It was a battle of behemoths: The Marine Corps and The Associated Press, the world’s biggest news agency, got into a tiff recently. They sparred over an AP story quoting a report written within the Department of Defense that argued that hundreds of Marines had been killed or wounded because the Corps had “refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders” for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) trucks. In the back and forth, both sides employed a bit of spin, but central questions remained unanswered.

The article was widely picked up and made a front-page splash in Stars and Stripes: “Study: MRAP refusal led to Marine deaths.” One part of the argument involved just what kind of study it was. The AP in the first two paragraphs said it was “an internal military study … written by a civilian Marine Corps official.” He is Franz J. Gayl, from the Corps’ Plans, Policies and Operations Department.

The Marine Corps took exception. It charged in a letter to AP President Tom Curley that the article had “mischaracterized a preliminary internal paper written by a civilian employee.” The story, the Marines said, could lead people to believe the document was “an official Marine Corps study.” It said AP buried the fact that the study was labeled the private views of Gayl, who earlier had filed for whistle-blower protection.

Describing the letter it sent to the AP, a Marine Corps press release complained that the offense was compounded in a later story that stated without attribution that the AP “first reported … that hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps officials refused the request of the commanders.” That story, also run by Stars and Stripes, was about two senators who criticized the Corps for not getting the MRAPs to the troops earlier.

Curley (Disclosure: A former boss of mine at another newspaper) responded to the Marines. The article was a “fair and accurate presentation of the facts,” he wrote. He noted the high-up references to the civilian status of the study’s author, and said the story later stated that Gayl’s views were his own. He did say the AP was wrong in not attributing the statement in the story about the senators; the AP ran a clarification and Stars and Stripes published that too.

The Marines stuck to their guns that the document was not an “official Marine Corps study.” But it’s not clear what’s meant by that. As a wryly worded introduction to a story by Stripes reporter Jeff Schogol stated: “Just because a report is written by an official doesn’t make it official, according to the Marine Corps.” Turns out, Schogol wrote, Gayl had publicly criticized the Corps’ MRAP policy and because of that his superiors told him to “substantiate his concerns.” The result was hardly a terse rejoinder by Gayl. What he wrote filled 129 pages plus a 15-page introduction and, according to the Marines, he did it on government time.

As to the AP, it’s not clear why it waited until the 19th paragraph to note that according to the report’s cover page, these were the private views of the author. The reader had to dig that far to learn the findings were not necessarily embraced by the brass — which could have been the case even if a civilian Corps official had written the report. (Too bad Stripes didn’t on its own pull up the reference to the study’s private-view status.) That Gayl had filed for whistle-blower protection showed up in the 18th paragraph of the AP story.

So much for the Marine Corps-AP dispute on wording. What about the substance of the study? The Corps said last year that armored Humvees, rather than MRAPs, were adequate, and that not enough companies made MRAPs. But now Corps officials have formally asked the DOD inspector general to look into the study’s allegations of “gross mismanagement” leading to the deaths of Marines. Stay tuned.