TNR Diarist Scott Beauchamp's Army Unit Back in the News

The four soldiers being charged with of conspiring to murder Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad last spring are in the same company as The New Republic's former man in Iraq, Scott Beauchamp, Media Mob has learned.

Mr. Beauchamp wrote several pieces for TNR under the name Scott Thomas last summer in which he described in harrowing detail what it was like to be a soldier in Baghdad. His pieces included several gruesome scenes—one in which soldiers in his company deliberately ran over dogs in their Humvees, another in which they mock an Iraqi woman who had been wounded by an IED—that drew suspicions from skeptical readers. TNR editor Franklin Foer initially defended Mr. Beauchamp's articles from critics, but decided after a four-and-a-half-month-long investigation proved inconclusive that he could not stand behind them.

Mr. Beauchamp's company, which is part of the 172nd Infantry Brigade, is made up of approximately 120 men, and is currently based in Germany.