AP Photos of Nov. 6: NY343-346, GACOL102, AZPHP103
AP Graphic of Nov. 6: TILLMAN INVESTIGATION
BC-Inquest for a Warrior, Adv12,3779

Adv12

For release Sunday, Nov. 12, and thereafter

Startling findings from Pat Tillman investigations

Eds: An abridged version will move no later than Nov. 9. For Multimedia Subscribers: Learn more about the events and circumstances surrounding the death of Pat Tillman in an interactive graphic featuring 3D images, audio and photos. It will be available on Saturday in the –national/tillman folder.

AP Photos of Nov. 6: NY343-346, GACOL102, AZPHP103

AP Graphic of Nov. 6: TILLMAN INVESTIGATION

By SCOTT LINDLAW and MARTHA MENDOZA

Associated Press Writers

In a remote and dangerous corner of Afghanistan, under the protective roar of Apache attack helicopters and B-52 bombers, special agents and investigators did their work.

They walked the landscape with surviving witnesses. They found a rock stained with the blood of the victim. They re-enacted the killings – here the U.S. Army Rangers swept through the canyon in their Humvee, blasting away; here the doomed man waved his arms, pleading for recognition as a friend, not an enemy.

"Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" he shouted, again and again.

The latest inquiry into Tillman's death by friendly fire should end next month; authorities have said they intend to release to the public only a synopsis of their report. But The Associated Press has combed through the results of 2 1/4 years of investigations – reviewed thousands of pages of internal Army documents, interviewed dozens of people familiar with the case – and uncovered some startling findings.

One of the four shooters, Staff Sgt. Trevor Alders, had recently had PRK laser eye surgery. Although he could see two sets of hands "straight up," his vision was "hazy," he said. In the absence of "friendly identifying signals," he assumed Tillman and an allied Afghan who also was killed were enemy.

Another, Spc. Steve Elliott, said he was "excited" by the sight of rifles, muzzle flashes and "shapes." A third, Spc. Stephen Ashpole, said he saw two figures, and just aimed where everyone else was shooting.

Squad leader Sgt. Greg Baker had 20-20 eyesight, but claimed he had "tunnel vision." Amid the chaos and pumping adrenaline, Baker said he hammered what he thought was the enemy but was actually the allied Afghan fighter next to Tillman who was trying to give the Americans cover: "I zoned in on him because I could see the AK-47. I focused only on him."

All four failed to identify their targets before firing, a direct violation of the fire discipline techniques drilled into every soldier.

There's more:

–Tillman's platoon had nearly run out of vital supplies, according to one of the shooters. They were down to the water in their Camelbak drinking pouches, and were forced to buy a goat from a local vendor. Delayed supply flights contributed to the hunger, fatigue and possibly misjudgments by platoon members.

–A key commander in the events that led to Tillman's death both was reprimanded for his role and meted out punishments to those who fired, raising questions of conflict of interest.

–A field hospital report says someone tried to jump-start Tillman's heart with CPR hours after his head had been partly blown off and his corpse wrapped in a poncho; key evidence including Tillman's body armor and uniform was burned.

–Investigators have been stymied because some of those involved now have lawyers and refused to cooperate, and other soldiers who were at the scene couldn't be located.

–Three of the four shooters are now out of the Army, and essentially beyond the reach of military justice.

Taken together, these findings raise more questions than they answer, in a case that already had veered from suggestions that it all was a result of the "fog of war" to insinuations that criminal acts were to blame.

The Pentagon's failure to reveal for more than a month that Tillman was killed by friendly fire have raised suspicions of a coverup. To Tillman's family, there is little doubt that his death was more than an innocent mistake.

One investigator told the Tillmans that it hadn't been ruled out that Tillman was shot by an American sniper or deliberately murdered by his own men – though he also gave no indication the evidence pointed that way.

"I will not assume his death was accidental or 'fog of war,'" said his father, Pat Tillman Sr. "I want to know what happened, and they've clouded that so badly we may never know."

And so, almost two years after three bullets through the forehead killed the star defensive back – a man who President Bush would call "an inspiration on and off the football field" – the fourth investigation began.

This time, the investigators are supposed to think like prosecutors:

Who fired the shots that killed Pat Tillman, and why?

Who insisted Tillman's platoon split and travel through dangerous territory in daylight, against its own policy? Who let the command slip away and chaos engulf the unit?

