Story Update Number Two

There's an update to this story. It's the story about the story that Scott Thomas Beauchamp wrote in the New Republic. Beauchamp wrote about some nasty things that he saw when he was in Iraq. As Talkingpointsmemo points out:

This brought forth a storm of charges from the right-wing blogs and the Weekly Standard claiming that the diaries were fabrications. Then TNR did its own reinvestigation of the diaries and found that with the exception of one error, the stories checked out.

The story links to this one, by Howard Kurtz, at the Washington Post.

Army investigators have concluded that the private whose dispatches for the New Republic accused his fellow soldiers of petty cruelties in Iraq was not telling the truth.

The finding, disclosed yesterday, came days after the Washington-based magazine announced that it had corroborated the claims of the private, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, except for one significant error.

"An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by Pvt. Beauchamp were found to be false," an Army statement said. "His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims."

But New Republic Editor Franklin Foer is standing his ground. "We've talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account," Foer said. The magazine granted anonymity to the other soldiers it cited.

Kurtz doesn't say that the "disclosure" was to The Weekly Standard and just The Weekly Standard. But things get a little muddier. From TPM:

The Weekly Standard, which has been leading the charge against Beauchamp, says another unnamed military official told the magazine that not only had the Army found Beauchamp's written accounts to be false but that Beauchamp himself has now signed a recantation of all his claims. So case closed; he fessed up. Yet when TNR contacted the Army public affairs a Maj. Steve Lamb told them: "I have no knowledge of that."

Huh?

Beauchamp makes his charges. The US Army allegedly investigates and finds the highly embarrassing charges to be false. But no information will be released about which of his charges were false, how they were false or how they were determined to be false.

Kurtz drives right down the middle:

Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at George Washington University, called the Army's refusal to release its report "suspect," adding: "There is a cloud over the New Republic, but there's one hanging over the Army, as well. Each investigated this and cleared themselves, but they both have vested interests."

Maybe Beauchamp was lying. But the Army, keeping all aspects of the investigation - details, context and conclusions - under wraps, hardly inspires any confidence.