What really happened to Pte Tillman?

By CHARLES LAURENCE19mar06PRIVATE Pat Tillman, 27 and all-American hero to the soles of his boots, died in a lonely ravine in Afghanistan -- killed by his own men.Like so many others, Tillman's patrol was ambushed by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters as it approached Manah village in the south of the country.

Tillman died in a hail of bullets, his family and country were told, bravely fighting their common enemy. His death galvanised America in the President Bush's so-called War Against Terror. As he had lived, so he had died -- the hero featured in news dispatches at home.

But the truth was that, in a confused and terrified state during the ambush, his men had turned their guns on him.

He was a victim of "friendly fire". Or was he murdered?

Strikingly good-looking Tillman had been a professional football player on a multi-million dollar contract. When he joined the elite Army Rangers he was hailed as an example of all that was good in American men: he had turned his back on a millionaire lifestyle to fight those responsible for the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001.

The truth of his death emerged only when Tillman's regiment, the 75th Rangers, was due to return to the US and commanders feared the real story would get out.

There have been three military inquiries into the tragedy, but last week a fourth probe was announced, this time by the army's criminal investigations division. Disturbingly, it will ask whether Tillman was murdered.

The sequence of events that led to Tillman's death on April 22, 2004, began with the breakdown of a Humvee military vehicle as the 30-strong A Company, 2nd battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, led by Lieutenant David Uthlaut, made its way towards Manah, south of Kabul.

The patrol halted and took up defensive positions while efforts were made to repair the vehicle.

When that proved impossible, headquarters ordered the patrol to split in two, with the forward unit going on in daylight and the rear -- with the broken Humvee on a truck -- following.

The rear group was about 15 minutes behind in a deep ravine, out of visual and radio contact with colleagues, when they were ambushed.

TILLMAN headed back to the scene from the front group and climbed a hill with another Ranger and an Afghan militiaman.

As he ran up the mountainside, he drew level with the rear group's position, who were about 65 yards away in the ravine. The enemy fire was coming from the other side of the ravine and the Afghan with Tillman rose from cover to shoot at their position.

But his fire drew the attention of the group under attack and -- as US soldiers are taught to do, the rear section answered that muzzle-flash with every weapon they had.

The Afghan was killed instantly. Tillman, surviving soldiers testify, waved his arms, yelled "cease fire" and let off a smoke grenade as a signal that they were "friendlies".

A soldier in the group under attack recognised them and called for his guns to cease fire. There was a lull in the firing and Tillman and his colleague stood up. But -- inexplicably -- the shooting started again. Tillman was hit in the wrist with shrapnel, and his body armour absorbed "numerous" rounds.

His colleague testified to an inquiry: "I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out: 'Cease fire, friendlies! I'm Pat f------ Tillman, dammit'. He said this repeatedly until he fell, hit by three bullets in the forehead."

The inquiry stated: "Some soldiers lost situational awareness to the point they had no idea where they were."

But, in the immediate aftermath, that wasn't the story the Pentagon told Tillman's family or the rest of the US. He had been killed by the enemy, they were told.

At a televised memorial service, President Bush declared Tillman an "inspiration" in the war on terror.

Only towards the end of May did the truth come out -- and the grief of Tillman's family turned into fury.

"If you feel you are being lied to, you can never put it to rest," his mother, Mary, explains.
"It makes you feel like you are losing your mind."

The Tillman family and a growing number of Americans believe that Tillman was ruthlessly used as a propaganda tool in an official story based on conscious lying.

Indeed, Tillman's death is a huge issue that challenges the credibility of President Bush's White House and of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon.

'IT has been a cover-up from the start,' says Mrs Tillman. 'The military has had every opportunity to do the right thing and they haven't.'

The family and the growing squadron of critics backing them, led by potential Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, see the details of how Tillman died as the secondary issue. They know he was a victim of friendly fire and have no interest in any soldier facing charges.

They want to know why the truth was concealed and by whom.

It is not the soldiers in the heat of war they want brought to justice, but the officials who covered up and who, they suspect, used a dead man to their advantage.

As an editorial in one newspaper, the conservative Palm Beach Post in Florida, put it after the latest inquiry was announced: "In the most egregious abuse, the Army already knew that Cpl Tillman (he was promoted posthumously) had died from friendly fire when it turned a nationally televised memorial service that painted him as the victim of an enemy ambush into an exercise in propaganda.

"Too much of what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq never has been adequately explained.
Cpl Tillman's family deserve answers. So does the rest of the country."

Patrick Tillman, the soldier's father, is a lawyer in California and it was his persistence and faith in his suspicions that prompted the series of military investigations and their -- censored -- reports.

Mr Tillman says: "After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this.

"They purposely interfered with the investigation. They thought they could control it and they realised that their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out.

"They blew up their poster boy."

The third and main inquiry report last May, in response to pressure from the family and Senator McCain, concluded there had been no "official reluctance" to report the truth.

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