And perhaps most of all: Was a crime committed?

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The long and complicated story of Pat Tillman's death and the investigations it spawned began five years ago, in the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center.

"It is a proud and patriotic thing you are doing," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote to Tillman in 2002, after Tillman – shocked and outraged by the Sept. 11 attacks – turned down a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the elite Army Rangers.

The San Jose, Calif. native enlisted with his brother Kevin, who gave up his own chance to play professional baseball. The Tillmans were deployed to Iraq in 2003, then sent to Afghanistan.

The mission of their "Black Sheep" platoon in April 2004 sounded straightforward: Divide a region along the Pakistan border into zones, then check each grid for insurgents and weapons. They were to clear two zones and then move deeper into Afghanistan.

But a broken-down Humvee known as a Ground Mobility Vehicle, or GMV, stalled the unit on an isolated road. A mechanic couldn't fix it, and a fuel pump flown in on a helicopter didn't help.

Hours passed. Enemy fighters watched invisibly, plotting their ambush.

Tillman's platoon must have presented an inviting target. There were 39 men – including six allied Afghan fighters trained by the CIA – and about a dozen vehicles.

Impatience was rising at the tactical operations center at Forward Operating Base Salerno, near Khowst, Afghanistan, where officers coordinated the movements of several platoons. Led by then-Maj. David Hodne, the so-called Cross-Functional Team worked at a U-shaped table inside a 20-by-30-foot tent with a projection screen and a satellite radio.

(Hodne, now a lieutenant colonel and executive officer for the 75th Ranger Regiment, declined to be interviewed on the record by the AP – as did nearly every person involved in the incident.)

When the Humvee broke down, the Black Sheep were nearing the end of their assignment; all that was left was to "turn one last stone and then get out," Hodne would testify. The unit was then to head for Manah, a small village where it would spend the night.

The commanders had already given the Black Sheep an extra day to get into its grid zones. High-ranking commanders were "pushing us pretty hard to keep moving," said Hodne.

"We had better not have any more delays due to this vehicle," he told his subordinates.

At the operations center, the Black Sheep's company commander, then-Capt. William C. "Satch" Saunders, was feeling the heat to get the platoon moving.

"We wanted to make sure we had a force staged to confirm or deny any enemy presence in Manah the next day, so we would not get ourselves too far behind setting ourselves up for our next series of operations," he recalled later to an investigator.

The order came down to split the platoon in two to speed its progress.

Saunders initially told investigators that Hodne had issued the order, but later, after he was given immunity from prosecution, he acknowledged it was his decision alone.

Hodne later said he was in the dark – "I felt like the village idiot because I had no idea what they were doing," he recalled. The decision was foolhardy, he said. Divided in two, "they didn't have enough combat power to do that mission" of clearing Manah, he testified. (Other commanders have insisted that splitting the platoon was perfectly safe and a common practice.)

One thing is clear: The order sparked a flurry of activity by the Black Sheep.

One of the gunners who shot Tillman said his unit didn't even have time to look at a map before getting back on the road.

"We were rushed to conduct an operation that had such flaws," said Alders. "Which in the end would prove to be fatal."

"If anything, this sense of urgency was as deadly to Tillman as the bullet that cut his life short," Alders wrote in a lengthy statement protesting his expulsion from the Rangers. "We could have conducted the search at night like we did on the follow-up operations or the next morning like we ended up doing anyway. Why, I ask, why?"

An investigator, Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, would later agree that an "artificial sense of urgency" to keep Tillman's platoon moving was a crucial factor in his death: "There was no specific intelligence that made the movement to Manah before nightfall imperative."

An officer involved in the incident told AP there was, however, general intelligence of insurgent activity in this region, historically a Taliban hotbed.

That suspicion would be confirmed when the Black Sheep drove through a narrow canyon, its walls towering about 500 feet, and came under fire from enemy Afghans. Chaos broke out and communications broke down.

After the platoon split, the second section of the convoy roared out of the canyon, into an open valley and straight at their comrades a few minutes ahead. A Humvee packed with pumped-up Rangers opened fire, killing the friendly Afghan and Tillman, though he desperately sought to be recognized.

Later, at least one of the same Rangers turned his guns on a village where witnesses say civilian women and children had gathered. The shooters raked it with fire, the American witnesses said; they wounded two additional fellow Rangers, including their own platoon leader.

