NBC News has fired the veteran reporter, Peter Arnett, for comments he made during an interview he conducted with Iraqui state TV on Sunday.
NBC's decision to sever its ties with Arnett appeared to reverse an earlier decision to stick by Arnett, when the network had praised his reporting and defended his remarks as analytical.
Nevertheless, just prior to an interview on this morning's edition of "The Today Show," host Matt Lauer read a network statement which said Arnett "was wrong to discuss his personal observations and therefore he will no longer be reporting for NBC and MSNBC."
Arnett, during the Lauer interview, then went on to to apologize to NBC News and "I want to apologize to the American people for clearly making a misjudgement [but] I said essentially what we all know about the war, delays about implementing, but clearly by giving that interview I created a firestorm and for that I am trully sorry."
Arnett told the Iraqi interviewer the U.S. war plan has "failed."
"The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan," Arnett said. "Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces."
Arnett added Iraq has given him and other reporters a "degree of freedom which we appreciate."
"I'd like to say from the beginning that the 12 years I've been coming here," Arnett said, "I've met unfailing courtesy and cooperation, courtesy from your people and cooperation from the Ministry of Information."
Arnett told the Iraqi TV interviewer that President Bush is facing a "growing challenge" about the "conduct of the war" within the United States.
"President Bush says he is concerned about the Iraqi people, but if Iraqi people are dying in numbers, then American policy will be challenged very strongly," he conveyed. In the interview, Arnett said reports from Baghdad on civilians being killed are being shown in the United States, and "it helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments."
On Baghdad, Arnett said "clearly this is a city that is disciplined, the population is responsive to the government's requirements of discipline," and "Iraqi friends tell me there is a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain is doing."
The longtime war correspondent said U.S. war planners miscalculated the will of Iraqis and he does "not understand how that happened." He said his reports "would tell the Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government and the willingness to fight for their country." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
