According to Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard, military sources close to the investigation are saying that Pvt Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s stories were indeed fiction:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp–author of the much-disputed “Shock Troops” article in the New Republic’s July 23 issue as well as two previous “Baghdad Diarist” columns–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.

Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad:

An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.

According to the military source, Beauchamp’s recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military’s investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, “I’m willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.”

If this proves to be the final word on the matter-and it should-The New Republic’s early attempts at justification which included a “fake but accurate” statement from its own editor and its follow-up investigations that centered around “it could have happened” explanations by detached experts shows that the coverup is worse than the crime.

Few, if any, memebers of the media’s left came forward to support TNR. The silence was damning. Perhaps it was a perfect storm that couldn’t help but spawn a monster. A youthful, delusional ambitious soldier wanted to see the war through the prism of Viet Nam era movies, Platoon, Apocolypse Now and Full Metal Jacket found an inexperienced, idealistic editor only too happy to throw away journalistic principles to use a fictional narrative  to support a political agenda.

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