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Revision as of 03:08, 26 October 2007
The Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy concerns the publication of a series of diaries by Scott Thomas Beauchamp (b. 1983 St. Louis, Missouri) - a private in the United States Army, serving in the Iraq War, and a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.
In the The New Republic, under the pen name "Scott Thomas", Beauchamp filed three entries about serving at Forward operating base Falcon, Baghdad. These entries concerned alleged misconduct by soldiers, including Beauchamp, during the US post invasion Iraq involvement.
Several conservative publications and bloggers questioned Beauchamp's statements. The New Republic investigated and concluded the statements were true, excepting the setting of one that was later said to have occurred prior to combat in Kuwait rather than during combat in Iraq. The U.S. Army investigated and concluded the statements were false. As of August 2007, both parties held to their respective conclusions.
"Shock Troops"
In a diary entry in The New Republic, Beauchamp claims he ridiculed a woman in Iraq whose face had been severely burned: "I love chicks that have been intimate with IEDs" (improvised explosive devices), Beauchamp quotes himself as saying, loudly, to his friends in the chow hall. "It really turns me on -- melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses," he recounted. "My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing...The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall."
Next, he described finding the remains of children in a mass grave uncovered while his unit constructed a combat outpost: "One private...found the top part of a human skull... As he marched around with the skull on his head, people dropped shovels and sandbags, folding in half with laughter...No one was disgusted. Me included."
Finally, Beauchamp described another soldier "who only really enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles because it gave him the opportunity to run things over. He took out curbs, concrete barriers, corners of buildings, stands in the market, and his favorite target: dogs." Beauchamp described how the soldier killed three dogs in one day: "He slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks."
"Baghdad Diarist"
After the publication of "Shock Troops", The Weekly Standard, and The National Review questioned the veracity of Beauchamp's statements. As the controversy continued, The Washington Post reported that Beauchamp did not provide documentation for his three published columns.
In a follow-up posting on The New Republic, Beauchamp objected to charges of falsification: "It's been maddening...to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join."
New Republic editor Franklin Foer disclosed that Beauchamp is married to Elspeth Reeve, a New Republic reporter and fact checker, and that his relationship with Reeve was "part of the reason why we found him to be a credible writer." Accused of insufficient fact-checking, the magazine had, according to Foer, planned to "re-report every detail", but the magazine later stated that their investigation was "short circuited" after the Army severed Beauchamp's communications with anyone overseas.
New Republic investigation
In an August 2 statement, after an internal investigation, editors for The New Republic defended Beauchamp's statements, with one exception - that the conversation about the disfigured woman had occurred at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, not Iraq, an error for which The New Republic apologized to its readers. According to the statement, five anonymous members of Beauchamp's company had also confirmed the other aspects of Beauchamp's entry.
We...spoke with current and former soldiers, forensic experts, and other journalists who have covered the war extensively. And we sought assistance from Army Public Affairs officers. Most important, we spoke with five other members of Beauchamp's company, and all corroborated Beauchamp's anecdotes, which they witnessed or, in the case of one solider, heard about contemporaneously. (All of the soldiers we interviewed who had first-hand knowledge of the episodes requested anonymity.)
The statement continued to say that the Army's investigation had impeded their own investigation, because communication with Beauchamp had been cut off, and "his fellow soldiers no longer feel comfortable communicating with reporters...If further substantive information comes to light, TNR will, of course, share it with you." The New Republic's Jason Zengerle was told by the Army there was no evidence of a horribly burned woman at a Kuwait base camp after the magazine published its Editor's Note on the matter. Peter Scoblic, executive editor of TNR, has stated to Beauchamp directly that "I understand why there are questions being raised about the piece".
Military investigation
The Weekly Standard writer Michael Goldfarb emailed Col. Steve Boylan asking for whatever information he could provide regarding the status of the investigation of Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Here is his response: "We are not preventing him from speaking to TNR or anyone. He has full access to the Morale Welfare and Recreation (MWR) phones that all the other members of the unit are free to use. It is my understanding that he has been informed of the requests to speak to various members of the media, both traditional and non-traditional and has declined. That is his right. We will not nor can we force a Soldier to talk to the media or his family or anyone really for that matter in these types of issues."
An Army investigation concluded the allegations made by Beauchamp were false. Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post reported that the Army statement said "His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims."
A military official, who asked not to be identified because the probe is confidential, said no charges were filed against Beauchamp. Instead, the official said, the matter is being handled administratively, with Beauchamp punished by having his cellphone and laptop confiscated for an undetermined period.
A military official said Beauchamp had committed two violations, making false statements and not obtaining permission to publish the articles, which were written under the name Scott Thomas.
The Army statement did not specify what were described as Beauchamp's falsehoods and does not plan to make its report public.
On August 9, 2007, A spokesman for the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division clarified the results of the Army investigation in an e-mail interview with the Associated Press:
During that investigation, all the soldiers from his unit refuted all statements that Pvt. Beauchamp made in his blog.
A July 31 2007 memorandum from Major John D. Cross, the Investigatiing Officer, entitled "Legal Review of AR 15-6 Investigation Regarding Allegations of Soldier Misconduct Published in The New Republic" found:
- That the incident of blatant disrespect for a disfigured woman in the FOB Falcon DFAC is a tale completely fabricated by Private Beauchamp.