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Had it happened in the United States, police would have quickly cordoned off the area with "crime scene" tape and determined whether a law had been broken.

Instead, the investigations into Tillman's death have cascaded, one after another, for the past 30 months.

For Mary Tillman, getting to the bottom of her son's death is more than a personal quest.

"This isn't just about our son," she said. "It's about holding the military accountable. Finding out what happened to Pat is ultimately going to be important in finding out what happened to other soldiers."

In the days after the shootings, the first officer appointed to investigate, then-Capt. Richard Scott, interviewed all four shooters, their driver, and many others who were there. He concluded within a week that the gunmen demonstrated "gross negligence" and recommended further investigation.

"It could involve some Rangers that could be charged" with a crime, Scott told a superior later.

Then-Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey – the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon – later assured Tillman's family that those responsible would be punished as harshly as possible.

But no one was ever court martialed; staff lawyers advised senior Army commanders reviewing the incident that there was no legal basis for it.

Instead, the Army punished seven people all together; four soldiers received relatively minor punishments known as Article 15s under military law, with no court proceedings. These four ranged from written reprimands to expulsion from the Rangers. One, Baker, had his pay reduced and was effectively forced out of the Army. The other three soldiers received administrative reprimands.

Scott's report circulated briefly among a small corps of high-ranking officers.

Then, it disappeared.

Some of Tillman's relatives think the Army buried the report because its findings were too explosive. Army officials refused to provide a copy to the AP, saying no materials related to the investigation could be released.

The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment, then-Col. James C. Nixon, wasn't satisfied with Scott's investigation, which he said focused too heavily on pre-combat inspections and procedures rather than on what had happened.

Scott "made some conclusions in the document that weren't validated by facts" as described by the participants, Nixon would tell later investigators.

Nixon assigned his top aide, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, to lead what became the second investigation. Kauzlarich harshly criticized Baker and the men on his truck.

Among other things, Baker should have known that at least two of his subordinates had never been in a firefight, and should have closely supervised where they shot.

"His failure to do so resulted in deaths of Cpl. Tillman and the AMF soldier, and the serious wounding of two other (Rangers)," Kauzlarich concluded. "While a great deal of discretion should be granted to a leader who is making difficult judgments in the heat of combat, the command also has a responsibility to hold its leaders accountable when that judgment is so wanton or poor that it places the lives of other men at risk."

Still, the Tillman family complained that questions remained: Who killed Tillman? Why did they fire? Were the punishments stiff enough?

"I don't think that punishment fit their actions out there in the field," said Kevin Tillman, who was with his brother the day Pat was killed but was several minutes behind him in the trailing element of a convoy and saw nothing.

"They were not inquiring, identifying, engaging (targets). They weren't doing their job as a soldier," he told an investigator. "You have an obligation as a soldier to, you know, do certain things, and just shooting isn't one of your responsibilities. You know, it has to be a known, likely suspect."

And so, in November 2004, acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee ordered up yet another investigation, by Jones.

The result was 2,100 pages of transcripts and detailed descriptions of the incident, but no new charges or punishments. The report, completed Jan. 10, 2005, was provided – with many portions blacked out or removed entirely – to the Tillman family. It has not been released to the public; the family found it wanting.

Pressed anew by the Tillmans, the Pentagon inspector general announced a review of the investigations in August 2005. And in March 2006, they launched a new criminal probe into the actions of the men who shot at Tillman.

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The veteran Pentagon official who is overseeing these latest inquiries, acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble, has called the Tillman probe the toughest case he has ever seen, according to people he recently briefed.

Investigators are looking at who pulled the triggers and fired at Tillman; they are also looking at the officers who pressured the platoon to move through a region with a history of ambushes; the soldiers who burned Tillman's uniform and body armor afterward; and at everyone in the chain of command who deliberately kept the circumstances of Tillman's death from the family for more than a month.

Military investigators under Gimble's direction this year visited the rugged valley in eastern Afghanistan where Tillman was killed. It was a risky trip; the region is even more dangerous today than it was in 2004.

According to one person briefed by investigators, the contingent included at least two soldiers who were there the day of the incident – Staff Sgt. Matthew Weeks, a squad leader who was up the hill from Tillman when he was shot, and the driver of the GMV that carried the Rangers who shot Tillman, Staff Sgt. Kellett Sayre.

When the current inquiry began, the Pentagon projected it would be completed by September 2006. Now Gimble and the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as CID, are aiming to finish their work by December, say lawmakers and other officials briefed by Gimble.

