My rigorous fact-checking confirms Scott Beauchamp's stories

Sublime Bloviations can now reveal that everything that Scott Beauchamp wrote was perfectly true. We have conducted our own investigation, communicating via Haloscan with one of Beauchamp's co-workers.

I work with Scott Thomas Beauchamp on a regular basis. he has helped me in more ways than one! We have gone through alot of the same things and have been there by each others sides and helped keep our heads up. I can honestly say that everything he wrote was completely true. As for the other comments about this great and wonderful man, is a complete outrage. Half of these people have no idea what happens in Good'ol Iraq. I my self have witnessed everything has writen about. He is one of my best friends and would trust my life with him any day. He is an oustanding person and a great husband. To slander his name for telling the truth about something is completely uncalled for. Unless you were then and know exactly what happened. then your comments mean shit!
(Anonymous)

There you have it. Chew on that, Weekly Standard.

The IP address stemmed from Virginia, for what it's worth.

Kevin Drum not quite up to analyzing TNR fact check

SCOTT THOMAS FOLLOWUP....Remember Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the soldier in Iraq who wrote a piece last month for the New Republic in which he recounted stories of (a) mocking a disfigured woman, (b) a fellow soldier who wore a piece of a child's skull he had found, and (c) another fellow soldier who ran over dogs with his Bradley fighting vehicle? Well, TNR has just put up their investigation into Beauchamp's piece, which included talking with "current and former soldiers, forensic experts, and other journalists who have covered the war extensively, [and] five other members of Beauchamp's company."

The result? They "all corroborated Beauchamp's anecdotes, which they witnessed or, in the case of one solider, heard about contemporaneously." The only error they uncovered was that one of the incidents apparently took place at an Army base in Kuwait, not Iraq.
(CBS News, Washington Monthly)

Oh, well if TNR says everything checked out then end of story. In fact, we must wonder why anybody questioned the story in the first place. After all, if it appeared in TNR then it must be true.

Drum's apparent disinclination to examine the nature of TNR's statement, and his failure to make his own mention of the admitted inaccuracy of the Thomas story is jaw-dropping.

I wonder if his inability to sniff out inconsistency and irrelevancy in an official statement characterizes his entire career in journalism?

TNR makes a statement on Scott Beauchamp

The New Republic surprised me by updating their examination of Scott Thomas' Beauchamp's "Shock Troops" story.

Beauchamp's essay consisted of three discrete anecdotes. In the first, Beauchamp recounted how he and a fellow soldier mocked a disfigured woman seated near them in a dining hall. Three soldiers with whom TNR has spoken have said they repeatedly saw the same facially disfigured woman. One was the soldier specifically mentioned in the Diarist. He told us: "We were really poking fun at her; it was just me and Scott, the day that I made that comment. We were pretty loud. She was sitting at the table behind me. We were at the end of the table. I believe that there were a few people a few feet to the right."

The recollections of these three soldiers differ from Beauchamp's on one significant detail (the only fact in the piece that we have determined to be inaccurate): They say the conversation occurred at Camp Buehring, in Kuwait, prior to the unit's arrival in Iraq. When presented with this important discrepancy, Beauchamp acknowledged his error. We sincerely regret this mistake.
(The New Republic)

I am slightly surprised that TNR calls it an "important discrepancy." It's true that it's an important discrepancy, because of how it works into the time line of events. As Spree at Wake up America noted, the Kuwait location puts the incident prior to Beauchamp's participation in hostilities, and just a short period of weeks (or even days) after leaving Germany. The digression of character, at least in the case of Beauchamp, preceded his involvement in armed hostilities. Perhaps his friend had previous service in a war zone.
The friend's report contains an additional and more subtle discrepancy. Where Beauchamp describes an "unusually crowded" dining area, the anonymous supporting witness says "I believe that there were a few people a few feet to the right." That seems like an unusual detail if the hall were unusually crowded.

TNR claimed a degree of corroboration for the graveyard tale:

More important, two witnesses have corroborated Beauchamp's account. One wrote in an e-mail: "I can wholeheartedly verify the finding of the bones; U.S. troops (in my unit) discovered human remains in the manner described in 'Shock Troopers.' [sic] ... [We] did not report it; there was no need to. The bodies weren't freshly killed and thus the crime hadn't been committed while we were in control of the sector of operations." On the phone, this soldier later told us that he had witnessed another soldier wearing the skull fragment just as Beauchamp recounted: "It fit like a yarmulke," he said.

I wonder how the second witness contributed to the corroboration?

My problem with this story has always been the problem of having a child's skull fragment fit an adult's skull "like a yarmulke." The skulls of children, at least in my experience, tend to be smaller than those of adults. I need more than anonymous verification to accept that detail. I don't rule out the possibility that it could happen, but I'm certainly skeptical. Maybe the adult had a tiny head, and the fragment came from a child with a great big skull. Not likely, but conceivable.

