Army Lies to Mother of Slain Guardsman for Two Years

The U.S. military is being accused of another deliberate cover-up involving killings in Iraq. But this time, the victims are not Iraqis...they're American soldiers.

Specialist Patrick McCaffrey and First Lieutenant Andre Tyson - both members of the California National Guard - were killed in June 2004 while on patrol near the town of Balad, fifty miles north of Baghdad.

Military officials initially told the families that the two soldiers had been attacked and killed in an ambush by insurgents. But that story turned out to be a lie.

An Army investigation concluded in September 2005 that the two were in fact killed by members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps - supposed allies that the Guardsmen had been training and patrolling with. McCaffrey and Tyson's fellow soldiers had suspected this was the case all along. Instead of sharing these findings with the families, the military sat on the story - for nine months.

It was only after Nadia McCaffrey - the mother of Specialist Patrick McCaffrey - asked California Senator Barbara Boxer in May to pressure the Pentagon to release information about her son's death that the truth came out.

The military revealed what it knew only this week - nearly two years to the day of the killings of McCaffrey and Tyson. An Army general briefed the families at their homes on Wednesday. The Pentagon is now being accused of a deliberate cover-up.

Senator Boxer said the case raises troubling questions and plans to raise the issue on the floor of the Senate.

She told reporters, "I think it" s pretty obvious that if the American people knew that the Iraqis we train would turn on our soldiers, support for the war would erode."

This is not the first case of its kind. Also in 2004, NFL star Pat Tillman was killed while serving in Afghanistan. The Army initially said Tillman was killed by enemy fire while leading troops into battle. The high-profile story was widely reported in the media. But the Army was later forced to acknowledge that Tillman had in fact been killed by gunfire from his fellow soldiers.

* Nadia McCaffrey, the mother of Specialist Patrick McCaffrey. She joins us on the line from Tracy, CA.

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