Peter Gregg ArnettONZM (born 13 November 1934) is a New Zealand-born American journalist.[1] He is known for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, mostly reporting for the Associated Press.
Arnett also worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television networks, most notably for nearly two decades at CNN. Arnett published a memoir, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones (1994). In March 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda.[2] The journalism school at the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand was named for Arnett.[3]
During his early years in journalism, Arnett worked in Southeast Asia, largely based in Bangkok. In 1960 he started publishing a small English-language newspaper in Laos.[5] Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam, which the French had abandoned after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu by communists from North Vietnam.
Arnett became a reporter for the Associated Press, based in Saigon in the South, in the years when the United States began to get involved in the civil conflict and through the Vietnam War. On 7 July 1963, in what became known as the Double Seven Day scuffle, he was injured in a widely reported physical altercation between a group of western journalists and South Vietnamese undercover police. The reporters were trying to cover Buddhist protests against the South Vietnamese government. His articles, such as "Death of Supply Column 21," about an event during Operation Starlite in August 1965, resulted in raising the ire of the American government, which had been increasing the number of forces in the region.[5]
Arnett accompanied troops on dozens of missions, including the battle of Hill 875, in November 1967. An American detachment was sent to rescue another unit that was stranded in hostile territory, and the rescuers were nearly killed during the operation. In September 1972, Arnett joined a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin and David Dellinger, on a trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to accept three American prisoners of war for return to the United States.[6]:274–8
Arnett wrote in an unvarnished manner when reporting stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing was often criticised by administration spokesmen as negative, who wanted to keep reporting of the war positive. General William Westmoreland, President Lyndon B. Johnson and others in power put pressure on the AP to get rid of or transfer Arnett from the region.[6]:259–60
In what is considered one of his iconic dispatches, published on 7 February 1968, Arnett wrote about the Battle of Bến Tre: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong."[7] The quotation was gradually altered in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."[8] The accuracy of the original quotation and its source have often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day.[8] US Army Major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett.[8]The New Republic at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force Major Chester L. Brown.[9] In Walter Cronkite's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."[10]
Arnett was one of the last western reporters remaining in Saigon after its fall and capture by the People's Army of Vietnam. Occupying soldiers showed him how they had entered the city.[6]:305
At the time of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for Parade magazine. With a contact named Healy, he entered Afghanistan illegally from Pakistan; both men were dressed in traditional clothing as natives and led by Mujahideen guides. They continued to a Jalalabad hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar River, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to journalist Artyom Borovik, who was covering the Soviet side of the war.[11]
Gulf War
Beginning in 1981, Arnett worked for CNN for 18 years, ending in 1999. During the Gulf War, he became a household name worldwide as the only reporter to have live coverage directly from Baghdad, especially during the first 16 hours. His dramatic reports often were accompanied by the sound of air raid sirens blaring and US bombs exploding in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw and John Holliman, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (17 January 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means — a private phone line connected to neighbouring Amman, Jordan — to communicate to the outside world.[12] CNN broadcast Arnett's extended call live for several hours, with a picture of Arnett as video. Soon the other journalists left Iraq, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole remaining reporter.
His accounts of civilian damage caused by the bombing were not well received by the coalition war administration. Its spokesmen had emphasized terms such as "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" in their public statements, in an effort to project keeping civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House sources would later attack Arnett, saying that he was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation.
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an exclusive, uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein.[13] Due to Arnett's reporting from the "other side", for a period of five weeks, the Gulf War was the first to be broadcast live on TV.
About halfway through the war, representatives of the CIA approached Arnett. They believed that the Iraqi military was operating a high-level communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, which is where Arnett and other staff from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.[14]
Interview with Osama Bin Laden
In March 1997, Arnett of CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing."[15][16]
Operation Tailwind
In 1998, Arnett narrated a report on the joint venture (between CNN and Time magazine) programme called NewsStand, covering "Operation Tailwind" in Laos in 1970.
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that in 1970, the United States Army had used sarin, a nerve agent, against a group of deserting U.S. soldiers in Laos. The men who allegedly conducted the attack were an elite Green Berets A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, the Pentagon commissioned another report contradicting that of CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation. It concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. While all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, no sarin was involved.
Due to a number of rebuttals claiming the CNN report was flawed, three or more of the individuals responsible were fired or forced to resign.[17] Arnett was reprimanded, and left the network in April 1999, apparently due to "lingering fallout" from Tailwind.[18]
Invasion of Iraq 2003
On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there, he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003. In it he said:
[N]ow America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war against Iraq, maybe a week, and re-writing [sic] the war plan. The first plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance[;] now they are trying to write another war plan.
Earlier in the interview he said:
[O]ur 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.
When Arnett's remarks sparked a "firestorm of protest", NBC initially defended him, saying he had given the interview as a professional courtesy and that his remarks were "analytical in nature". A day later, though, NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett.[20] In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, NBC stated:
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.
Arnett responded:
My stupid misjudgment was to spend fifteen minutes in an impromptu interview with Iraqi television. 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.
—Peter Arnett
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he also received work from Greek television channel NET television, and Belgian VTM.
Academic career
Dan Rather and Arnett discuss the role of the media in shaping perceptions of the Vietnam War at a panel discussion presented by the LBJ Presidential Library (April 2016)
After retiring as a field reporter in 2007, Arnett lives in Los Angeles.
