SAN DIEGO — Editor's note: This article has been updated to include statements from Duncan Hunter Sr.
Former U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter Jr. is making national headlines again, this time for a deadly, friendly-fire incident in 2004 during the Iraq war.
Hunter is the focus of a new NPR podcast, Taking Cover, a seven-part series of investigative reports.
NPR investigative producer, Graham Smith, and NPR pentagon correspondent, Tom Bowman, spent three years chasing down information in the case.
Bowman said it all began as a tip he received from a reliable source, who told him about a friendly-fire mortar strike that killed two marines and an Iraqi interpreter inside a schoolhouse in Fallujah.
“We’re sitting in a whiskey bar in Washington, DC and he said there was this friendly-fire incident back in 2004, during the first battle of Fallujah, and it was covered up because the son of a powerful politician was involved. That politician was Duncan Hunter Sr., then chairman of the Armed Services Committee,” recalled Bowman.
Duncan Hunter Sr. and Duncan Hunter Jr. are both former U.S. congressmen from the East County.
In 2004, Duncan Hunter Jr. was a Marine lieutenant in Fallujah, Iraq, stationed in a control center, involved in making decisions on where to fire mortars at enemy positions, the podcasters said.
“We have the investigative report that we got from the widow of one of the men who was killed. It has a statement written by Duncan Hunter [Jr.], where he says he plotted this target on the map, he pushed in a yellow pin at the spot of the target near the schoolhouse,” said Smith.
For three years, the families of the men killed didn't know the incident was the result of friendly fire.
“It's like it never happened. And so, we started digging into it. We went to the Marines and said, have you investigated this? And the Marines said, we can't find any mention of this in any investigative report,” said Bowman.
None of the officers involved, including Duncan Hunter Jr. were disciplined, according to the NPR report.
“The bottom line is, he [Hunter] got away scot-free. He was never punished in any way. Those who were punished, those punishments were brushed aside by a general named Jim Mattis, who later of course, became defense secretary under President Trump," Bowman said.
The investigation revealed mistakes were made in mapping out the target of the mortar attack and the location of Marines nearby, and strongly implies there was a government cover-up of the incident because the son of a congressman was involved.
“Duncan Hunter Jr. was involved here. And one of the big questions is, why wasn’t he cited at all?,” Bowman said.
CBS 8 reached out to Duncan Hunter Sr., and Jr., but they did not respond to messages seeking comment.
After this report aired, former US Congressmen Duncan Hunter Sr. contacted CBS 8 to comment on the friendly-fire incident in 2004 involving his son, Duncan Hunter Jr.
“The official report did not find Duncan Hunter at fault. It did find three other people at fault. But the charges against them were dropped," Duncan Hunter Sr. said.
"They shot [the mortar] at a coordinate where the bad guys were, it fell 100 yards away and killed the Marines. You have an investigative report that clears Duncan… It did not attach blame to Mr. Hunter, but to three other Marines. Their discipline was later dropped by General Mattis,” said Hunter Sr.
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