NBC, MSNBC fire Peter Arnett [IMAGE: Peter Arnett reporting from Baghdad for NBC News while on assignment for ] Peter Arnett, center, had been reporting from Baghdad for NBC News and MSNBC while on assignment for "National Geographic Explorer." March 31 -- Peter Arnett apologizes for the interview he gave to Iraqi TV, saying he made a "stupid misjudgment." NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES March 31 — NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic on Monday said they had terminated their relationship with Peter Arnett after the journalist told state-run Iraqi TV that the U.S.-led coalition’s initial war plan had failed and that reports from Baghdad about civilian casualties had helped antiwar protesters undermine the Bush administration’s strategy. [E-mail This] [Complete Story] ‘Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.’ — PETER ARNETT Interviewed on Iraqi TV “IT WAS wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state controlled Iraqi TV — especially at a time of war — and it was wrong for him to discuss his personal observations and opinions in that interview,” NBC News President Neal Shapiro said in a statement. “Therefore, Peter Arnett will no longer be reporting for NBC News and MSNBC.” National Geographic, for whom Arnett first traveled to Baghdad, said it too had “terminated the service of Peter Arnett.” “The Society did not authorize or have any prior knowledge of Arnett’s television interview with Iraqi television,” it said in a statement, “and had we been consulted, would not have allowed it. His decision to grant an interview and express his personal views on state controlled Iraqi television, especially during a time of war, was a serious error in judgment and wrong.” Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize reporting in Vietnam for The Associated Press, appeared on NBC’s “Today” show Monday to apologize for his statements. (MSNBC.com is an NBC News-Microsoft joint venture.) INTERVIEW CONTENT In the Iraqi TV interview, Arnett said his Iraqi friends had told him that there was a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the United States and Britain were doing. He said the United States was reappraising the battlefield and delaying the war, maybe for a week, “and rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan.” [Add local news and weather to the MSNBC home page.] “Clearly, the American war plans misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces,” Arnett said during the interview, which was broadcast by Iraq’s satellite television station and monitored by The AP in Egypt. Arnett said it was clear that there was growing opposition to the war within the United States and a growing challenge to President Bush. “Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States,” he said. “It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.” 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. The interview quickly made Arnett a target of the war’s supporters. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said on Fox News Channel that she found the interview “nauseating” and accused Arnett of “kowtowing to what clearly is the enemy in this way.” NBC initially backed Arnett’s interview. “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.” BACKGROUND SINCE 1991 Arnett garnered much of his prominence from covering the 1991 Gulf War for CNN. But even then the first Bush administration was unhappy with his reporting, suggesting that he had become a conveyor of propaganda. • Complete MSNBC coverage • Alleged terror group 'finished' • Italians unite against war • Analysis: Too few troops • Iraqis return to fight Americans • Dispatches from the field • Video coverage from NBC • Blog: Army family's journal • Encarta: Detailed Iraq map • WashPost: Special coverage LATEST FROM NEWSWEEK • Special war section • War plan under fire • Saddam's bunkers At one point, he 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 U.S. military responded vigorously to the suggestion it had targeted a civilian facility, but Arnett stood by his reporting that the plant’s sole purpose was to make baby formula. Arnett was also the on-air reporter of a 1998 CNN report that accused U.S. forces of using sarin gas on a Laotian village in 1970 to kill U.S. defectors. Two CNN employees were sacked, and Arnett was reprimanded over the report, which the station later retracted. Arnett later left the network. He went to Iraq this year not as an NBC News reporter but as an employee of “National Geographic Explorer.” When other NBC reporters left Baghdad for safety reasons, the network began airing his reports. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Reuters NBC Fires Contrite Arnett Over Iraqi TV Interview Mon Mar 31,12:27 PM ET By Derek Caney and Mark Wilkinson NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American television network NBC said on Monday it had fired veteran reporter Peter Arnett after he told Iraqi television the U.S. war plan against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had failed. [Photo] Reuters Photo [AFP Photo] AFP [Slideshow] Slideshow: NBC Fires Arnett Over Iraqi TV Interview [Special Coverage] Latest news: · Battle Erupts Within 50 Miles of Baghdad AP - 16 minutes ago · Key Developments in the War Against Iraq AP - 24 minutes ago · U.S. Forces Kill Seven Iraqi Women, Kids AP - 35 minutes ago Special Coverage Arnett, who as a CNN reporter in 1991 was one of the few Western journalists reporting from Baghdad during the first Gulf War (news - web sites), said in an interview on Sunday with state-owned Iraqi television that the U.S. military would need to rewrite its war plan following Iraqi resistance. "America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan," Arnett said in the interview. "The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan." Arnett, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Vietnam War, told NBC's "Today" show, "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. "But clearly by giving that interview I created a firestorm in the United States and for that I am truly sorry. My stupid misjudgment was to spend fifteen minutes in an impromptu interview with Iraqi television," he said. His assignment with NBC and National Geographic (news - web sites) represented a chance for redemption after he was fired from CNN in 1998 after the network retracted a documentary, in which Arnett alleged that U.S. commandos had used sarin gas on American defectors in the Vietnam war. NBC said in a statement it was wrong for Arnett to grant an interview with state-controlled Iraqi TV at a time of war and chastised him for making personal observations and opinions. "His remarks were analytical in nature and were not intended to be anything more," the network said. On Sunday, Arnett told Iraqi television that American war planners had underestimated the determination of Iraqi troops to fight U.S. and British troops and that the Pentagon (news - web sites) seemed to be amending its original strategy. PATRIOTISM IN FOCUS MSNBC, which had been using Arnett's reports, also severed ties with him. "I'm not aware of anybody in the journalism community who has seen the war plan, much less Peter Arnett," said Erik Sorenson, MSNBC president and general manager. "It's just inappropriate and arguably unpatriotic for an American to be communicating these things to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people," he added. Asked how much of a priority patriotism should be for an objective journalist, he said, "When you go on state-controlled television after Iraq (news - web sites)'s vice president promised to send terrorists into your country, I do think some patriotism is appropriate in this instance." On Saturday after a suicide car bomb that killed at least four U.S. soldiers, Iraq's vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan said it would use any method that "stops or kills the enemy." Arnett also said there was a "growing challenge to President Bush (news - web sites) 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 and 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." In another media development, veteran reporter Geraldo Rivera, a correspondent for Fox News, is being removed from Iraq by the U.S. military for reporting Western troop movements in the war, the Pentagon said on Monday. Hundreds of reporters from around the world are currently assigned to U.S. and British military units to report the war in Iraq under ground rules that allow them freedom to report without compromising the security of the troops. 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.