Peter Arnett
Encyclopedia
Peter Gregg Arnett, ONZM
(born November 13, 1934, Riverton, New Zealand
) is a New Zealand-American
journalist
.
Arnett worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television
networks, most notably CNN
. He is well known for his coverage of war
, including the Vietnam War
and the Gulf War
. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize
in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam
, where he was present from 1962 to 1975, most of the time reporting for the Associated Press
news agency. In 1994, Arnett wrote Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones. In March 1997, Arnett was able to interview Osama bin Laden
. The Journalism School at the Southern Institute of Technology
is named after him.
, particularly Bangkok
. He started out running a small English-language newspaper in Laos in 1960. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam where he was a reporter for the Associated Press
. He worked with other AP staff in their Saigon office writing a number of important articles, such as
"Death of Supply Column 21", which attracted the ire of the American government. In July 1963, he was punched in the nose
by South Vietnamese undercover police while covering Buddhist protests
.
He went on dozens of missions with troops, including during the traumatic battle of Hill 875, in which a detachment went to try to rescue another unit of soldiers that was stranded in hostile territory. They themselves were nearly killed during the rescue. In September 1972 he accompanied a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin
and David Dellinger
, to Hanoi
, North Vietnam
to bring three prisoners of war back to the United States.
Arnett got into trouble for writing in an unvarnished manner when trying to report the stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing often was perceived as negative. General William Westmoreland
and president Lyndon B. Johnson
and other people in power had battles with the AP
over trying to get Arnett removed from his assignment.
Arnett's most famous act of reporting from the Vietnam War was a story published on February 7, 1968, about the provincial capital 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." The quotation was distorted in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source has often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic
at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite
's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last reporters in Saigon after its capture by the North Vietnamese Army, and met with NVA soldiers who showed him how they had come into the city.
Arnett was the writer of the 1980 mini-series documentary - Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War
.
and entered Afghanistan with Mujahideen
guides illegally from Pakistan, while dressed as natives. They continued on 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 Artyom Borovik
who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War
he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad
. His dramatic reports were often given with air raid sirens blaring and the sound of Baghdad bomb explosions 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 (January 17, 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means to communicate to the outside world. Soon the other journalists left Iraq
, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole reporter remaining there.
His reports on civilian damage caused by the bombing were not received well by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House
sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation and CNN
received a letter from 34 Members of the United States Congress
accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism".
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein
. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, and Arnett was in many ways the sole player reporting from the "other side" for a period of five weeks.
About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. 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 Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
stated "It was a biological weapons facility, of that we are sure". White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater
stated "That factory is, in fact, a production facility for biological weapons" and "The Iraqis have hidden this facility behind a façade of baby-milk production as a form of disinformation."
The image of a crudely-made hand-painted sign reading "Baby Milk" in English and Arabic in front of the factory, and a lab coat dressed in a suit containing stitched lettering reading "BABY MILK PLANT IRAQ" only served to further the perception that purportedly civilian targets were simply being made to look like that by Saddam Hussein
, and that Arnett was duped by the Iraqi government. The sign appeared to have been added by the Iraqis before the camera crews arrived as a cheap publicity ploy. Newsweek
called the incident a "ham-handed attempt to depict a bombed-out biological-weapons plant near Baghdad as a baby-formula factory."
Arnett remained firm. He had toured the plant in the previous August, and was insistent that "Whatever else it did, it did produce infant formula". Described as being a veritable fortress by the Pentagon , the plant, Arnett reported, had only one guard at the gate and a lot of powdered baby milk. "That's as much as I could tell you about it ... [I]t looked innocent enough from what we could see." A CNN camera crew had been invited to tour this plant in August 1990. They videotaped workers wearing new uniforms with lettering in English reading, "Iraq Baby Milk Plant".
Interviewed later, Michel Wery, the plant's French contractor who helped build it, gave an interview in which he stated that the plant was producing solely baby milk when it started up in 1979, and was not equipped to breed pathogens. The plant closed in 1980, he said, when the last French technicians working for his company left Baghdad. Wery said he had heard that production had restarted after the United Nations embargo put in place in the fall of 1991, but he doubted whether that was possible after a 10-year lull. Two dairy technicians had been in the plant at least four times since to make repairs; one stated that, during a visit in May 1990, it was all normal dairy equipment and that the plant was actually canning milk powder. The suspicious uniform stitching was actually part of the original uniforms supplied by the French, and in fact the footage showing the uniforms was shot in August 1990. Part of the problem in reconciling the various U.S. and foreign accounts is that administration officials said they were constrained by security considerations from revealing exactly how they knew about the plant. At the same time, the New Zealand technicians and the French builder were not at the plant after May and cannot be certain of what happened after their departure.
