Didn't we discuss this at the time???




Pentagon spin on Iraq 'heroes' exposed

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 6:50am BST 25/04/2007

He was the American football star who gave up fame and fortune to serve his country only to meet a hero's death fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. She was the plucky little girl-Rambo who fought to her last bullet before she was badly injured and captured in Iraq.

Those, at least, were the stories put out by the US military about Cpl Pat Tillman and Pte Jessica Lynch, the two most famous casualties from the front lines. Both turned out to be in large part false, and both came back to bite the Pentagon yesterday in the full glare of a congressional committee room.


Pat Tillman: shot by US forces

In a remarkable double act, Kevin Tillman, fellow soldier and younger brother of Pat, testified alongside Miss Lynch in a shared determination to show that truth is only a temporary casualty of war.

Their testimonies provided a strong indictment of the conduct of the military under former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Henry Waxman, the oversight committee's chairman, said the hearing, which was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, aimed to ensure that military cover-ups and misleading accounts "don't happen again".

Miss Lynch, who was injured near Nasiriyah in the 2003 invasion, said: "I am still confused why they chose to lie and make me a legend."

At the time army spokesmen briefed that Miss Lynch, a driver in an ambushed convoy, fought heroically until she was taken by Iraqi forces and then rescued from hospital by US troops.

In fact she did not fire a shot and was wounded by the crash caused by a grenade attack on her vehicle. Her removal from hospital was co-ordinated with the Iraqis.

Thanks in part to media spin, she became a national heroine only to disappoint the nation by telling the truth.

"The American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales," Miss Lynch said yesterday, adding that the real heroes were those still fighting in Iraq.

Mr Tillman, a specialist, said the army had hijacked his brother's "virtue and legacy" by putting out a story that he had been fighting the enemy, when it was clear to all those present that he had been killed by friendly fire.

Several army investigations have not exposed who was responsible for his death nor who decided to conceal true events, a deception which "crossed the legal definition of fraud", Mr Tillman said.

Citing evidence from an earlier, military hearing, he recounted how in April 2004 in eastern Afghanistan his brother died from multiple bullet wounds to the head fired from 35 yards away by a fellow ranger in a convoy.

The gunman, said Mr Tillman, lost control, breaking multiple rules of engagement in an extended burst of fire, ignoring flares and shouts that he was firing on fellow soldiers.

His brother was hit once and then uttered: "Friendlies! Ceasefire! I am Pat f------ Tillman damn it!" over and over until he died.


Jessica Lynch testifies

An army ranger who was with Pat when he died told the committee he was ordered by their battalion commander to conceal the facts from Pat's family. Specialist Bryan O'Neal said Lt Col Jeff Bailey also made it clear he would "get in trouble" if he told the truth.

Mr Tillman said a political decision was reached to create a "false narrative" of his brother's death in part to distract from the abuses by US guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The family was not told that Pat was killed by friendly fire for five weeks. His mother, Mary Tillman, said she believed Mr Rumsfeld must have known. "The fact that he would have died by friendly fire and no one told Rumsfeld is ludicrous," she said.

Paratroopers killed

Nine US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were killed when suicide bombers driving rubbish lorries smashed into their base in Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad.

Monday's attack was the worst on US ground forces in Iraq in a year. A Sunni group linked to al-Qa'eda and calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq said it was responsible. Diyala has seen violence spike since the US "surge" strategy began in the capital.

The attack came as Congress sought to make George Bush's call for £53bn more war funds conditional on combat troops beginning to leave Iraq on Oct 1.

______________________________________________

"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes..."

Sorry, to me ,even if it were a lie I would want to think my son died a Hero,fighting in a heated battle with the enemy,turning a hero into a now deemed phony story just tarnishes Pat Tillman and his efforts to engage the enemy in a fire fight.

The only reason for this need for Truth is a law suit.
(if people looked at flight 93 ,on 911,and it came out that plane was shot down rather than a group of Heroes rushed forward and either forced the terrorists to crash or they entered the cockpit and killed the terrorists but doomed themselves,would those who profitted from the Hero stories give it back?)

