Oversight Committee Reviews Documents, Narrows Requests on Tillman Case
Today Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis sent a letter to the White House requesting specific documents related to the death of U.S. Army Corporal Patrick Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.The White House has made available for staff review approximately 400-450 pages, which had previously been redacted or withheld. Following this review, the Committee is requesting that the White House provide the Committee several internal e-mail communications as well as drafts of the President' s remarks about Corporal Tillman at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
In addition, the Committee has announced its intention to interview or depose former White House officials, including Dan Bartlett, Scott McClellan, and Michael Gerson, regarding when and how White House and Pentagon officials learn of Corporal Tillman's death.
Read the full letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding (pdf) >>
An excerpt:
There are some documents that the staff reviewed that are relevant to the inquiry and that we ask that you produce to the Committee, including all responsive e-mails in the respective email chains. They are identified in a list enclosed with this letter. They include several e-mail communications among White House officials discussing Corporal Tillman's death, including (l) an e-mail exchange between Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, and Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, on April 23, 2004, discussing how to respond to press inquiries regarding Corporal Tillman's death; (2) e-mail exchanges between White House officials involved with drafting the President's speech for the White House Correspondents' Dinner on May 1, 2004; and (3) e-mail exchanges between White House officials and outside individuals regarding suggestions on how to respond to the news of Corporal Tillman's death. While these communications do not explain when or how the White House learned that Corporal Tillman died from friendly fire, they do appear to demonstrate that White House staff was acutely sensitive about responding appropriately to Corporal Tillman's death and are important to our investigation.Apart from these documents, you informed us last week that the White House continues to withhold other documents from the Committee. In particular, you stated that the White House had not provided or allowed Committee staff to review drafts of the President's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on May 1, 2004. You expressed special concern about providing to the Committee copies of draft speeches actually reviewed by the President.
In deference to your concems, we will not insist at this time on production of drafts that were reviewed by the President. We do believe, however, that you should provide to the Committee (or make available for staff review to assess their relevancy) drafts of the speech that were not presented to the President for his review. We note that the Administration has previously provided drafts of the President's 2003 State of the Union Address making the case for war against Iraq - perhaps the most significant speech of the Bush presidency - to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. We see no reason why drafts of the President's remarks to a Correspondents' Dinner would merit greater secrecy than drafts of the State of the Union Address.
As we explained at the meeting, the draft speeches are relevant to the Committee's investigation because it appears that it may have been an inquiry from one of the White House speechwriters, John Currin, that led Army Major General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Task Force for Afghanistan, to send a "Personal For" (P4) memo on April 29, 2004, to three of the highest ranking generals at the Department of Defense waming that Corporal Tillman may have been killed in a friendly fire incident. In this memo, General McChrystal wrote: "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 Corporal Tillman's death become public." Thomas Gimble, the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense, testified before this Committee: "[w]e think the P4 memo stopped with the three generals ... [and] that it didn't go any further."
We do not doubt your good faith in collecting responsive documents, but as you agreed to do last week, we do request that you re-examine whether you are in possession of any documents that would explain when and how the White House learned of Corporal Tillman's death by friendly fire.
Chairman Henry Waxman and Ranking Member Tom Davis go on to request the production of these documents by July 25, 2007. The Committee has scheduled a second hearing on the matter for August 1, 2007, following up on the initial hearing held in April. In this exchange from that hearing, Rep. Bruce Braley (IA-01) questioned Specialist Bryan O'Neal, U.S. Army, an eyewitness to Tillman's death, on apparent tampering with his original reports on the incident -- one of many mysteries left unresolved:
| Rep. Braley: "This version of the statement also says you, quote, 'engaged the enemy very successfully,' end quote, that the enemy moved most of their attention to your position which, quote, 'drew a lot of fire from them.' Did you write these sentences claiming that you were engaged with the enemy?" Specialist O'Neal: |