In 1964, Arnett married Nina Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman. They had two children, Elsa and Andrew. Nina and Peter separated in 1983, divorced more than 20 years later, then reconciled in 2006.[23]
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School in New York and Harvard University. After graduating, she went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe.[24] She worked with her father on his 1994 memoir about his reporting life. Elsa Arnett is married to former White House lawyer John Yoo.[25]
The book, as well as the film, features Arnett's work as part of Wiener's crew in Baghdad. Arnett joined the team as tensions between Iraq and the West were escalating toward an imminent military encounter. CNN sent Arnett to Baghdad because of his experience in covering military conflicts. Arnett was part of the live coverage beginning on 16 January 1991, the start of the Gulf War air campaign, where he and colleagues Bernard Shaw and John Holliman kept broadcasting from their Al-Rasheed Hotel room amid extensive aerial bombing by the Western Coalition forces.
Arnett's interview with Bin Laden in 1997 became the subject of the movie 'A War Story' produced for television. Arnett's role was played by John Leigh.[27]
Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. ISBN0671755862
Saigon Has Fallen: A Wartime Recollection by the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist. New York: Rosetta Books/Associated Press, 2015 ISBN978-0-7953-4643-9
Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. After issuing his declaration of war against the Americans in 1996, Bin Laden began advocating attacks targeting U.S. assets in several countries, and supervised al-Qaeda’s execution of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001.
There were many video and audio recordings released by Osama bin Laden between 2000 and his death in 2011.
Robert William Fisk was an English writer and journalist. He was critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians.
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New York Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) program of domestic spying. In 2004, he detailed the U.S. military's torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New Yorker. Hersh has won a record five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He is the author of 11 books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), an account of the career of Henry Kissinger which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Live from Baghdad is a 2002 American television war drama film directed by Mick Jackson and co-written by Robert Wiener, based on Wiener's book of the same title. The film premiered on HBO on December 7, 2002, during the prelude stage of the Iraq War.
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The 2004 documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11 generated controversy before, during, and after its release a few months prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. The film, directed by Michael Moore, criticizes the Bush administration's attempt to pursue Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, as well as the Iraq War. Although Fahrenheit 9/11 was generally praised by film critics and won various awards including that year's Palme d'Or, the content was criticized by several commentators for accuracy, and lack of context. Additionally, the distributors protested Moore's inaction on unauthorized copying.
The Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations were based on false claims by the United States government alleging that a secretive relationship existed between Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda between 1992 and 2003. U.S. president George W. Bush used it as a main reason for invading Iraq in 2003.
John Miller is an American journalist and police official. From 1983 to 1994, he was a local journalist in New York City, before serving as the NYPD's chief spokesman from 1994 to 1995.
Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Bin Laden is a book by CNN investigative journalist and documentarian Peter Bergen. It was published in November 2001, two months after the September 11 attacks, and was a New York Times Best Seller in 2001.
This article is a chronological listing of allegations of meetings between members of al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's government, as well as other information relevant to conspiracy theories involving Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Peter Lampert Bergen is an American journalist, author, and producer who is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor at Arizona State University, and the host of the Audible podcast In the Room with Peter Bergen.
Scott Cameron Pelley is an American author and reporter for CBS News for more than 31 years. Pelley is the author of the 2019 book, Truth Worth Telling, and a correspondent for the CBS News magazine 60 Minutes. Pelley served as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017, a period in which the broadcast added more than a million and a half viewers, achieving its highest ratings in more than a decade. Pelley served as CBS News’s chief White House correspondent from 1997 to 1999.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh, was a Jordanian militant jihadist who ran a training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni civil war". He was sometimes known by his supporters as the "Sheikh of the slaughterers".
James Alan Miklaszewski, known to his colleagues and contacts as "Mik", is a veteran journalist whose career spanned more than forty years, most of it covering the White House and Pentagon for NBC News.
Several sources have alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties with Osama bin Laden's faction of "Afghan Arab" fighters when it armed Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War.
Omar bin Osama bin Mohammed bin 'Awad bin Laden, better known as Omar bin Laden, is a Saudi artist, author, cultural ambassador, and businessman, and fourth-eldest son of Osama bin Laden, with his first cousin and first wife Najwa Ghanhem. He lived in Normandy, France, until October 2023, when the French authorities canceled his residence permit. In October 2024 Bin Laden was barred from returning to the country by the French interior minister Bruno Retailleau for advocating terrorism on social media, a post from the now-deleted account @omarbinladin1.
Since the early 1990s, several interviews of Osama bin Laden have appeared in the global media. Among these was an interview by Middle East specialist Robert Fisk. In the interviews, Bin Laden acknowledges having instigated bombings in Khobar, Saudi Arabia in 1996 and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2003, but denies involvement with both the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the WTC towers in New York City.
The death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, gave rise to various conspiracy theories, hoaxes and rumors. These include the ideas that he had died earlier, or that he lived beyond the reported date. Doubts about Bin Laden's death were fueled by the U.S. military's supposed disposal of his body at sea, the decision to not release any photographic or DNA evidence of Bin Laden's death to the public, the contradicting accounts of the incident, and the 25-minute blackout during the raid on Bin Laden's compound during which a live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the U.S. special forces was cut off.
The Persian Gulf War, codenamed Operation Desert Storm and commonly referred to as the Gulf War, was a war waged by a United Nations-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait. Media coverage of the Gulf War was significant for many reasons including CNN's live reporting from a Baghdad hotel, alternative and international coverage, and the use of images.
↑ Arnett, Peter (20 February 1994). "Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 years in the World's War Zones". Booknotes. Retrieved 9 February 2018. Elsa Arnett is my daughter. She's 25 years of age, born in Saigon. My wife was a Vietnamese woman. We separated a few years ago, but we're still in touch. Elsa, a bright young lady, and she went to Stuyvesant High School in New York, as an accomplished student, went on to Harvard University. I never had a university education. Well, Elsa compensated for that by going to Harvard University and graduating with high honors and, lo and behold, went into journalism, became a reporter, worked for several months on The Washington Post as an intern and then joined The Boston Globe; spent a couple of years there and, thank goodness, agreed to help me get this book done.
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