White House reports diverged at this time. One official claimed that the plant was converted in 1990. Another claimed that it was a "backup" bioweapons facility, which had not yet been converted. A third said that it was not a bioweapons facility, but that it was used to make items crucial to bioweapons research; all three claimed insider information. In a confidential memo from December 1992, a State Department employee discussed the issue of the plant and reported that there were no hidden chambers or inappropriate machinery, and that it appeared to be a perfectly normal factory for producing powdered milk.
The plant had undergone security modifications since May 1990. Amongst these were camouflage paint on all the buildings in the complex, a security fence, and the positioning of two SA-2 Surface-to-air missile batteries. In addition, the Iraqis had claimed that they were getting powdered milk for the plant from Nestlé
, but Nestlé said that was false. They said they had supplied no products to this plant.
Colin Powell
gave the president a briefing a week before the plant was bombed. Powell told President Bush that intelligence based from agents inside Iraq stated that the Iraqis had altered the plant into a biological weapons plant.
The Iraq Survey Group
visited the facility in May 2004 and found that it was inoperable and had been out of operation for some time prior to the invasion. The plant was searched extensively and no evidence was found of WMD
production, although the production facilities and factory floor were littered with remnants of baby milk production, including large piles of powdered baby milk that had congealed into solid masses.
and Time magazine, NewsStand, which described what he called "Operation Tailwind
".
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that the United States Army
had used Sarin
against a group of deserting U.S. soldier
s in Laos
in 1970. The men allegedly involved were an elite Green Beret 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 CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation which concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. In the event, all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, which had absolutely nothing to do with sarin.
Three or more of the individuals responsible for the "flawed" report were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded.
The co-producers of the report, April Oliver and Jack Smith, were dismissed. They sued Time Warner
, the parent company of CNN
, claiming they had been wrongfully fired and Time Warner
ultimately paid millions of dollars to settle their law suits, along with other suits brought by military personnel who claimed to have been libeled in the Oliver/Smith report. Senior producer Pam Hill and others resigned. Oliver was later quoted by the World Socialist Web Site
(International Committee of the Fourth International
) as saying that:
of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
for the then new HDNet
network.
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 Iraq TV on March 31, 2003, in which he stated:
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.
In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, the corporation
stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British
tabloid, The Daily Mirror
, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he was also assigned to Greek
television channel NET television
, and Belgian
VTM
.
ese woman, Nina Nguyen; they had two children, Elsa and Andrew. In 1983 Nina and Peter separated. They divorced more than 20 years later.
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
. Elsa Arnett is married to a former White House lawyer John Yoo
.
New Zealand Order of Merit
The New Zealand Order of Merit is an order established in 1996 "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have rendered meritorious service to the Crown and nation or who have become distinguished by their eminence, talents, contributions or other merits."The order includes five...
(born November 13, 1934, Riverton, New Zealand
Riverton, New Zealand
Riverton or Aparima is a small town at the south of the South Island of New Zealand. It is in the Southland region and lies at the western end of Oreti Beach, 30 kilometres west of Invercargill on the Southern Scenic Route. It is approx. 45 km from Stewart Island and provides a safe harbour...
) is a New Zealand-American
New Zealand-American
A New Zealand-American is either an American citizen born in New Zealand or a person born in the United States of America who has New Zealand ancestry.New Zealand Americans include:* Peter Arnett - TV Presenter* Len Lye - Artist...
journalist
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
.
Arnett worked for National Geographic magazine, and later for various television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
networks, most notably CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
. He is well known for his coverage of war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, including the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
. He was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in International Reporting for his work in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, where he was present from 1962 to 1975, most of the time reporting for the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
news agency. In 1994, Arnett wrote Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones. In March 1997, Arnett was able to interview Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
. The Journalism School at the Southern Institute of Technology
Southern Institute of Technology
The Southern Institute of Technology is the most well recognised Tertiary Education Institution of the province of Southland, New Zealand....
is named after him.
