death or

fratricide ever not being released. There was never a discussion on

that.

The only discussion I ever heard—and we weren’t the investigating body or the notification and next-of-kin responsible agency—

was the normal assumption that people were waiting until the investigation was concluded before the family would be notified. OK.

So then that is—that is routinely understood. And as a matter

of fact, it is as I understand from this hearing this morning, that

is still current Marine Corps policy, that the investigation is completed and then the family is notified.

So that information would have been protected at that time so

that it was not released to the press, so that the family would not

wake up and find it in the press prematurely, before the investigation was completed and signed off by the combatant commander.

General ABIZAID. Yes, sir, there was never any intention at any

level to keep the idea that it was fratricide from either the family

or the public. It was clear that it would be disclosed at the appropriate time, as decided by the Department of the Army.

Mr. HONDA. General Myers.

General MYERS. I agree with General Brown.

Mr. HONDA. You are saying that there were no discussions, or

you were not involved in any discussions about withholding information from the family or the public?

General MYERS. I was not involved in any discussions where

withholding information from the family or the public, or anybody,

ever came up.

Mr. HONDA. OK.

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General MYERS. I was not.

Mr. RUMSFELD. Nor was I.

General BROWN. Sir, if I could go back to that for just a second,

when we get a casualty notification, which in my headquarters we

will get for every one of our casualties, we are very careful to protect the names of the individuals, and the individuals, until the

family notification of next of kin has taken place. So that would fall

into the same category.

Mr. HONDA. The P–4 was written April 29th, 7 days after the incident. So the 7 days ensuing, for 7 days there wasn’t an investigation, and there was a report by Mr. O’Neal; is that correct?

General BROWN. I don’t know. A report by Mr. O’Neal, I’m not

familiar with.

Mr. HONDA. He is the gentleman who wrote the initial report.

General ABIZAID. I know there was an initial 15–6 that was initiated, but I would have to look at the report to say what date it was

initiated. Perhaps we could find that information.

Mr. HONDA. And the contents of that first report were changed,

and it appears on the P–4 as it has been changed. Are you aware

of that? Or is that a correct statement?

General BROWN. Just to be clear, could you restate that statement again? And I think we will have better chance of answering

it.

Mr. HONDA. There was previous testimony that there was a written report by a combatant next to Mr. Tillman, who wrote down

the events, the accurate events of his death. And I understand

through the testimony today that has been changed and that

change is reflected in the P–4. Is that a correct statement?

General BROWN. I don’t know.

General ABIZAID. Here is what I do know, to make sure that we

are all talking about the same dates.

The incident took place on the 22nd. The chain of command,

through me, was notified of Corporal Tillman’s death.

There was a P–4 sent on the 29th.

The first 15–6 report was completed on the 4th of May, and it

was deemed not sufficient by General McChrystal, and another 15–

6 officer was appointed on the 8th of May.

And on May 25th, that report reached my headquarters, and on

May 28th, I approved that report.

Those are the dates as I know them.

Chairman WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Honda. I appreciate your joining this committee for this hearing and the previous

one. You are not a member of the committee, but I know of your

strong interest in the concern about Corporal Tillman.

Could I just ask this question? Is it—on how many occasions

would you get a P–4 memo saying, Let the President and the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Armed Services know

about a certain fact, get it to them because we want to help them

avoid embarrassment?

Have you ever received a P–4 like that, General Brown.

General BROWN. Never, sir.

Chairman WAXMAN. General Abizaid, did you ever receive a P–

4 like that?

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General ABIZAID. Yes, I’ve received some very interesting P–4s;

and sometimes they would say, Make sure the President knows, or

make sure this happens or that happens.

There is an interesting thing about the P–4 that says, Deliver

during normal duty hours; and so again General McChrystal did

exactly the right thing. He sent a timely message in a timely fashion through the most secure channels.

And, again, it went to Tampa. I was forwarded. It didn’t get to

me in a timely fashion, forward. That’s a problem that was strictly

in my command.

