General Advocating Victory Declaration Over Al Qaeda Pushed Bogus Storyline About Pat Tillman
October 15, 2007 -- 2:58 PM EST // //

As noted below, today's Washington Post reports that some generals believe that Al Qaeda in Iraq has been vanquished and want the U.S. to publicly declare that we have defeated the terror group. The leading general urging such a declaration of victory over AQI is Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal:

Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the Joint Special Operations Command's operations in Iraq, is the chief promoter of a victory declaration and believes that AQI has been all but eliminated, the military intelligence official said. But Adm. William J. Fallon, the chief of U.S. Central Command, which oversees Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, is urging restraint, the official said.

But some interesting facts are dribbling out about General McChrystal. As Think Progress notes, he declared "major combat over" -- way back in 2003.

Now I've got some more. It turns out that General McChrystal also got into trouble for pushing the bogus storyline that now-legendary former NFL player Pat Tillman had been killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan. Tillman's death became a national story, and an investigation concluded that his death had in fact been caused by friendly fire.

McChrystal, it appears, played a key role in ratifying this "enemy fire" storyline -- and he was even later reprimanded by the Pentagon for doing so. According to an Associated Press report from early August, McChrystal personally approved a medal declaring that Tillman had been cut down by "devastating enemy fire" -- despite the fact that he personally harbored doubts as to whether that were true.

McChrystal was grilled behind closed doors by Pentagon investigators over the contradiction:

In a sometimes contentious November interview under oath and via videoconference, Pentagon investigators sharply questioned McChrystal about the conflicting accounts, according to the testimony obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act.

McChrystal acknowledged he had suspected several days prior to approving the Silver Star citation on April 28, 2004, that Tillman may have died by fratricide.

He said that suspicion led him to send a memo to top generals imploring "our nation's leaders," specifically "POTUS" -- the acronym for the president -- to avoid cribbing the "devastating enemy fire" explanation from the award citation for their speeches.

"Why did you recommend the Silver Star one day and then the next day send a secret back-channel message warning the country's leaders about using information from the Silver Star in public speeches because they might be embarrassed if they do?" an investigator asked McChrystal.

The AP story also says that McChrystal didn't even tell the Tillman family about his suspicions of the real cause of Tillman's death -- even as he warned the President and other leaders of his doubts about whether they should use the potentially embarrassing "devastating friendly fire" story. The whole affair led the Pentagon's acting inspector general to find that McChrystal should be held "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" in the Silver Star award recommendation. (This finding was overturned by the Army, and McChrystal defended his own conduct.)

Anyway, that tale seemed worth recalling now that McChrystal apparently is arguing privately that AQI has been vanquished and that it's time for Bush to do another victory dance.

To reach the homepage of this blog, click here. Comments section temporarily disabled.

---

---