Petraeus: "I wrote this testimony myself" - PDF shows Petraeus’s legal adviser as author

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/09/10/hmmm-where-did-that-come-from/

While Gen. David Petraeus underscored that his assessment of the Iraq war presented to Congress was indeed independent, one computer sleuth caught a curious discrepancy.

The PDF file of Petraeus’s progress report provided to the public lists the document’s author as “mark.martins,” better known as Army Col. Mark Martins, the top military lawyer in Iraq and Petraeus’s legal adviser. Richard Smith, a computer consultant for Boston Software Forensics and the man behind www.ComputerBytesMan.com, noticed the irregularity as he did a search of the PDF file’s properties (see image below).

Petraeus had been quite clear that he hadn’t shared the document with anyone. “At the outset,” he said as he began testifying, “I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.”

Smith said he isn’t suggesting anything nefarious, but noted the contradiction with Petraeus’s comments. It’s hard to really say for sure what happened here,” Smith said, “Maybe Martins was simply the person who converted it (to a PDF).” Smith also noted that it wouldn’t be unusual for Petraeus’s lawyer to review the testimony beforehand, but Petraeus was notably adamant in stressing that his words were his alone.