Updated and bumped: Oops, looks like TNR's claims about the Army preventing them from talking to Beauchamp are ... uh, like some other things TNR has apparently published, false.
We are not stonewalling anyone. There are official statements that are out there are on the record from several of us and nothing has changed.
We are not preventing him from speaking to TNR or anyone. He has full access to the Morale Welfare and Recreation 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.
TNR recently claimed something quite different:
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."
At the same time the military has stonewalled our efforts to get to the truth.
I remembered it when I first posted on TNR's latest, linked below. But I had to go back and see where it first appeared. Contrast these two statements from TNR on the Beauchamp affair. Small points, perhaps - but here's what I don't get. Foer said nothing about several statements to Kurtz and he said nothing about any pressure from the Army on Beauchamp to sign (it) them. More importantly, were you an editor in Foer's situation with an obviously immature twenty-something source in Iraq who told you he signed several statements under pressure but they didin't contradict his diary, would you find that plausible? And why would there be any pressure if you weren't being asked to recant? Pressure to do what, confirm what you already wrote? It just doesn't make sense.
TNR: 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.
WaPo, in part quoting Foer: it is common practice for the subject of an investigation to sign a statement confirming or denying the conduct in question.
Foer said the New Republic had asked Maj. Steven Lamb, an Army spokesman, about the allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, and that Lamb had replied: "I have no knowledge of that." Before going incommunicado, Beauchamp "told us that he signed a statement that did not contradict his writings for the New Republic," Foer said.
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