Army Covers Up Pat Tillman's "Friendly Fire" Death

The Army has launched four investigations into the death of Pat Tillman, CNN reports after receiving heavily blacked-out documents from the government.

Tillman left his professional sports career, turning down a contract offer of $3.6 million over three years from the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the United States Army in May 2002. He served in Iraq and later in Afghanistan, where he was killed at age 27.

The Pentagon disclosed to the Tillman family over a month after his death, on May 28, 2004, that he died as a result of a friendly fire incident. The family and other critics allege that the Pentagon delayed the disclosure for weeks after Tillman's memorial service out of a desire to protect the image of the U.S. armed forces.
Tillman was killed in an apparent ambush on a road near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan. The U.S. Department of Defense originally praised Tillman's heroism under fire that cost him his life while attacking the enemy.

A month later, the family was informed that Tillman's death was due to friendly fire aggravated by the intensity of the firefight. It was later learned that, in fact, no hostile forces were involved in the firefight and that two allied groups fired on each other in confusion over an exploded mine or remote controlled bomb. U.S. Army Special Operations Command, however, initially claimed that there was an exchange with hostile forces. A later investigation found that the Army was slow to correct the story of a hostile exchange of fire after learning that it was false.

Tillman's family -- especially his father -- has never been satisfied with the official version of his death, or of the diligence of the Army to present the truth.

"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 covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy."

The documents reviewed by CNN show the officer who made the original decision to split the platoon was later granted limited immunity to change his testimony about who above him knew about his order. He later explained that it was only a clarification of his original testimony.

Tillman's uniform was burned by soldiers after his death. The Army's most recent investigation concludes Tillman's uniform and body armor should have been preserved, but the latest report disputes that it was burned in an attempt to cover anything up.

no one was found "grossly negligent" nor "less than truthful" in the follow-up investigations

The Army has expressed its deepest regrets to the Tillman family, and is promising the fullest accounting possible