Spree also rightly noted that it was a stretch at best for TNR to claim that the Beauchamp account was consistent with a report of a "children's cemetary" appearing in The Weekly Standard. The anonymous witness improved on the Beauchamp account by refraining from placing the origin of the burial in the Hussein era. TNR, nonetheless, double-checked with a forensic pathologist the possibility of tufts of hair clinging to a "long-buried" skull. It seems to me that the "rotting flesh" was a bigger problem than the tufts of hair. I wonder what the forensic pathologist had to say about that?

He observed that he was grateful his hair had just been cut--since it would make it easier to pick out the pieces of rotting flesh that were digging into his head.
(TNR, "Shock Troops" by Scott Thomas)

It's possible that the "joker and troublemaker" made the statement attributed to him by Beauchamp even if there were no bits of rotting flesh left on the skull. Or Beauchamp could have embellished his account.

TNR did a nice job clarifying the maneuverability of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle--but I still have a problem with that account, also.

The Bradley has tracks, like a tank.

If I'm an editor for this story, I'm wondering how an animal can be "dragged" by a track vehicle by having its extremity caught in the tracks.

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. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road.
(TNR, "Shock Troops" by Scott Thomas)

Run the video and try to imagine it.

If the dog is caught in the tracks, the only dragging that will happen is when the body is pulled from the rear of the vehicle to the front of the vehicle with the top portion of the track. That type of dragging would be worthy of some description in an account with the type of theme that Beauchamp apparently intended.
Could the dog be caught other than in the tracks? I don't see how (and Beauchamp doesn't describe it other than being caught in the tracks), but perhaps a veteran with Bradley experience can shed some light on that point.

This one reads to me like the type of embellishment a mechanically disinclined person might imagine (when he's not thinking that people commit suicide by sticking their heads in the oven via the heat of the oven).

The doubts about this story are too substantial to be treated with anonymous and incomplete corroboration.

A Scott Beauchamp time line

Scott Thomas Beauchamp, writing as "Scott Thomas," had three stories published in the New Republic. The last of the three, "Shock Troops," caused a stir of criticism from people who found the accounts unbelievable (for a variety of reasons).

As the criticism mounted TNR editor Franklin Foer defended the reliability of the author, then only known to the public as "Scott Thomas," and pledged to verify the accounts.

Staffers at TNR have vacations coming up, so it appears that the verification of fact will not occur imminently.

Aside from the issue of veracity, TNR has made itself vulnerable to criticism regarding its choice of Beauchamp as its war correspondent. With the idea of assisting that debate, I offer the following time line (OK, it's not a "line" as such but it sets forth a rough chronology).

• Scott Beauchamp and Elspeth Reeve associated at the Missouri School of Journalism (~2005)
  
• Beauchamp in Europe by June of 2006--probably already in the armed services
• Beauchamp develops relationship with girl in Germany
• Beauchamp deployed to Kuwait by September 2006, engaged to girl in Germany
• "War Bonds" published in TNR 1/29/07
  
• Beauchamp serves in Iraq from Sept. 2006 through April 2007, at which time he receives 2 weeks R&R.
• Marries Elspeth Reeve rather than the aforementioned fiancee, returns to duty somewhat after he was supposed to arrive.
• "Dead of Night" published 6/7/07
• "Shock Troops" published 7/13/07
• Criticism of "Shock Troops" begins and builds
• Beauchamp publicly identifies himself through TNR
  
• Army takes away his laptop and telephone
  
• Foer confirms for Howard Kurtz that Beauchamp is married to a TNR staffer (7/27/07)
  

A great many details did not warrant mention, since they do not obviously relate to Beauchamp's relationship to TNR.

One detail should stand out, however. A number of commentators have suggested that Beauchamp was chosen because of his marriage to Reeve, or at least on the basis of his romantic relationship to Reeve. Most likely, Beauchamp knew that Reeve was employed at TNR. A number of the students in the Missouri School of Journalism appear to have maintained ties. It doesn't really matter whether Beauchamp contacted TNR because of Reeve or vice-versa. It appears that the initial contact was probably prompted by platonic familiarity rather than because of a romantic relationship.

On the other hand, the romantic relationship seems to have rapidly flowered with the onset of the professional association in spite of the problem of distance. Perhaps one day somebody will tell that story.

Within six months of deployment, Beauchamp is published as "Scott Thomas," and a scant four months later, by all appearances, he had wed Ms. Reeve (about 8 months after Beauchamp announced his intent to marry the girl in Germany).

Does this have any relevance to TNRs professional relationship with Beauchamp? That's hard to say, at this point. It seems that Beauchamp and Reeve must have communicated with one another extensively, or else it seems difficult to explain how Beauchamp could dump the girl in Germany for Reeve.

Could Reeve have coached Beauchamp regarding his stories, helping them conform to the TNR template in terms of style if not in terms of tone and theme? That question turns rapidly interesting if Beauchamp's account is factually undermined. For my part, I don't think the public (including me) has enough information yet to render sound judgment.