- That the descration of human remains and the discover of a "Saddam-era dumping ground" is false.
- That the deliberate targeting of wild dogs is completely unfound.
- That Private Beauchamp desired to use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemmingway.
- That Private Beauchamp is not a credible source for making the allegation he wrote about in "Shock Troops." He admitted that he was not an eyewitness to the targeting of dogs and only saw animal bones during the construction of Combat Outpost Ellis. Combined with the piece of fiction that he wrote on 8 May 2006 on his blog, I find that Private Beauchamp takes small bits of truth and twists and exaggerates them into fictional account that he puts forth as the whole truth for public consumption.
In a "Memorandum of Concern" the commandng officer of Beauchamp's battalion, Lieutenant Colonel George A. Glaze, wrote in part:
The New Republic published an article, authored by you, under your pen name, Scott Thomas. This article contained gross exaggerations and inaccurate allegations of misconduct by Vanguard Soldiers. Your article discredited the service of your fellow Vanguard Soldiers and comrades at arms. Between January 2006 and September 2006, you published sensitive information about your unit's deployment dates on your personal web log. By placing this sensitive information in the public domain, you jeopardized the live of Vanguard Soldiers and the Vanguard mission.
Dispute over alleged recantation
On August 6, 2007, the Weekly Standard's blog reported that Scott Thomas Beauchamp recanted under oath to Army investigators.
On August 7, The New Republic reported
"We've talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army spokesman Major Steven F. Lamb and asked about an anonymously sourced allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, he told us, 'I have no knowledge of that.' He added, 'If someone is speaking anonymously , they are on their own.' When we pressed Lamb for details on the Army investigation, he told us, 'We don't go into the details of how we conduct our investigations.'"
On October 24, 2007, the Drudge Report website published the transcript of a phone call that occurred on September 7 2007 between Beauchamp and senior TNR staff, including Franklin Foer. In this conversation, Beauchamp refused to verify the accuracy of his reports, despite pressure from Foer to do so. Foer asserts that Beauchamp did not recant his story and claims that independent, anonymous sources have backed up Beauchamps's charges and therefore TNR will not retract the stories.
Hours later, according to the October 24 New York Observer, the documents were no longer available at the Drudge Report. A search on the term "Beauchamp" on October 27 revealed no documents. The original newsflash, however, was archived under the topic "New Republic" here. The links to the documents no longer worked and there was no explanation of their removal of the documents. The conservative National Review Online posted the documents, however:
Kathryn Jean Lopez, NRO's editor questioned the accuracy of Drudge's characterization of the New Republic interview as a recantation.
Michael Goldfarb and the Weekly Standard are standing by the story. The Weekly Standard is reporting that one of the anonymous military experts consulted by TNR is refuting Beauchamp's allegations regarding Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
“We are not going into the details of the investigation,” Maj. Steven F. Lamb, deputy public affairs officer in Baghdad, wrote in an e-mail message. “The allegations are false, platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made.”
See Also
References
- "A Statement From Scott Thomas Beauchamp". The Plank. The New Republic. 2007-07-26. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Cohen, Patricia (2007-07-28). "Shedding Pen Name, Private Says He's 'Baghdad Diarist'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Thomas, Scott (2007-07-23). "Shock Troops". The New Republic. p. 56. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Preston, Bryan (2007-07-28). "The Beauchamp story: Why we care". Hot Air. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Goldfarb, Michael (2007-07-31). "Reporting From FOB Falcon". Worldwide Standard. The Weekly Standard. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Kurtz, Howard (2007-07-27). "Army Private Discloses He Is New Republic's Baghdad Diarist". The Washington Post. p. C07. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "A Statement on Scott Thomas Beauchamp". The New Republic Online. The New Republic. 2007-08-02. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Kurtz, Howard (2007-08-03). "Editors Confirm Soldier's Claims". The Washington Post. p. C02. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - John Podhoretz, The Corner, National Review, August 6, 2007
- "Transcript of Conversation, Scott Thomas Beauchamp and The New Republic", U.S. Army, July 17, 2007. Posted at the website of National Review, October 24, 2007.
- "The Army Responds". The Weekly Standard. 2007-08-11. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Kurtz, Howard (2007-08-08). "Army Concludes Baghdad Diarist Accounts Untrue". The Washington Post. p. C01. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - John Milburn and Ellen Simon (2007-08-09). "New Republic Iraq Stories Questioned". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Goldfarb, Michael (2007-08-06). "Beauchamp Recants". Worldwide Standard. The Weekly Standard. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Howard Kurtz (2007-10-25). "Baghdad Diarist Was On Guard When Questioned by Editors". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
- Goldfarb, Michael (2007-08-07). "Beauchamp Recants: Update". Worldwide Standard. The Weekly Standard. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Weekly Standard, August 8, 2007
- Weekly Standard, August 9, 2007
- New York Times, Army Says Soldier’s Articles for Magazine Were False, August 8, 2007
External links
- "Letters from Iraq land MU alum in a jam". Columbia Daily Tribune. 27 July 2007.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "Army disputes MU alum's war claims". Columbia Daily Tribune. 7 August 2007.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "Magazine, military clash over MU alum's reports". Columbia Daily Tribune. 11 August 2007.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)