Tillman's Mom Pushes For More Punishment

Pat Tillman's mother said Tuesday that her greatest disappointment in the latest investigations into her son's death in Afghanistan was that "horrific" acts by the Army Rangers who shot him were not adequately acknowledged or punished.

"How do you prevent this from happening again unless there's a serious consequence?" Mary Tillman said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The congressman who represents the area where the former NFL star grew up called for congressional hearings, echoing the family's contention that new findings released Monday were insufficient.

"While these may be the most thorough investigations to date, rather than lay to rest troubling questions regarding a personal and national tragedy, however, (Monday's) reports raise more questions than they answer," said Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat.

Honda asked Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to hold hearings and "set right an injustice." A spokeswoman for the committee said he would consider it.

"Perhaps subpoenas are necessary to elicit candor and accuracy from the military," Tillman's family said in a statement Monday night, after hearing the results of the latest probes.

After a year of investigating, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command — its version of the FBI — concluded Monday that no crime was committed by the fellow Rangers who shot Tillman in April 2004 after a chaotic ambush in Afghanistan.

Rangers in a convoy trailing Tillman's group had just emerged from a canyon where they had been fired upon. They raced out of the attack, apparently unaware that the first convoy was ahead of them. Adrenaline pumping, the soldiers saw figures standing above them on a ridge, one of them an allied Afghan fighter firing overhead to give them cover.

Tillman waved down at his comrades, trying to signal cease-fire, but the Rangers shot and killed him and the Afghan.

The Tillman family — including Pat's brother and fellow Ranger, Kevin, who was a few minutes behind Pat Tillman in the trailing convoy — pressed the military investigators who briefed them Monday on violations of the Army's rules of engagement.

For instance, all four shooters testified they had failed to identify their targets before firing, a direct violation of fire discipline techniques.

At least one of those Rangers turned his fire moments later on a village where witnesses say civilian women and children had gathered. The shooters raked it with fire, American witnesses said; they wounded two additional fellow Rangers, including their own platoon leader.

The family received no satisfactory response on their questions on rules-of-engagement violations, Mary Tillman said. The investigators simply told the Tillmans that they had found no such violations, she said.

"That was their conclusion. They wouldn't tell us how they came to that conclusion," she told AP by phone.

"We know rules of engagement were broken," she said. "There was no acknowledgment that horrific things happened out there at all levels."

The soldiers who shot at Tillman have argued it was a terrible mistake in the fog of war. The Army embraced that defense Monday, declining to seek charges of negligent homicide or aggravated assault.

"Under extreme circumstances and in a very compressed time frame, the (shooters) had a reasonable belief that death or harm was about to be inflicted on them and believed it was necessary to defend themselves," the Criminal Investigation Command concluded.

But possible punishments still hang over several high-ranking officers who are accused of botching the investigations and key administrative tasks.

Nine Army officers, including four generals, made errors in reporting the friendly fire death to their superiors and to the Tillman family, the Pentagon said. Defense officials said one or more of the officers who provided misleading information as the military investigated could be charged with a crime.

The subject of the new report's sharpest criticism was Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, a now-retired three-star general who was in charge of Army special operations. A central issue is why the Army waited about five weeks after it suspected Tillman's death was friendly fire before telling his family.

Kensinger knew it was probably friendly fire well before telling the Tillmans, and he "provided misleading testimony" to investigators, the Defense Department acting inspector general's report said Monday.

Another general blamed in the report is Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, also now retired, who conducted the third Tillman investigation ending in 2005. The new probe found numerous shortcomings with his report.

Jones and Kensinger did not respond to e-mail and phone messages left by The Associated Press.

Mary Tillman said pinning blame on these generals deflects the true responsibility.

"We all believe these generals are just taking the fall," she said. "I just think Kensinger is being used as a scapegoat, like Gen. Jones. They're not the worst culprits; they were doing a job — and doing something to cover the hides of people up above," including then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, she said.