The Rolling Stone reporter who got Gen. Stanley McChrystal fired has been denied permission to join US troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced. "There is no right to embed," said Defense Department spokesman David Lapan. "A key element of an embed is having trust that the individuals are going to abide by the ground rules. The command in Afghanistan decided there wasn't the trust requisite and denied this request." Some officials have charged that reporter Michael Hastings failed to follow ground rules when they claim he printed "off the record" comments in which McChrystal viciously criticized Obama administration officials on the war.
Hastings, in turn, has called those claims lies, and pointed to the fact that he was about to get an embed position as proof that the Pentagon trusted him. "There's actually an embed that's waiting for me in Afghanistan," he said at a luncheon last week hosted by the American Society of Magazine Editors. The Pentagon has ramped up its investigation into the McChrystal interview, extending its probe to the former general's aides to determine what information they may have provided to Hastings, reports AP.
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