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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 2007, using the pen name "Scott Thomas", Beauchamp filed three entries in The New Republic (TNR) about serving at forward operating base Falcon, Baghdad. These entries concerned alleged misconduct by soldiers, including Beauchamp, in post-invasion Iraq.

Several publications and bloggers questioned Beauchamp's statements. A U.S. Army investigation had concluded the statements in the material were false. The New Republic investigated the statements, first standing by the content of Beauchamp's articles for several months, then concluding that they could no longer stand by this material.

"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", neocon outlets ranging from The Weekly Standard to National Review questioned the veracity of Beauchamp's statements. For example, The Weekly Standard reported that one of the anonymous military experts consulted by TNR refuted Beauchamp's allegations regarding Bradley Fighting Vehicles. 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 was married to Elle Reeve, a former 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 soldier, 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".

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 Investigating 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. (The New Republic issued a correction saying the story took place in Kuwait, not Iraq.)
• That the desecration of human remains and the discovery of a "Saddam-era dumping ground" is false.
• That the deliberate targeting of wild dogs is completely unfounded.
• 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 commanding 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 lives of Vanguard Soldiers and the Vanguard mission.

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.'

Michael Goldfarb and the Weekly Standard stood by the story.

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 affirm the accuracy of his reports, despite pressure from Foer to do so. Foer confirmed the accuracy of the transcript, but asserted that Beauchamp did not recant his story and claimed that independent, anonymous sources have backed up Beauchamps's charges and therefore TNR will not retract the stories. Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online's editor also questioned the accuracy of Drudge's characterization of The New Republic interview as a recantation.

Hours later, the documents were no longer available at the Drudge Report. National Review Online posted the documents on its website. These documents, and other details of the Army investigation, in spite of being confirmed by National Review as real, were not officially released. "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."

The New Republic "cannot stand by these stories"

A December 2007 article by Franklin Foer lengthily addresses the issues of the controversy, concluding:

In retrospect, we never should have put Beauchamp in this situation. He was a young soldier in a war zone, an untried writer without journalistic training. We published his accounts of sensitive events while granting him the shield of anonymity—which, in the wrong hands, can become license to exaggerate, if not fabricate. When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

See also

• John E. Hatley – Beauchamp's First Sergeant, later convicted of war crimes
• Duke lacrosse case
• Journalism ethics and standards
• A Rape on Campus

References

1. "A Statement From Scott Thomas Beauchamp". The Plank. The New Republic. 2007-07-26. Archived from the original on 2007-08-14. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
2. ^ Cohen, Patricia (2007-07-28). "Shedding Pen Name, Private Says He's 'Baghdad Diarist'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
3. Thomas, Scott (2007-07-23). "Shock Troops". The New Republic. p. 56. Archived from the original on 2007-10-02. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
4. Goldfarb, Michael (2007-07-31). "Reporting From FOB Falcon". Worldwide Standard. The Weekly Standard. Archived from the original on August 10, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
5. Weekly Standard, August 9, 2007
6. Kurtz, Howard (2007-07-27). "Army Private Discloses He Is New Republic's Baghdad Diarist". The Washington Post. p. C07. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
7. ^ "A Statement on Scott Thomas Beauchamp". The New Republic Online. The New Republic. 2007-08-02. Archived from the original on 2007-08-14. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
8. Kurtz, Howard (2007-08-03). "Editors Confirm Soldier's Claims". The Washington Post. p. C02. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
9. John Podhoretz, The Corner, National Review, August 6, 2007
10. "Transcript of Conversation, Scott Thomas Beauchamp and The New Republic" Archived 2008-03-06 at the Wayback Machine, U.S. Army, July 17, 2007. Posted at the website of National Review, October 24, 2007.
11. John Milburn and Ellen Simon (2007-08-09). "New Republic Iraq Stories Questioned". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
12. "Memorandum" (PDF). Legal Review. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
13. Goldfarb, Michael (2007-08-06). "Beauchamp Recants". Worldwide Standard. The Weekly Standard. Archived from the original on August 9, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-08.
14. ^ Franklin Foer. "Fog of War". The New Republic. December, 2007.
15. Goldfarb, Michael (2007-08-07). "Beauchamp Recants: Update". Worldwide Standard. The Weekly Standard. Archived from the original on August 12, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-08.; Weekly Standard, August 8, 2007
16. Howard Kurtz (2007-10-25). "Baghdad Diarist Was On Guard When Questioned by Editors". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-10-25.
17. The Corner on National Review Online
18. October 24 New York Observer Archived 2007-10-26 at the Wayback Machine; only the archive of the original newsflash remained here.
19. New Republic Transcript Part 1 Archived 2008-03-06 at the Wayback Machine; New Republic Transcript Part 2 Archived 2008-03-06 at the Wayback Machine; Army investigation Archived 2008-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
20. Army Says Soldier's Articles for Magazine Were False, The New York Times, August 8, 2007

