Despite the fact that the Army has proven Scotty’s stories to be false, TNR still has this “update” on their website as of Monday August 13.

For several weeks now, questions have been raised about Scott Beauchamp’s Baghdad Diarist “Shock Troops.” While many of these questions have been formulated by people with ideological agendas, we recognize that there are legitimate concerns about journalistic accuracy. We at The New Republic take these concerns extremely seriously. This is why we have sought to re-report the story, in the process speaking with five soldiers in Beauchamp’s company who substantiate the events described in Beauchamp’s essay.

Indeed, we continue to investigate the anecdotes recounted in the Baghdad Diarist. Unfortunately, our efforts have been severely hampered by the U.S. Army. Although the Army says it has investigated Beauchamp’s article and has found it to be false, it has refused our–and others’–requests to share any information or evidence from its investigation. What’s more, the Army has rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants “to protect his privacy.”

Actually, what the Army told these little jackoffs is that non-judicial-punishment is kept private. They have not decided to take this action against him yet, but if they do, it will not be made public. The other fact is that the Army did share certain info. They told the press that they have found no evidence that any of Scotty’s articles had a grain of truth.

At the same time the military has stonewalled our efforts to get to the truth, it has leaked damaging information about Beauchamp to conservative bloggers. Earlier this week, The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb published a report, based on a single anonymous “military source close to the investigation,” entitled “Beauchamp Recants,” claiming that Beauchamp “signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods–fabrications containing only ‘a smidgen of truth,’ in the words of our source.”

Here’s what we know: On July 26, Beauchamp told us that he signed several statements under what he described as pressure from the Army. He told us that these statements did not contradict his articles. Moreover, on the same day he signed these statements for the Army, he gave us a statement standing behind his articles, which we published at tnr.com. Goldfarb has written, “It’s pretty clear the New Republic is standing by a story that even the author does not stand by.” In fact, it is our understanding that Beauchamp continues to stand by his stories and insists that he has not recanted them. The Army, meanwhile, has refused our requests to see copies of the statements it obtained from Beauchamp–or even to publicly acknowledge that they exist.

What they fail to mention here is that science contradicts Scotty’s articles. His little story about running over the dogs is impossible because the vehicle can’t actually do what Scotty claimed it was doing.

Scott Beauchamp is currently a 23-year-old soldier in Iraq who, for the past 15 days, has been prevented by the military from communicating with the outside world, aside from three brief and closely monitored phone calls to family members. Our investigation has not thus far uncovered factual evidence (aside from one key detail) to discount his personal dispatches. And we cannot simply dismiss the corroborating accounts of the five soldiers with whom we spoke.

You complain about anonymous sources in one paragraph, and then quote them as fact in another. Now I see the light.

Part of our integrity as journalists includes standing by a writer who has been accused of wrongdoing and who is not able to defend himself. But we also want to reassure our readers that our obligations to our writer would never trump our commitment to the truth. We once again invite the Army to make public Beauchamp’s statements and the details of its investigation–and we ask the Army to let us (or any other media outlet, for that matter) speak to Beauchamp. Unless and until these things happen, we cannot fairly assess any of these reports about Beauchamp–and therefore have no reason to change our own assessment of Beauchamp’s work. If the truth ends up reflecting poorly on our judgment, we will accept responsibility for that. But we also refuse to rush to judgment on our writer or ourselves.

Scotty is not being prevented from calling you. He has simply chosen not to do so. The Army cannot prevent him from contacting you unless they confine him. So unless he is in the brig, you are lying again. Unless they have actually locked him up, he will have access to phones and computers. If what you say about talking to 5 soldiers in his unit is true, then you could easily contact one of them and ask if he has been confined. You are aware that you can do this because you wrote this update 3 days ago and it took me all of 1 minute to come up with this brilliant idea of going back to your own sources to get information. The fact that you have not attempted to do so is further evidence that you are lying.

Just so you are aware, you are lying about the US Army in a time of war. You are in fact hurling false allegations about their conduct in this war. Some might call that obstruction.

Some Related Articles.

Beauchamp Less Of A Human Being? By Matt Sanchez

Army Says Soldier’s Articles for Magazine Were False

Beauchamp Chronicles: Keeping the vacationing New Republic editors up to date

When Hidden Experts Are Found