Peter Arnett -- American Traitor -- Betrayal After Trust

Reuters
Monday, March 31, 2003; 8:37 AM

Source

By Mark Wilkinson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American television network NBC said on Monday it had severed its relations with veteran reporter Peter Arnett after he told Iraqi television that the U.S. war plan against Saddam Hussein had failed.

"Peter Arnett will no longer be reporting for NBC News and MSNBC," NBC said in a joint statement with National Geographic, for whom the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter was also working.

"I said in that interview essentially what we all know about the war, that there have been delays in implementing policy, there have been surprises," Arnett told NBC's "Today" show.

"But clearly by giving that interview I created a firestorm in the United States and for that I am truly sorry," added Arnett, widely known for his dramatic live reports during the bombing of Baghdad on the opening days of the 1991 Gulf War.

"My stupid misjudgment was to spend fifteen minutes in an impromptu interview with Iraqi television," he said.

"It was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview with state-controlled Iraqi TV, especially at a time of war and it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions," NBC said in a statement.

"His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more," the network said.

In 1998, Arnett was fired from CNN after the Pentagon pressured the news channel over a documentary in which Arnett alleged that U.S. commandos had used sarin gas on American troops who had defected to Laos during the Vietnam war. He disavowed the story after his producers were also fired.

Arnett told the Iraqi television that American war planners had underestimated the determination of Iraqi troops to fight U.S. and British troops and that the Pentagon seemed to be amending its original strategy.

"Now America is reappraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week and rewriting the war plan," Arnett said in excerpts of the interview aired on U.S. networks. "The first plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another plan."

He added there was a "growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war."

That view echoed similar comments in many U.S. media after the rapid advance of U.S. forces through southern Iraq slowed south of Baghdad amid disruptive attacks on its long supply lines persistent resistance, particularly in the towns.

Arnett's remarks were received with anger by the administration in Washington. One White House source said they were based on "a position of complete ignorance."

Arnett, while apologetic on NBC, said he has granted many interviews in the past and that his remarks were not "out of line with what experts think."

"Maybe some people think I'm insane, but I'm not anti-military," he added. "This is the biggest story of my life."

Asked what the future held for him, Arnett said: "There's a small island, inhabited in the South Pacific that I will try to swim to."

"I'll leave, I'm embarrassed," he said.

Source

US war plan has failed: Pulitzer winner

Monday, March 31, 2003 (New York):   Journalist Peter Arnett, covering the war from Baghdad, told state-run Iraqi TV that the American-led coalition's first war plan had failed because of Iraq's resistance. He said US strategists were trying to write another war plan. Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize reporting in Vietnam for The Associated Press, garnered much of his prominence from covering the 1991 Gulf War for CNN. He is reporting from the Iraqi capital now for NBC and its cable stations. In the interview, Arnett said his Iraqi friends tell him there is a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain are doing. He said the United States is reappraising the battlefield and delaying the war, maybe for a week. "Clearly, the American war plans misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces," Arnett asserted. He further claimed that there was growing opposition to the war within the country and a growing challenge to US President George W Bush about the war's conduct. "Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States," he held. "It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments." Impromptu interview The interview was broadcast in English and translated by a green military uniform-wearing Iraqi anchor. NBC said Arnett gave the interview when asked shortly after he attended an Iraqi government briefing. "His impromptu interview with Iraqi TV was done as a professional courtesy and was similar to other interviews he has done with media outlets from around the world," NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust said. "His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more. His outstanding reporting on the war speaks for itself." In trouble earlier The interview aired on Sunday could make Arnett a target of the war's supporters. The first Bush administration was unhappy with Arnett's reporting in 1991 for CNN, suggesting that he had become a conveyor of propaganda. Arnett was denounced for his reporting about an allied bombing of a baby milk factory in Baghdad that the military said was a biological weapons plant. The American military responded vigorously to the suggestion that it had targeted a civilian facility, but Arnett stood by his reporting that the plant's sole purpose was to make baby formula. He was also the on-air reporter of the 1998 CNN report that accused American forces of using sarin gas on a Laotian village in 1970 to kill US defectors. Two CNN employees were sacked and Arnett was reprimanded over the report, which the station later retracted. Arnett ultimately left the network. He went to Iraq this year not as an NBC News reporter but as an employee of the MSNBC show, National Geographic Explorer. When other NBC reporters left Baghdad for safety reasons, the network began airing his reports.

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