But, again, when I told the chairman, I did not tell the chairman

in order that the chairman would run to the Secretary and then

run to the President. I told the chairman so he would know, and

I explained to him in general terms the basic information in the

P–4.

Chairman WAXMAN. Did you tell him that this was something

that we ought to—he ought to let the civilian authorities in the

White House, even the President, know this information to avoid

embarrassment?

General ABIZAID. I don’t know that I used those words, but I said

that it was important that the leadership know. And between the

chairman and me—I mean, it’s clear that the leadership up above

us is the Secretary and the President.

Chairman WAXMAN. Yes. See, the issue is not just failure to let

the family know; there is an issue of whether there was a failure

to follow the routine way things are handled, to let the President

know, to avoid embarrassment, let the President know and our Nation’s leaders know.

General Myers, have you gotten P–4 memos that asked you to let

the President and our national leaders know something?

General MYERS. I probably have.

Chairman WAXMAN. And when you get that kind of information,

what do you do with it?

General MYERS. You have to put your judgment on it, because

people are recommending to you what they think is appropriate,

and you have to put your judgment on it.

Like I said, in this case, what would have been logical would

have been to inform the Secretary. I can’t recall that I did that. I

don’t know. I don’t have any documentation that says I did that.

But that would have been a logical thing to do when I got a P–

4 like this, to say, Mr. Secretary, you know this has now gone from

‘‘Corporal Tillman was killed by enemy fire’’ to ‘‘possible fratricide.’’

But that would have been the logical thing to do.

I can’t tell you that I did it, because I just don’t recall whether

I did it or not.

Chairman WAXMAN. OK. Well, let me conclude the hearing by indicating the facts that General Myers and General Brown knew

about the friendly fire issue at the end of April.

General Abizaid learned on May 6th.

Secretary Rumsfeld learned on May 20th.

All of these are the senior leaders that knew before the public

and the family——

Mr. RUMSFELD. Could I correct that?

Chairman WAXMAN. Yes.

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Mr. RUMSFELD. I want to make sure this is precisely accurate.

I do not believe I testified that I learned on May 20th, and if that

impression has been left, I don’t want that left.

My testimony is that I do not recall; that is the letter I gave to

the IG. I was told that a person was in a meeting after May 20th

when I was informed. But that is—I just simply do not know when

I first learned of the possibility of fratricide.

Chairman WAXMAN. I appreciate that correction.

General ABIZAID. And, sir, if I may, I also wanted to make sure

that the 6th is a logical day. It is not ‘‘the’’ day; the day is somewhere between 10 and 20 days after the event. It’s the best that

my staff and I could come to a conclusion on at this point.

Chairman WAXMAN. You were all very busy. There is no question

about it.

General BROWN. Sir, one other thing, if I could interrupt also to

correct.

Your statement was that I knew about the friendly fire, I knew

that there was an investigation ongoing, the potential for friendly

fire.

General MYERS. That goes for me, too.

General ABIZAID. And for me, as well.

Chairman WAXMAN. Well, you all knew or didn’t know within

that timeframe. But it appears that all of you had some indication

before the ceremony where the world was being told that Corporal

Tillman was killed in the line of duty. He was getting the Silver

Star. It was a memorial service where this information, this misinformation, was given out.

And you have all admitted that the system failed. So I just think

that the public should have known, the family should have known

earlier who was responsible. But—none of you feel that you personally are responsible, but the system itself didn’t work.

Ironically enough, the President could have called you all in and

said, Why didn’t I know about this when there was a P–4 memo?

But somehow or another it seemed like the President avoided embarrassment as well. So maybe somebody did know at the White

House that this was likely to be friendly fire, on more thorough investigation.

You have been here a long time. I appreciate your taking the

time to be with us. We are obviously trying to find out what went

on and who had responsibility, who dropped the ball.

The system didn’t work. Errors were made. That’s too passive.

Somebody should be responsible, and we’re trying to figure that

out.

That concludes our hearing today, and we stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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