CID is probing everything up to and including Tillman's shooting. The inspector general's office itself has a half-dozen investigators researching everything that happened afterward, including allegations of a coverup.

The investigators have taken sworn testimony from about 70 people, some of whom said they were questioned for more than six hours. But Gimble said investigators have been hindered by a failure to locate key witnesses, even some who are still in the active military.

Moreover, those who are now out of the Army, including three of the four shooters, can't be court martialed. They could be charged in the civilian justice system by a U.S. attorney, but such a step would be highly unusual.

The law that allows it, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, has been invoked fewer than a half-dozen times since its enactment in 2000, said Scott Silliman, executive director of Duke Law School's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security and a high-ranking Air Force lawyer until his retirement in 1993.

The investigation, Gimble has said, is also complicated because of "numerous missteps" by the three previous investigators, particularly their failure to follow standards for handling evidence.

Gimble promised lawmakers in a series of briefings this fall that his investigation "will bring all to light." He has committed to releasing his detailed findings to key legislators, Pentagon officials and the Tillman family, as well as a synopsis to the general public, congressional aides said.

Gimble declined an AP request for an interview.

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To date, a total of seven soldiers have been disciplined in Tillman's death.

Bailey, the 2nd Ranger Battalion commander who was camped out about two miles down the road with another unit the night Tillman died, surveyed the shooting scene hours after it occurred.

"I don't think there was any criminal act," he said. "It was a fratricide based upon a lot of contributing factors, confusion," he testified to an investigator in late 2004.

Some high-ranking officers, including Bailey, believe a lack of control in the field was to blame – starting with the platoon leader and including the soldiers who didn't identify their targets.

Bailey, who approved punishments for several of the soldiers, said he disagreed with the platoon's protests that they were "doing what we asked them to do under some very difficult circumstances, and that there were mistakes made but they weren't negligent mistakes."

He also testified that "three gunners were, to varying degrees, culpable in what had happened out there." And he said he wanted a fourth soldier involved – the squad leader, Baker – "out of the military."

Baker soon left the Army.

As for others involved:

–The three other shooters – Ashpole, Alders and Elliott – remained in the service initially but Elliott and Ashpole have since left. Elliott struck a deal with authorities; in exchange for his testimony to investigator Jones, the Army gave him immunity from prosecution "in any criminal proceedings."

–The platoon leader, Lt. David Uthlaut, was later bumped down from the Rangers to the regular Army for failing to prepare his men prior to the shootings, according to Bailey.

"They didn't do communications checks. They didn't check out their equipment. So they'd been there 24 hours," Bailey testified. "For example, some of the weapons systems weren't even loaded with ammunition. Many of the soldiers didn't know where they were going. They didn't have contingency plans."

A non-commissioned officer on the ground that day, however, testified that the unit carried out required communications checks.

Uthlaut was also wounded by fellow Rangers in the incident. He was awarded the Purple Heart and later promoted to captain.

–Saunders, the company commander, was given the authority to punish three soldiers – even though he himself was reprimanded for his own poor leadership. Both Saunders and Hodne received formal written reprimands for failing to "provide adequate command and control" of subordinate units – administrative punishments lighter than the Article 15s handed down to the soldiers who shot at Tillman. This obviously hasn't hurt Hodne's career; he has since been promoted.

"I thought it was (the commanders') fault, or part of their fault that we were even in this situation, when they're telling us to split up," said Ashpole.

Some lawmakers have warned that if this probe does not clear up all questions on Tillman's death, they may press for congressional hearings. Others have said Congress could call for an independent panel of retired military officers and other experts to conduct an outside probe.

Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat who represents the San Jose district where Tillman's family lives, has pressed the Pentagon for answers on the status of its investigations.

"I'm very impatient and at times cynical," Honda said. But, he said, the honor of the military – and the confidence of the public in the military and the government – are at stake.

"So if we pursue the truth and wait for it," he said, "it may be worthwhile."

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Pentagon investigation into Tillman death finds missteps

Eds: Multimedia: An interactive timeline of the events surrounding Tillman's death is available in the –national/tillman folder. Moving on general news and sports services.

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

and

SCOTT LINDLAW

Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) – Nine officers, including up to four generals, should be held accountable for missteps in the aftermath of the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, a Pentagon investigation will recommend.