Lynch,well she had a book,"I am soldier to",why didn't she debunk all the STORIES in it.
Why did she take Praise,Money,Cars,a House,Awards and a college fund paid for by a rich guy who wanted to reward a Hero?

Now that she says "She is no hero", "She did nothing at all when attacked",except get taken prisoner,will she give it all back? Why did she take it in the first place if she believed she was defrauding people?

I can see the fault of the government in telling a lie,but if I or my child must be something ,prison or dead,rather be deemed a hero than a number.

To say the government used these people to gain some sort of support for the war,I have to ask where the support was and when?
I saw no calls for win at all costs after Tillman or Lynch.

I saw people who got to see the Lynch rescue surprised at how an op happens,and the pride in this group of mens abilities,but the rescue happened,the spec ops guys risked their lives to save her.

I believe that this whole war has been a fraud from start, to this date.

It suited Bush and his crowd including Tony and Co. to enhance their pockets and hopefully their political career status.

A lot of good men and women have died, and the dying is not yet over by any stretch of imagination.

I also see the USA encouraging the Mexicans and the like to fight for them and gain an american passport, but I believe this only puts the normal american dedecated military at more risk.

Both our nations have been shamed, and not an ounce of good has come from this pantomime, apart from the idiots that chose the road of war.

After the Korean, Suez. Cyprus, Kenya, war were over the costs had to be repaid and has left the U.K populace paying ever since, this war with the cost of High-Tec weaponary will take a lot longer.

SP

Here is someone who may see your point of view. Or is it just a maybe or could have been, has he seems to be biting on his suggestions. ax



Archbishop says Bush and Blair should have prayed on Iraq
Reuters - Thursday, April 26LONDON (Reuters) - U.S.

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair should have prayed together before going to war in Iraq, according to the spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans.


Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, however, told the BBC in an interview broadcast late on Wednesday that praying would not necessarily have granted the men what they wanted.

Asked if Blair was right not to have said prayers with Bush, Williams said: "I'm sure he should have prayed and I think perhaps he should have prayed with George Bush.

"Praying doesn't mean you get the answer you want. It doesn't mean you get the answer the other person wants either."

Bush, a Methodist, has credited television evangelist Billy Graham with inspiring him to return to Christianity and get his life back on track after years of drifting and excessive drinking.

Blair once told the BBC that he and Bush did not pray together in the run up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Williams also said he disagreed with Blair's belief that the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein was morally correct.

"I fully respect his conviction and sincerity about that, though I don't agree with his conclusion," the Archbishop told "Newsnight", the BBC's flagship nightly political programme.

Williams said he thought prime ministers, as individuals, should "do God" because "everyone ought to".

He continued: "But I don't expect government to be talking religion. I do expect government to be giving space and opportunity for the kind of moral discussion informed by religion, as by many other strands of humanistic thought."

The religious leader said he did not think the British public was put off by Blair's Christianity, except in the context of the Iraq war. He said -- though he disagreed -- some people thought the prime minister had been "echoing Bush's rather crusading attitude" over Iraq.

"Suddenly, his religious convictions became awkward and embarrassing for him and embarrassing for everybody," Williams added.

"Williams also said he disagreed with Blair's belief that the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein was morally correct.

"I fully respect his conviction and sincerity about that, though I don't agree with his conclusion," "

I don't. He and Bush IMHO are criminals.

I love how Bush and Blair ran us into this war when it was begun under Bill Clinton around 1994,with his wanting Saddam out and Madeline Albright flying around the Middle East trying to get others in the region to topple him.

It was also the Clinton administration that was told that there were those in Iraq who would work from the inside to topple Saddam and restore the Governemnet swiftly if the US would act.

Under Clinton we ran massive bombing raids and Special operations but action was limited as Clinton did not want the US in a war for Elections.

Read James Bakers reports to the Clinton administration calling for the need for a massive influx of troops to be used ,while using the Failure of Iraq to comply with UN resolutions and WMD.
Wow sounds like the Bush administration,after 9/11,went with the CLINTON Plan
But
The people in Iraq who would help take over and re establish a government never appeared did they?

Do a search for Albright Mid east trips and James Baker under Clinton 1994 address???

But has Clinton said.

I do not mind people Sucking up on me. but I will not be Buggered by anyone