Hearing on Tillman Fratricide: Tierney’s Questions

The Oversight Committee holds a hearing, “The Tillman Fratricide: What the Leadership of the Defense Department Knew.” The hearing is part of an ongoing investigation and follows a previous hearing held in April. Witnesses will include former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Former Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. John P. Abizaid (Retired), Former Chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard B. Myers (Retired), Former Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Gen. Bryan Douglas Brown (Retired). Gen. Kensinger has been served with a subpoena, but has not been able to be located over the past several days and will not appear. Rep. John Tierney questions witnesses on why nobody informed the White House that it was likely a case of fratricide.

Video Transcript

thank you very muchif we had record tension back to the uh... p_-forty four memo that gentlemancrystalsent out and he said he had become awarealkalinity of suspected reports that congress the president had statesand the secretary of the army might include comments about corporate illnessheroism disapprove civil stand-alone speech is currently being prepared notknowing the specific surrounding his deathuh... so obviously the objective of that before was to get those specifics thethe fact that they might have been a fratricidal investigation going on tothe appropriate people at the white housegenera of his aideyou were the primary addressee on on the memoand i think it was common did not uncommon for the president of directedconversations with a combatant commanders such as yourselfso we start with you did you take any steps to alert the white house becausepurple till his death was the suspected as friendly firei'm not sure i dotalk directly to the termhaving their direct relationship with the president and knowing that it wasspecifically for the fee for that in factthere was a concern that the president might make a statement about theconditions surrounding that event why didn't you take it upon yourself to makesure the white house was informedi did not take it upon myself toinform the white house directlynor did i ever when i was in command one something would come upin our normal meetings with the president of a have free phoneconversation bookby using communicated through chairman or directly with sector and that's thecase evil into some immediacy in a memo like that indicated the president mightbein a position taken embarrassing statement unless he was one otherwisefull wellfirst of all i received the message latewhich is clearly problem within my own headquartersuh... when i received the message laid out talked of chairman i also saw thattwo other addressgeneral brown and the armyand after having talked to the chairmanit became clear to me that the chairman knew about it and i presumenow that the information flowed in washington through army channelsas i might have expectedthose assumptions wereobviously incorrectover general brown what about you did you notify the white house is about thepossibility the crop of films was killed by his own unit at what you saw thatmetal sir i didand why didn't you do that knowing that there was some media sees the situationyeah first of all in a message on the before i was an infrared dressing whichis a not the primary dressed you know if i can do everything i understand thegeneral of the state just above the reason he didn't do it because you werealso on the memo schemas as expected thatyou do somethingthat was my ill placenow i i don't think anybody would expect me who will call the person on statesbased on a comment made on an intro message where i was unemployed dressywith jeremiah was at that time you with the chairman joint chiefs of staffyou are the principal military adviser to the president of the nationalsecurity council the secretary of defensecould you advise the president or anyone at the white housethat there was a fratricide investigationburning out and i have not seen the before all i know that there waspotential for fratricide there is an investigation ongoingi do not recall and from a surviving talk to anybody at the white house aboutthemdelivering your stafftalk to him at the white house i can tell you that there are some thingsby the way that uh... circulate and public affairs channelswillthat they could be like that but but i was aware of that julia staff therewould have been in that loopthe public affairs at www more public affairs officer meals and uh... captainfacts organd i do remember talking to him aboutthe potential of fat decided to say we are the cautious here if we if we makeany comments we just got a very well in mind in who would that person'scontacted the white house p i well i don't know i think he would not benormally he would not routinely ever talk to the white house he would talk totheir services uh... public affairs officer steven also talkedthrough the office occurred census public-affairs folks that he would notbe coming out i can imagine ever talking to the white housepuzzles on some kind of conference call where he was includedthe secular so let me ask you the same questions at the close is our duty toadvise the president or anyone at the white housethat there was evidence a cook summer was killed by friendly fire at any timei don't recalluh... clearlyit would be logical that that i would have or someone in my office would haveafter he theinformation became readily available and the family was notified and it becamesubject of interest then one would want to make sure that the white house wasaware of it and there were daily calls back and forth between the nationalsecurity council in the office generalizing in one point it was fairlycommon knowledge around it so itthat point of time hu yar office of the secretary's office would have hadthe kind of contact with the national security council staff of the whitehouseriviera subject like that there are multiple contacts each day and theywould happen through themilitary assistance there would have interested in this instance thathappened to the public affairsgeneral meyers and i would meet with the president at least once a weekponds setting aside and just a second placeand and and it would just completed a fraudin addition we were in national security council meetings in principle committeesmeetings on a regular basis during the week probably five times a weeku_s_ italian value general myers you have any recollection of either of youjoannetelling anybody so who on your staffwho would you suggest we talked to on your step that might have had contactwith the white house on itconservatively recorder i'd just don't know of other than response to youraddress to the kinds of contact stricter place on a regular basisi agree i i would notice through the secondary although they decide that's aregular basis i don't knowbothers multiple people that are subjectyou know but on the subject i would know that the security year suspect kidswhitethe chemistry right

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