Vietnam
Some of Arnett's early days in journalism were in Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, particularly Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
. He started out running a small English-language newspaper in Laos in 1960. Eventually, he made his way to Vietnam where he was a reporter for the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. He worked with other AP staff in their Saigon office writing a number of important articles, such as
"Death of Supply Column 21", which attracted the ire of the American government. In July 1963, he was punched in the nose
Double Seven Day scuffle
The Double Seven Day scuffle was a physical altercation on July 7, 1963, in Saigon, South Vietnam. The secret police of Ngô Đình Nhu—the brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm—attacked a group of journalists from the United States who were covering Buddhist protests on the ninth anniversary...
by South Vietnamese undercover police while covering Buddhist protests
Buddhist crisis
The Buddhist crisis was a period of political and religious tension in South Vietnam from May 1963 to November 1963 characterized by a series of repressive acts by the South Vietnamese government and a campaign of civil resistance, led mainly by Buddhist monks....
.
He went on dozens of missions with troops, including during the traumatic battle of Hill 875, in which a detachment went to try to rescue another unit of soldiers that was stranded in hostile territory. They themselves were nearly killed during the rescue. In September 1972 he accompanied a group of U.S. peace activists, including William Sloane Coffin
William Sloane Coffin
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. was an American liberal Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist. He was ordained in the Presbyterian church and later received ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ....
and David Dellinger
David Dellinger
David T. Dellinger , was an influential American radical, a pacifist and activist for nonviolent social change.-Chicago Seven:...
, to Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
, North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
to bring three prisoners of war back to the United States.
Arnett got into trouble for writing in an unvarnished manner when trying to report the stories of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Arnett's writing often was perceived as negative. General William Westmoreland
William Westmoreland
William Childs Westmoreland was a United States Army General, who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak , during the Tet Offensive. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army. He later served as...
and president Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
and other people in power had battles with the AP
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
over trying to get Arnett removed from his assignment.
Arnett's most famous act of reporting from the Vietnam War was a story published on February 7, 1968, about the provincial capital 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." The quotation was distorted in subsequent publications, eventually becoming the more familiar, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The accuracy of the original quotation and its source has often been called into question. Arnett never revealed his source, except to say that it was one of four officers he interviewed that day. US Army major Phil Cannella, the senior officer present at Bến Tre, suggested that the quotation might have been a distortion of something he said to Arnett. The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
at the time attributed the quotation to US Air Force major Chester L. Brown. In Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years . During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll...
's 1971 book, Eye on the World, Arnett reasserted that the quotation was something "one American major said to me in a moment of revelation."
Arnett was one of the last reporters in Saigon after its capture by the North Vietnamese Army, and met with NVA soldiers who showed him how they had come into the city.
Arnett was the writer of the 1980 mini-series documentary - Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War
Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War
Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War, a 26-part Canadian television documentary on the Vietnam War, was produced in 1980 by Michael Maclear. The series aired in Canada on CBC Television, in the United States and in the United Kingdom on Channel 4....
.
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
Following the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Arnett was working for ParadeParade (magazine)
Parade is an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 500 newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1941 and is owned by Advance Publications. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., Parade has a circulation of 32.2 million and a readership of nearly 70...
and entered Afghanistan with Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
guides illegally from Pakistan, while dressed as natives. They continued on to a Jalalabad
Jalalabad
Jalalabad , formerly called Adinapour, as documented by the 7th century Hsüan-tsang, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul River and Kunar River near the Laghman valley, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province. It is linked by approximately of highway with...
hideaway of approximately fifty rebels. The trip came to an end when Healy fell into the Kunar river
Kunar
Kunar may refer to:*Kunar Valley, Afghanistan and Pakistan*Kunar Province, Afghanistan*Kunar River, Afghanistan and Pakistan...
, ruining the pair's cameras. Later, Arnett would recount the story to Artyom Borovik
Artyom Borovik
Artyom Genrikhovich Borovik was a prominent Russian journalist and media magnate. He was the son of a Soviet journalist, Genrikh Borovik, who worked for many years as a foreign correspondent in the U.S.-Journalism:...
who was covering the Soviet side of the war.
