A couple of hours ago, Private Citizen Donald Rumsfeld testified before the congressional inquiry into the "friendly fire" death of Pat Tillman:"Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended himself and took no personal responsibility Wednesday for the military's bungled response to Army Ranger Pat Tillman's friendly fire death in Afghanistan." [...] "He told a House committee hearing that he'd always impressed upon Pentagon underlings the importance of telling the truth."
And I call bullshit! That pernicious old prick is lying his ass off, even now.
"I know that I would not engage in a cover-up. I know that no one in the White House suggested such a thing to me. I know that the gentlemen sitting next to me are men of enormous integrity and would not participate in something like that,'' Rumsfeld told a House committee."
Pat Tillman was a poster boy for the US military -- a football hero who walked away from a big contract to join the Army Rangers and do what he believed was the right thing after the 9/11 attacks. Karl Rove couldn't have written a better scenario. The story of Tillman's death was a heartbreaking tale of valour: he died while bravely covering his fellow Rangers in the midst of a terrible firefight with the enemy. Then it got out that there was no enemy around at the time -- as the saying goes, "the enemy is us" -- Tillman was killed by friendly fire.
No matter how tenuous his grip on reality, Rumsfeld had to know the specifics about Tillman. Nobody makes the decision to not only lie but to spin a big story about a soldier's death without approval at the highest levels. The question is: why? "Friendly fire" incidents are terrible, but they happen -- why go to such lengths to concoct an elaborate story about Tillman? Why?
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