External links

• "Letters from Iraq land MU alum in a jam". Columbia Daily Tribune. 27 July 2007.
• "Army disputes MU alum's war claims". Columbia Daily Tribune. 7 August 2007. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
• "Magazine, military clash over MU alum's reports". Columbia Daily Tribune. 11 August 2007.
• Transcript of Beauchamp, Foer, and Peter Scoblic (PDF)

v t e Iraq War (2003–2011)
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Overview Key events Invasion (2003) Occupation (2003–2011) Insurgency 2003–06 period Anbar campaign Fallujah Capture of Saddam Hussein Interrogation Trial Execution / Reactions 2006 al-Askari mosque bombing Civil war (2006–08) 2007 U.S. troop surge timeline U.S. withdrawal Status of forces agreement Invasion (2003) Timeline Preparations for invasion Multi-National Force Battle of Nasiriyah Fall of Baghdad Battle of Debecka Pass Firdos Square statue Mission Accomplished speech US public opinion Occupation (2003–2011) Occupation of Ramadi De-Ba'athification 100 Orders CPA Order 2 CPA Order 17 U.S. military bases Blackwater Reconstruction Development Fund Economic reform UNAMI Al Qa'qaa high explosives U.S. kill or capture strategy Replacement governments Coalition Provisional Authority Iraqi Governing Council Interim Government 2005 parliamentary elections Transitional Government Constitution Ratification
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Battles and operations Operations 2003 Ancient Babylon Catalyst Desert Scorpion Desert Thrust Falconer Iron Hammer Iron Justice Ivy Blizzard Northern Delay Airborne Dragon Panther Squeeze Peninsula Strike Planet X Capture of Saddam Hussein (Red Dawn) Telic 2004 Baton Rouge Bulldog Mammoth Iron Saber New Dawn (Al Fajr) Phantom Fury Phantom Linebacker Plymouth Rock Vigilant Resolve Warrior's Rage 2005 Able Rising Force Able Warrior Cyclone Iron Hammer Matador New Market Spear (Romhe) Squeeze Play Steel Curtain 2006 Al Majid Gaugamela Guardian Tiger Iron Triangle River Falcon Sinbad Swarmer Together Forward 2007 Alljah Arbead II Ardennes Black Eagle Commando Eagle Forsythe Park Imposing Law Leyte Gulf Marne Avalanche Marne Torch Mawtini Phantom Strike Phantom Thunder Polar Tempest Purple Haze Saber Guardian Sledgehammer Stampede 3 Tiger Hammer Valiant Guardian (Harris Ba'sil) 2008 Defeat Al Qaeda in the North Augurs of Prosperity Phantom Phoenix 2009–2011 New Dawn Battles 2003 Invasion Umm Qasr Al Faw Basra I Nasiriyah Karbala I Haditha Dam Najaf I Samawah I Karbala II Al Kut Hillah Karbala Gap Debecka Pass Baghdad I Majar al-Kabir Ramadan Offensive 2004 Spring fighting Karbala City Hall Fallujah I Siege of Sadr City Ramadi I Good Friday ambush Baghdad International Airport Husaybah Danny Boy Najaf II CIMIC House Samarra Fallujah II Mosul 2005 Lake Tharthar Abu Ghraib Al-Qa'im Hit convoy Haditha Tal Afar 2006 Baghdad II Ramadi II Diwaniya Al Rumaythah Amarah Turki 2007 Haifa Street Karbala provincial HQ Najaf III Shurta Nasir Basra II Baqubah Route Bismarck Donkey Island Karbala III 2008 Spring fighting Iraqi Day of Ashura Nineveh Basra III Al-Qaeda offensive 2009–2011 Palm Grove (2010) Related events Turkish incursions into northern Iraq 2007 2008 Abu Kamal raid
War crimes Occupation forces Killings and massacres During the 2003 invasion U.S. killings of journalists Fallujah killings Killing of Nadhem Abdullah (2003) Murder of Muhamad Husain Kadir Mukaradeeb wedding party massacre (2004) Haifa Street helicopter incident (2005) Tal Afar shootings (2005) Basra prison incident (2005) Haditha massacre (2005) Mahmudiyah rape and killings (2006) Ishaqi massacre (2006) Baghdad detainee killings (2006) Hamdania incident (2006) Iraqi bodyguard killing (2006) Iron Triangle Murders (2006) Baghdad airstrike (2007) Nisour Square massacre (2007) Iraq War Logs (2010) Chemical weapons Use of white phosphorus by the United States (2004–05) Torture and abuse Abu Ghraib prison (2003–06) Camp Bucca (2003–09) Camp Nama (2003–04) Balad Air Base (2003–2011) Death of Nagem Hatab (2003) Killing of Baha Mousa (2003) Death of Abed Hamed Mowhoush (2003) Killing of Manadel al-Jamadi (2003) Death of Fashad Mohamed (2004) § Other killings and bombings 2003 Jordanian embassy Canal Hotel Imam Ali mosque bombing Baghdad October 2003 2004 Erbil 2004 Ashura massacre Basra 2004 Mosul 2004 2004 church bombings Baghdad bombings 14 September 30 September Karbala and Najaf bombings Baqubah 2004 Kufa mosque bombing 2005 Al Hillah 2005 Erbil 2005 Musayyib bombing Baghdad bombings August September Balad 2005 Khanaqin bombings 2006 Karbala and Ramadi Al-Askari mosque 2006 