Pontiuth Pilate
Republican Jesus!
We fall down...
2 senators seek answers on murdered troops By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press WriterFri Jun 23, 2:09 AM ET
Two Democratic senators said Thursday they would press the Pentagon for answers in the case of two California National Guardsmen killed by Iraqi officers they were training.
They also said they want to know why the Army waited nine months to tell the men's families after it had determined that Spc. Patrick R. McCaffrey, 34, and 2nd Lt. Andre D. Tyson, 33, were killed in an ambush.
"Was there a cover-up of this incident?" Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., asked.
Boxer and Carl Levin, D-Mich., said they would also ask the Defense Department to explain why "nothing was done" after McCaffrey told his superiors that Iraqi forces previously had fired on the American unit.
"Are there other incidents where American troops are being shot at by the Iraqi forces they are training?" Boxer asked.
Democratic senators do not have the broad subpoena authority that Republicans, who control Congress, do, although Levin is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The senators entered their request for answers into the Senate record.
The U.S. military has said one Iraqi suspect is in custody, while the other one is believed to be dead, though it has not given any details.
An Army officer who served in the same unit as Tyson and McCaffrey in Iraq said Thursday that military commanders knew militiamen had infiltrated the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps unit they were training long before the Iraqis killed the two Americans.
"We were told that before we went over there," the officer told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because a criminal investigation remains open in the case. "They told us half these guys were insurgents. We knew it."
After the attack that killed McCaffrey and Tyson, the Army unit and the allied civil defense unit conducted a head count and found that two men were missing, the officer said.
The Army placed the men's houses under surveillance for weeks, the officer said. Eventually, U.S. Special Forces began using more aggressive measures to track down the gunmen.