Who Is the 'Baghdad Diarist'?

Goldfarb said that the incident speaks to the willingness of the left to see the worst in the war and the soldiers, pointing out "the ease with which they've been seduced by this narrative of soldiers as victims and perpetrators." As to whether his probe of Baghdad Diarist was prompted by his conservative views, he said, "You're asking me if it was informed by my opinion of the U.S. military. I can't answer that."

Franklin Foer, the editor of the New Republic, said that he has met Thomas here in the States and that he is "absolutely certain" that he is a soldier in Iraq. "Not an ounce of doubt," he told ABCNEWs.com. Asked about how he attempted to verify Thomas' military credentials, Foer said, "I've got many, many data points to back that up" although one of those proofs didn't include a military e-mail account.

As for the specific accounts in the stories, Foer said that the articles were rigorously fact-checked before they were published. "We showed the stories to people who'd been embedded in Iraq to make sure that it all smelled good. We talked to one of the members of his unit to confirm the woman, a female contractor. We talked to a medic who'd served in Iraq to make sure that a woman could be in an FOB. We spent a lot of time with him on the phone asking hard questions."

The response of military bloggers has been fast and furious. Matthew Currier Burden, a former Army officer who runs BlackFive and compiled the book "The Blog of War" has plenty of doubts about Thomas' stories. "All the stories are too outrageous," he said. "Soldiers making fun of an IED victim could be true, aiming at a dog and running over it in a Bradley could be true although it's near impossible. You've got to prove a negative which is hard to do."

Burden spoke with several soldiers from FOB Falcon and none of them had heard such stories, but he admitted that the disturbing accounts are possible. "Nobody wants it to be true. There are some bad apples out there… I'm cautious about saying it's complete bullsh--."