The Gulf War
Arnett worked for CNNCNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
for 18 years ending in 1999. During the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
he became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. His dramatic reports were often given with air raid sirens blaring and the sound of Baghdad bomb explosions in the background. Together with two other CNN journalists, Bernard Shaw
Bernard Shaw (journalist)
Bernard Shaw is a retired American journalist and former news anchor for CNN from 1980 until his retirement in March 2001.-Early years:...
and John Holliman
John Holliman
John Holliman was an American broadcast journalist. He was a member of the original reporting corps for CNN, serving as its agriculture correspondent after serving in the same capacity for Associated Press Radio in Washington, DC...
, Arnett brought continuous coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the war (January 17, 1991). Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means to communicate to the outside world. Soon the other journalists left Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, including the two CNN colleagues, which left Arnett as the sole reporter remaining there.
His reports on civilian damage caused by the bombing were not received well by the coalition war administration, who by their constant use of terms like "smart bombs" and "surgical precision" had tried to project an image that civilian casualties would be at a minimum. White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
sources would later state that Arnett was being used as a tool for Iraqi disinformation and CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
received a letter from 34 Members of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
accusing Arnett of "unpatriotic journalism".
Two weeks into the war, Arnett was able to obtain an uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
. The Gulf War became the first war to be seen truly live on TV, and Arnett was in many ways the sole player reporting from the "other side" for a period of five weeks.
About halfway through the war the CIA approached Mr. 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 Mr. Arnett and a few others from CNN were staying. The CIA wanted him out so the Air Force could bomb the hotel, but Mr. Arnett refused. He said he had been given a tour of the hotel and denied there was such a facility.
Baby milk factory controversy
One of Arnett's most controversial reports during the Gulf War was a report on how the coalition had bombed a baby milk factory. Shortly after the report, an Air Force spokesman stated "Numerous sources have indicated that [the factory] is associated with biological warfare production". Later the same day, Colin PowellColin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
stated "It was a biological weapons facility, of that we are sure". White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater
Marlin Fitzwater
Max Marlin Fitzwater was White House Press Secretary for six years under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, making him one of the longest-serving press secretaries in history.-Early life:...
stated "That factory is, in fact, a production facility for biological weapons" and "The Iraqis have hidden this facility behind a façade of baby-milk production as a form of disinformation."
The image of a crudely-made hand-painted sign reading "Baby Milk" in English and Arabic in front of the factory, and a lab coat dressed in a suit containing stitched lettering reading "BABY MILK PLANT IRAQ" only served to further the perception that purportedly civilian targets were simply being made to look like that by Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, and that Arnett was duped by the Iraqi government. The sign appeared to have been added by the Iraqis before the camera crews arrived as a cheap publicity ploy. Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
called the incident a "ham-handed attempt to depict a bombed-out biological-weapons plant near Baghdad as a baby-formula factory."
Arnett remained firm. He had toured the plant in the previous August, and was insistent that "Whatever else it did, it did produce infant formula". Described as being a veritable fortress by the Pentagon , the plant, Arnett reported, had only one guard at the gate and a lot of powdered baby milk. "That's as much as I could tell you about it ... [I]t looked innocent enough from what we could see." A CNN camera crew had been invited to tour this plant in August 1990. They videotaped workers wearing new uniforms with lettering in English reading, "Iraq Baby Milk Plant".
Interviewed later, Michel Wery, the plant's French contractor who helped build it, gave an interview in which he stated that the plant was producing solely baby milk when it started up in 1979, and was not equipped to breed pathogens. The plant closed in 1980, he said, when the last French technicians working for his company left Baghdad. Wery said he had heard that production had restarted after the United Nations embargo put in place in the fall of 1991, but he doubted whether that was possible after a 10-year lull. Two dairy technicians had been in the plant at least four times since to make repairs; one stated that, during a visit in May 1990, it was all normal dairy equipment and that the plant was actually canning milk powder. The suspicious uniform stitching was actually part of the original uniforms supplied by the French, and in fact the footage showing the uniforms was shot in August 1990. Part of the problem in reconciling the various U.S. and foreign accounts is that administration officials said they were constrained by security considerations from revealing exactly how they knew about the plant. At the same time, the New Zealand technicians and the French builder were not at the plant after May and cannot be certain of what happened after their departure.
White House reports diverged at this time. One official claimed that the plant was converted in 1990. Another claimed that it was a "backup" bioweapons facility, which had not yet been converted. A third said that it was not a bioweapons facility, but that it was used to make items crucial to bioweapons research; all three claimed insider information. In a confidential memo from December 1992, a State Department employee discussed the issue of the plant and reported that there were no hidden chambers or inappropriate machinery, and that it appeared to be a perfectly normal factory for producing powdered milk.