Senior defense officials said Friday the Defense Department inspector general will cite a range of errors and inappropriate conduct as the military probed the former football star's death on the battlefront in 2004, said one defense official.

The official, who like the others requested anonymity because the Army has not publicly released the information, said it appears senior military leaders may not have had all the facts or worked hard enough to get the facts of what happened on April 22, 2004, when Tillman was killed by members of his own platoon.

Dozens of soldiers – those immediately around Tillman at the scene of the shooting, his immediate superiors and high-ranking officers at a command post nearby – knew within minutes or hours that his death was fratricide.

Even so, the Army persisted in telling Tillman's family he was killed in a conventional ambush, including at his nationally televised memorial service 11 days later. It was five weeks before his family was told the truth, a delay the Army has blamed on procedural mistakes.

The latest investigation has focused on how high up the chain of command it was known that Tillman's death was caused by his own comrades. Officers from the rank of colonel and up will be blamed in the report, according to one officer who has been informed of the findings.

According to the officials, the report will not make charges or suggest punishments, but it will recommend the Army look at holding the nine officers accountable.

One defense official said it appears the inspector general will not conclude there was an orchestrated cover-up in the investigation.

Tillman's father, Pat, said Friday he had no intention of commenting on the inspector general's report until he had heard an Army briefing on Monday. That day, the Army plans to release the report and a second related to the killing.

The other report is by the Army Criminal Investigation Command, which will focus on whether a crime, such as negligent homicide, was committed when Tillman's own men shot him. One defense official said it appears the investigation did not find any criminal intent in the shooting.

Tillman's case drew worldwide attention in part because he had turned down a multimillion-dollar contract to play defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals in order to join the Army Rangers after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The report's release comes with the Bush administration under fire from the public and Congress for the war in Iraq. Though the Afghanistan conflict has not drawn nearly so much criticism, the report could add to the drumbeat of negative stories the administration has had to endure over the treatment of wounded soldiers and the long deployments of U.S. troops.

To date, the Army has punished seven people for the Tillman killing, but no one was court-martialed. Four soldiers received relatively minor punishments under military law, ranging from written reprimands to expulsion from the Rangers. One had his pay reduced and was effectively forced out of the Army.

The Army, which requested the inspector general review last year, said in a statement released Friday that it "plans to take appropriate actions after receiving the inspector general's report."

The officials declined to name any of the officers the report will implicate. The commander of Tillman's 75th Ranger Regiment was Col. James C. Nixon. Last year he was named director of operations at the Center for Special Operations at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

Nixon knew within about two days that Tillman's death was fratricide, another officer involved in the investigations told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Previous investigations of the case have focused on the facts of the incident and sought to answer questions of whether it was a fratricide.

The report's findings were first reported on Friday by CBS News.

Tillman died in Afghanistan's Paktia province, along the Pakistan border, after his platoon was ordered to split into two groups and one of the units began firing. Tillman and an Afghan with him were killed. A specialist at the time of his death, he was posthumously promoted to corporal.

Since the incident, the Army has moved to improve the notification procedures and now requires an officer to review initial casualty information and verify that the families have been told the best, accurate information.

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Associated Press writer Scott Lindlaw reported from San Francisco.

BC-Tillman-Friendly Fire, 10th Ld-Writethru,1170

Critical errors but no criminal wrongdoing in Tillman death, military says

Eds: INSERTS new grafs 3-4, Tillman's family, to UPDATE with family reax; EDITS to conform. Multimedia: An interactive graphic is available in the –national/tillman folder. Pentagon documents are available in the –documents/tillman folder. Moving on general news and sports services.

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) – Nine high-ranking Army officers, including four generals, made critical errors in reporting the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, but there was no criminal wrongdoing in the shooting of the former NFL player, the military concluded Monday.

In releasing a pair of reports on the 2004 killing, however, defense officials did not rule out that criminal violations may have been committed by officers who provided misleading information as the military investigated the killing. While saying they believed there was no orchestrated cover-up, they left the decision on whether crimes occurred to the Army.

Tillman's family said it was not satisfied by what it called an "attempt to impose closure by slapping the wrists of a few officers and enlisted men." The family called for congressional hearings on his death.

"Once again, we are being used as props in a Pentagon public relations exercise," Tillman's mother, Mary, said in a prepared statement Monday evening.

Army and Defense Department investigators said officers looking into Tillman's death passed along misleading and inaccurate information and delayed reporting their belief that Tillman was killed by fellow Rangers.

