AP: General Tried to Warn Bush on Tillman
Posted: Friday, March 30, 2007 6:25 PM by Countdown
BREAKING NEWS

Memo shows suspicions on soldier's death weeks before family was told.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Just seven days after Pat Tillman's death, a top general warned there were strong indications that he died as a result of "friendly fire" and President Bush might embarrass himself if he said the NFL star-turned-soldier died in an ambush, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
It was not until a month afterward that the Pentagon told the public and grieving family members the truth - that Tillman was mistakenly killed in Afghanistan by his comrades.
The memo reinforces suspicions that the Pentagon was more concerned with sparing officials from embarrassment than with leveling with Tillman's family.
In a memo sent to a four-star general a week after Tillman's April 22, 2004, death, then-Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that it was "highly possible" the Army Ranger was killed by friendly fire.
"I felt that it was essential that you received this information as soon as we detected it in order to preclude any unknowing statements by our country's leaders which might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Cpl. Tillman's death become public," McChrystal wrote.
Blain Rethmeier, a White House spokesman, said Friday that a review of records turned up no indication that the president had received McChrystal's warning. Bush made no reference to the way Tillman died in a speech delivered two days after the memo was written. But Rethmeier emphasized that Bush often pays tribute to fallen soldiers without mentioning the exact circumstances of their deaths.
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