Editorial: Honor the Tillman family

Thursday, March 29, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

An Army major was the highest ranking officer to be disciplined as the result of previous military investigations into the 2004 shooting death of former NFL star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Results of two more Pentagon investigations were released Monday, and this time four generals were among nine officers who were cited.

Would another investigation reach all the way to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld? The Tillman family believes it would and is calling for Congress to hold hearings.

Investigations have concluded that soldiers in Tillman's Army Ranger unit, and officers up the chain of command, knew that Tillman died in a friendly fire incident, with no enemy combatants involved. Nevertheless, a story was concocted that he had died while "taking the fight to the enemy."

This charade continued for five weeks, during which Tillman's burial was nationally televised and a Silver Star for gallantry was posthumously awarded.

The latest reports on Tillman conclude there was nothing criminal about the actual shooting. But the investigators left it up to the Army to decide whether those involved in falsely reporting how Tillman died committed crimes.

Tillman's family still has not been told why the circumstances of his death were initially fabricated, although in a statement following the release of Monday's reports they wrote, "The entire military, we believe, compelled by the secretary of defense's office, was seeking to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, as it was embroiled in a huge tactical setback in Iraq in April 2004 ..."

Was the lie, the family asked in its statement, part of a pattern of "spin and deception by the Pentagon" that extends to other soldiers and their families?

Given the deceit that characterizes the Bush administration, we believe Congress should honor the family's request and hold hearings. If the Pentagon's own investigations are allowed to stand unchallenged, there will always be valid questions surrounding the tragic death of Pat Tillman.