This is what oversight is about

Today's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the death of Pat Tillman and the capture and rescue of Jessica Lynch provides a critical backdrop to the ongoing discussion of how the Iraq war has been conducted and how in the hell we get out of it. It's critical to exposing just how incompetent and at the same time opportunistic BushCo has been in the conduct of the war and how they treat the individual troops they so love to screech about "supporting."

Here's how they supported  Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin:

An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when the former football star died by friendly fire said Tuesday he was told by a higher-up to conceal that information from Tillman's brother.

"I was ordered not to tell him," U.S. Army Spc. Bryan O'Neal told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He said he was given the order by then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon.

Pat Tillman's brother Kevin was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened, but didn't see it. O'Neal said Bailey told him specifically not to tell Kevin Tillman that the death was friendly fire rather than heroic engagement with the enemy.

And Jessica Lynch:

Lynch, then an Army private, was badly injured when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq. She was subsequently rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital but the tale of her ambush was changed into a story of heroism on her part.

Still hampered by her injuries, Lynch walked slowly to the witness table and took a seat alongside Tillman's family members.

"The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate lies," Lynch said.

Full coverage of today's hearing is available at The Gavel, Speaker Pelosi's site. Here are highlights of O'Neal's, Kevin Tillman's, and Lynch's testimony.