WASHINGTON, 23 June 2006 — Army officials waited almost nine months after completing an investigation into the deaths of two US soldiers before informing their families the men were murdered by insurgents who had infiltrated an Iraqi civil defense force working with US troops. Army officials initially told the families that they were killed in an enemy ambush while on patrol outside Baghdad, two years ago today.

The military acknowledged Wednesday the June 2004 deaths of Army Spc. Patrick R. McCaffrey Sr., 34, of Tracy, and 2nd Lt. Andre D. Tyson, 33, of Riverside, were originally attributed to an ambush during a patrol near Balad, Iraq.

Military officials visited Tyson’s family on Tuesday and McCaffrey’s on Wednesday to deliver the report, which was completed on Sept. 30, 2005, according to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. She called the nine-month delay troubling.1

“If the American people knew that the people we are directly helping train turned on our soldiers, support for this war would slip,” Boxer said. “It’s very disturbing to think that the Pentagon might be told to keep this kind of thing close to the vest.”

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed the news on Wednesday.

“There was a time gap, no doubt about it,” Army spokesman Paul Boyce said. “The Army regrets any delay in notifying the family, and we took immediate steps to do so once those facts were determined.”

A Pentagon official who did not want to be quoted by name said Wednesday that one Iraqi has been arrested and will be prosecuted for the killings, while another suspect is believed dead.

A cadre of high-ranking officers personally apologized to the mother of one soldier for the delay Wednesday, but didn’t provide much new information, Nadia McCaffrey said.

“The most stunning thing I saw and heard today was that I told them some of the details that I had almost since the day my son was killed, and they didn’t have any idea about it. They didn’t know. They had never heard of it,” she said.

While saying she doesn’t know why information was not released sooner, Boxer added: “The only thing I can think of is that there may well have been a desire not to let the families know, not to let the public know, that the very people we’re helping and training are turning on the military — because it would decrease support for the war.

Critics said the delay in sharing the truth has caused more pain for the soldiers’ relatives and could lead other families to mistrust the military’s handling of their own loved ones’ deaths.

“The tragic part of it is that they’re making the situation worse,” said Mary Tillman, mother of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a former NFL star who died in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004.

Officials initially said Tillman was killed while fighting heroically against Taleban troops. They waited until after a nationally televised memorial service to reveal that he had been shot by members of his own unit.

Officials are continuing to investigate what happened, under pressure from Tillman’s family and congressional representatives.

Bob McCaffrey, one of the soldier’s father, told the media of his anger regarding Wednesday’s announcements: “This war was started on a lie, and they continue to lie to the American public,” he said. “They’re putting a lot of media spin on how well the Iraqi” civil defense “forces are doing.”

Military experts caution that the “fog of war” can make it difficult to determine exactly what happened in combat. In past wars, many cases of “friendly fire” went unreported, Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has studied and written about the armed forces, told journalists.

The awkward news of the soldiers’ deaths only added fuel to fire over when US troops should leave Iraq in Congress.

The GOP-controlled Senate was poised to vote yesterday on two Democratic proposals to start redeploying US troops from Iraq this year, a week after both houses of Congress soundly rejected withdrawal timetables.

Republicans argued yesterday that the United States must stay put to help the fledgling Iraqi government while Democrats demanded the Bush Administration make clear that American forces won’t be in Iraq forever.

“We must give them that support and not send a signal that we’re going to pull possibly the rug out from under them,” Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said.

“It is time to tell the Iraqis that we have done what we can do militarily,” Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., answered.

Both proposals — offered as amendments to an annual military bill — were expected to be defeated, mostly along partisan lines.