Last week we heard from Scott Beauchamp's commanding officer, Col. Ricky Gibbs. Gibbs said that Beauchamp had admitted to the investigating officer that his stories for the New Republic were false--or, as he put it later in the briefing, that, while Beauchamp had not "recanted," he "does not stand by the story." Col. Gibbs also said that Beauchamp was free to speak with the press. The New Republic's last update on the matter (on August 10) had suggested that the Army was preventing them from speaking with their author.

Now one of the bloggers from Blackfive has sat down with Beauchamp in Iraq. He does not report the substance of his conversation with Beauchamp, but he does have this to say:

What I can say is that he is not being held incommunicado in an undisclosed location with Dick Cheney, and that I found an interesting person that I enjoyed meeting.

The Army has officially said that Beauchamp is free to talk to the media, that he no longer stands by the stories, and that the stories are false. Which leaves us with this simple question: Have the editors at the New Republic spoken to Scott Beauchamp? And--if he’s choosing not to speak to them--do they stand behind his stories?