The investigators recommended that the Army take action against the officers, but suggested no specific punishments and left it to the Army to decide what to do. Possible steps could include demotions, dishonorable discharges, jail or letters of reprimand.

Acting Army Secretary Peter Geren has asked Gen. William Wallace, who oversees training for the Army, to review the actions of the officers and to provide a progress report in 30 days. The Army will take corrective action and hold people accountable, said Geren, who also issued an apology.

"We as an Army failed in our duty to the Tillman family, the duty we owe to all the families of our fallen soldiers: Give them the truth, the best we know it, as fast as we can," Geren told reporters at the Pentagon. "Our failure in fulfilling this duty brought discredit to the Army and compounded the grief suffered by the Tillman family. For that, on behalf of the Army, I apologize to the Tillman family."

Using photographs, charts and a video reenactment of the day's events, investigators at the Pentagon walked reporters through a minute-by-minute accounting of Tillman's death in the rocky Afghanistan hills on April 22, 2004.

The sometimes gruesome briefing described Tillman's frantic efforts to signal the shooters to stop the firing. Brig. Gen. Rodney L. Johnson of the Army Criminal Investigation Command said the investigation found no basis to believe the shooting was criminal.

"We determined that neither a negligent homicide or aggravated assault occurred in the shooting deaths and woundings of Corporal Tillman and the others," Johnson said. "The manner of death was accidental." An Afghan fighter with Tillman was killed and two other U.S. soldiers were wounded.

Though dozens of soldiers knew quickly that Tillman had been killed by his fellow troops, the Army said initially that he was killed by enemy gunfire when he led his team to help another group of ambushed soldiers. It was five weeks before his family was told the truth, a delay the Army has blamed on procedural mistakes.

"We thought there was never an attempt to cover up that we saw," Defense Department Acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble said during a Pentagon briefing as the military released two reports, one by the Army Criminal Investigation Command and the other by the inspector general.

Tillman's death received worldwide attention because he had walked away from a huge contract with the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Coming under the heaviest criticism was Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger, the now-retired three-star general who was in charge of Army special operations.

"We found compelling evidence that (Lt. Gen.) Kensinger learned of suspected fratricide well before the memorial service and provided misleading testimony" on that issue, the report said. That misrepresentation, the report said, could be a violation of the Military Code of Justice.

The Army was still saying Tillman had been killed in a conventional ambush at a nationally televised memorial service for him 11 days after his death.

The report also noted that Kensinger later misled investigators when asked when he first learned Tillman's death was from friendly fire.

The highest current ranking officer blamed in the incident is Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. Investigators said he was "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" contained in papers recommending that Tillman get a Silver Star award.

The inspector general's report also faulted Brig. Gen. Gary Jones and now-Brig. Gen. James C. Nixon.

Jones, now retired from the Army, led one of the previous Army investigations of the matter. The report faulted him for failing to address several issues in his probe.

"Those deficiencies contributed to lingering speculation that Army officials were concealing relevant information concerning Cpl. Tillman's deaths," the report said.

It criticized Nixon, who was Tillman's regimental commander, for failing to ensure that Tillman's family was told that friendly fire was suspected, as Army regulations at the time required. Nixon is now director of operations at the Center for Special Operations at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

Of the nine officers the military said would be "held accountable," only the four generals – McChrystal, Kensinger, Nixon and Jones – are identified in the report.

The names of the five others were blacked out because of the military's privacy policy, said Gimble. According to a comparison of the report with documents the AP has examined previously, two of them are then-Capt. Richard Scott, appointed to conduct the first investigation, and then-Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who conducted the second.

The report blames both men for failing to visit the scene of the shooting, secure evidence, take photos, obtain measurements and interview all witnesses.

Also, then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon, is held accountable for the "inaccurate award recommendation" that led to Tillman's Silver Star. Bailey recommended Tillman for the award, officials told the AP.

The inspector general investigation recommended that the Army review its award of the Silver Star to Tillman, but Geren said the award would stand.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush, like Defense Secretary Robert Gates, has "very serious concerns" about the events surrounding Tillman's death, his family's notification and the performance of military personnel.

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Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Pauline Jelinek in Washington and Scott Lindlaw in San Jose, Calif., contributed to this story.

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On the web:

http://www.dodig.osd.mil/Audit/reports/index.html