Buratha mosque bombing Sadr City bombings July November Hayy Al-Jihad massacre 2007 Mustansiriya University Baghdad bombings 22 January 3 February 12 February 18 February 29 March 18 April 26 July 1 August Al Hillah 2007 Tal Afar 2007 Iraqi Parliament 2007 Karbala mosque bombings Massacres of Yazidis April massacre Qahtaniyah bombings Makhmour Abu Sayda Al-Askari mosque 2007 Al-Khilani mosque bombing Amirli bombing Kirkuk 2007 Al Amarah bombings 2008 Bagdad bombings February March June Balad 2008 Karbala 2008 Al-Karmah Dujail bombing Balad Ruz bombing Attacks on Christians in Mosul 2009 Bagdad bombings March 6 April June August October December Baghdad–Miqdadiyah Taza bombing Kirkuk 2009 Tal Afar 2009 2010 Nationwide attacks 10 May 25 August Bagdad bombings January February April August September November Baqubah 2010 Baghdad church massacre 2011 Nationwide attacks January August Bagdad bombings January August October Arba'een bombings Tikrit assault Al Hillah 2011 Samarra bombing Al Diwaniyah bombing Taji bombings Karbala 2011 Basra 2011 Other war crimes Raid on Camp Ashraf (2011) Archaeological looting Chlorine bombings Torture by the Wolf Brigade (2004–2011) Prosecution United States and the International Criminal Court Hague Invasion Act Prosecution for the 2003 invasion Abtan v. Blackwater Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Saleh v. Bush Taguba Report § All attacks listed in this group were either committed by insurgents, or have unknown perpetrators
Impact General Casualties Iraq Body Count Iraq Family Health Survey Lancet surveys ORB survey Damage to Baghdad Al-Aimmah Bridge disaster Human rights Humanitarian crisis 2007 cholera outbreak Financial cost Refugees Iraqi Christians Mandaeans Violence against Iraqi academics Political controversies Post-invasion WMD conjecture Iraq scandal in Finland Dixie Chicks comments Plame affair Hood event Death of David Kelly Hutton Inquiry Kidnapping of Angelo dela Cruz 2004 document leak Al Jazeera bombing memo Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy MoveOn.org ad controversy Six Days in Fallujah Role of Canada War resisters Investigations Senate Report on WMD Intelligence Duelfer Report Chilcot Inquiry Reactions Pre-war Pre-war international reactions Khuy Voyne! Saddam Hussein interview Views on the invasion U.S. public opinion Opposition Criticism United Nations Oprah's Anti-war series Iraqi map pendant Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Photo Op A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq Bush shoe-throwing incident Protests Halloween 2002 February 15, 2003 March 20, 2003 Bring Them Home Now Tour January 20, 2005 September 24, 2005 January 27, 2007 March 17, 2007 2007 Port of Tacoma September 15, 2007 March 19, 2008 Aftermath in Iraq The rise of ISIL Insurgency (2011–13) War in Iraq (2013–17) War against ISIL (2014–present) U.S.-led intervention in Iraq (2014–2021) Insurgency (2017–present)
Miscellaneous Terminology Axis of evil Outposts of tyranny "Baghdad Bob" "Chemical Ali" Coalition of the willing Dead checking Embedded journalism Freedom fries Friedman Unit "Mother of All Bombs" "Mrs. Anthrax" Old Europe and New Europe Regime change Shock and awe "Sixteen Words" "Smoking gun / mushroom cloud" Star Spangled Ice Cream Strategic reset "There are unknown unknowns" Triangle of Death "Yo, Blair" Critical Global arrogance Inverted totalitarianism "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time" Memorials Afghan–Iraqi Freedom Memorial (Salem, Oregon) Al-Shaheed Monument Iraq and Afghanistan Memorial (London) Northwood Gratitude and Honor Memorial Old North Memorial Garden Saving Iraqi Culture Lists Assassinations Aviation shootdowns and accidents Bombings Coalition military operations Documentaries Iraqi security forces fatality reports Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards Private contractor deaths Timeline 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Related Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Chelsea Manning CIA black sites Efforts to impeach George W. Bush "Enhanced interrogation techniques" Torture in the United States Extraordinary rendition Green Zone Guantanamo Bay detention camp Gulf of Tonkin incident Resolution Military–industrial complex Neoconservatism Patriot Act Petrodollar warfare theory Post-9/11 Special Relationship The Iraq War: A Historiography of Misplaced Pages Changelogs Unilateralism Unitary executive theory U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East WikiLeaks Ba'ath Party archives
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