Who spread false tales of heroism? (NYT via San Gabriel Valley Trib)

[struggle4progress]

Article Launched: 07/17/2008 08:14:26 PM PDT

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

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

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

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

http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_9916448

[tanyev]

1. I just finished reading Mary Tillman's book.

It is despicable what these assholes have put that family through.