Reporter in Rumsfeld 'Armor' Flap Still on the Job in Iraq

By: Brian Orloff Whatever happened to Edward Lee Pitts? He is the embedded reporter from the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press who last month helped a national guardsman in Kuwait ask Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that critical question about lack of vehicle armor, leading to much controversy. Since then, except in accounts that have rehashed that incident, Pitts has disappeared from the national media, but he has hardly stopped writing.

In fact, he is still on the war beat, now in Iraq.

The reporter has continued filing stories from his embedded post, following the daily lives of the members of the 278th regiment, with articles ranging from the construction of soldiers' steel huts to a story today about the unit's first night raid and the subsequent arrest of insurgents.

Tom Griscom, editor and publisher of the Times Free Press, said Pitts, while criticized in many national outlets, enjoys strong support from the guardsmen, and their families, and readers on the homefront.

"People may have challenged the soldier asking the question, and our reporter's role in the question being asked, but at the end of the day, his work -- getting the story brought back to the forefront -- really had a national impact. Once you get past Rush Limbaugh ... the 'real voices' have nothing but strong support for the stories that he's been writing and for his embedding with the group of soldiers," Griscom told E&P. "Lee Pitts is the connection between them and their family members."

Griscom, who supported Pitts throughout the controversy, said his paper has continued to pursue the armor controversy, here at home, with a number of stories. Among other things, the paper has followed up on Rumsfeld's response on armor and the Pentagon's commitment to spending additional money and sent a reporter to Georgia to observe production of new armor in a factory.

The soldier who asked the armor question recently disputed accounts that claimed Pitts put him up to it, explaining that it was his idea alone.