Newsmaker

Tillman-Lynch hearing set to open

(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-24 18:25

WASHINGTON - As the Army probed Pat Tillman's death, investigators implored the CIA and Pentagon last year to scour their databanks for aerial video of the friendly fire incident, footage they believed might have been captured as a Predator drone flew over the scene.

Cpl. Pat Tillman is seen in a this 2003 file photo provided by Photography Plus. Lawmakers and the family of Pat Tillman want Pentagon officials to answer why was an American Predator drone flying over the scene of the friendly fire shooting? Did it record the scene, and if so, where is the footage? [AP]

The trail ran cold in October, but lawmakers plan to press the Pentagon on Tuesday with questions still hovering over the one-time National Football League star's shooting: Was a drone flying overhead when Tillman was killed? Did it videotape the incident, and if so, where is the footage?

Some members of Congress hope to elicit the new information Tuesday when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform holds a hearing as part of an investigation into misleading information from the US military.

The most recent investigation by the Army, released last month, documented a monthslong search for the video. The undertaking "suggests the distinct possibility that a Predator drone overflew the battle scene, and, if it did, may have captured yet-unrevealed material information," said Daniel Kohns, a spokesman for Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat who represents the San Jose, Calif., area where Tillman grew up.

"Representative Honda intends to question Pentagon and Army officials on this issue and, at long last, elicit definitive answers to this and other questions that inexcusably continue to linger over this matter," Kohns said.

The hearing will cover both Tillman's death three years ago and the 2003 rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq - a story embellished by the military after her videotaped rescue by special forces.

For the hearing, the committee issued its first subpoena since Democrats took power and Rep. Henry Waxman , D-Calif., assumed the chairmanship in January. The target of the subpoena was Dr. Gene Bolles, the neurosurgeon who treated Lynch in Germany after she was rescued in Iraq.

Bolles will be a witness Tuesday, as will Lynch. Also testifying will be Tillman's mother; his brother Kevin, who was nearby when Pat Tillman was killed; and Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was next to Tillman when he was killed.

Acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble and Gen. Rodney Johnson, the head of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command - who both completed investigations last month on Tillman's death - also will appear.

The drone, equipped with a video camera in its nose, had been flown by the CIA over Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden for several years. After Sept. 11, 2001, the little plane also was outfitted with missiles and used to kill al-Qaida leaders.

An Air Force commando attached to Tillman's Army Ranger platoon testified that as the incident unfolded, he heard the unmanned reconnaissance plane's distinctive propellor buzz overhead.

"I remember hearing an aircraft that I initially suspected was a C-130 but as I listened closer I knew it was a Predator drone," he told Army investigators.

His belief was later confirmed by a comrade at their tactical operations center, he said. "I was told it was over us during the ambush," this airman testified. His name was blacked out of documents the Army released last month.

The Air Force commando was something of an expert in aircraft sounds. As an "enlisted terminal attack controller," his job was to call in and then direct "close air support" or aircraft that could fire on the enemy in the kind of ambush that preceded Tillman's death.