Sacked journalist just another casualty of war

TWO of television’s marquis journalists were dismissed from high-profile reporting assignments in Iraq yesterday, chastised for allegedly breaking ironclad, if sometimes unspoken rules that govern reporting in the US-led war there.

Award-winning news correspondent Peter Arnett, famed for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War, was sacked yesterday by NBC, after telling Iraqi state-run television that the US war plan had failed.

Meanwhile, celebrity TV journalist Geraldo Rivera was told by US military officials yesterday that he is no longer welcome to accompany US troops there.

“I can confirm that it has been done,” said military spokesman Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Owens, at Central Command headquarters in Qatar.

On its “Today’s Show” morning news broadcast, NBC read a statement from network officials announcing that the New Zealand-born Arnett had been canned.

“It was wrong for Mr Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled Iraqi television, especially at a time of war.

“Peter Arnett will no longer be reporting for NBC News and MSNBC,” the statement concluded.

On the same broadcast yesterday, Arnett offered his apologies to NBC and to the US public, saying he was “embarrassed” by the controversy that had erupted following his comments.

“Clearly, by giving that interview to Iraqi television, I created a firestorm in the United States, and for that I am truly sorry,” said Arnett, 68, who is a naturalised American.

Condemnation for Arnett’s comments came from around the United States. Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, interviewed on Fox News Sunday, said that Arnett’s comments were “Kafkaesque ... just crazy”. Another lawmaker, Democrat Brad Sherman of California, called Arnett’s remarks “absurd”.

Arnett’s comments, broadcast this past weekend by Iraqi television, said that Washington’s “first war plan has just failed because of Iraqi resistance.”

The US military said Rivera, a star of the Fox News television network, was not embedded with troops, but had been “asked to leave the unit he was with,” said military spokesman Owens.

Military officials were short on details about reasons for Rivera’s dismissal, but according to US news reports, Rivera was told to leave Iraq after an on-air appearance during which he drew a map in the sand revealing information about US troop locations. The Pentagon would not confirm the reason for the move.