The plant had undergone security modifications since May 1990. Amongst these were camouflage paint on all the buildings in the complex, a security fence, and the positioning of two SA-2 Surface-to-air missile batteries. In addition, the Iraqis had claimed that they were getting powdered milk for the plant from Nestlé
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
, but Nestlé said that was false. They said they had supplied no products to this plant.
Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
gave the president a briefing a week before the plant was bombed. Powell told President Bush that intelligence based from agents inside Iraq stated that the Iraqis had altered the plant into a biological weapons plant.
The Iraq Survey Group
Iraq Survey Group
The Iraq Survey Group was a fact-finding mission sent by the multinational force in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq to find the alleged weapons of mass destruction alleged to be possessed by Iraq that had been the main ostensible reason for the invasion. Its final report is commonly called...
visited the facility in May 2004 and found that it was inoperable and had been out of operation for some time prior to the invasion. The plant was searched extensively and no evidence was found of WMD
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
production, although the production facilities and factory floor were littered with remnants of baby milk production, including large piles of powdered baby milk that had congealed into solid masses.
Operation Tailwind
In 1998 Arnett narrated a joint venture between CNNCNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
and Time magazine, NewsStand, which described what he called "Operation Tailwind
Operation Tailwind
Operation Tailwind was a covert incursion into southeastern Laos during the Vietnam War, conducted between 11 September and 13 September 1970. The purpose of the operation was to create a diversion for a Royal Lao Army offensive and to exert pressure on the occupation forces of the People's Army...
".
The report, titled The Valley of Death, claimed that the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
had used Sarin
Sarin
Sarin, or GB, is an organophosphorus compound with the formula [2CHO]CH3PF. It is a colorless, odorless liquid, which is used as a chemical weapon. It has been classified as a weapon of mass destruction in UN Resolution 687...
against a group of deserting U.S. soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s in Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
in 1970. The men allegedly involved were an elite Green Beret A-Team. The report was expressly approved by both CNN Chairman Tom Johnson and CNN President Rick Kaplan. In response, The Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
commissioned another report contradicting CNN's. CNN subsequently conducted its own investigation which concluded that the "journalism [in the Valley of Death] was flawed" and retracted the story. In the event, all 12 men of the Green Beret A-Team were wounded in action during Operation Tailwind, which had absolutely nothing to do with sarin.
Three or more of the individuals responsible for the "flawed" report were fired or forced to resign. Arnett was reprimanded.
The co-producers of the report, April Oliver and Jack Smith, were dismissed. They sued Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
, the parent company of CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, claiming they had been wrongfully fired and Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
ultimately paid millions of dollars to settle their law suits, along with other suits brought by military personnel who claimed to have been libeled in the Oliver/Smith report. Senior producer Pam Hill and others resigned. Oliver was later quoted by the World Socialist Web Site
World Socialist Web Site
The World Socialist Web Site is the online news and information center of the International Committee of the Fourth International . The site publishes articles and analysis covering a wide range of topics and events all around the world. The daily 'Perspective' article presents the position of the...
(International Committee of the Fourth International
International Committee of the Fourth International
The International Committee of the Fourth International is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain.-Foundation:The International...
) as saying that:
High definition TV pioneer
In December 2001 and January 2002, Arnett broadcast exclusive high definition television reports from AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
for the then new HDNet
HDNet
HDNet is a men's interest television channel in the United States, broadcasting exclusively in high-definition format and available via cable and satellite television...
network.
Interview in Iraq
On assignment for NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
. After a press meeting there he granted an interview to state-run Iraq TV on March 31, 2003, in which he stated:
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
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
and National Geographic all severed their relationships with Arnett.
In response to Arnett's statement on Iraqi TV, the corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
stated:
Arnett responded:
Later that day, Arnett was hired by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
tabloid, The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...
, which had opposed the war. A couple of days later he was also assigned to Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
television channel NET television
New Hellenic Television
New Hellenic Television , branded as NET, is the second television network of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation , the public broadcaster of Greece. It is mainly a news and information channel that broadcasts daily newscasts with national and international news, documentaries, talkshows, current...
, and Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
VTM
VTM
The abbreviation VTM may refer to::* Vampire: The Masquerade, a popular role-playing game* Virginia Tech massacre* vtm, the main commercial television station in Flanders, Belgium...
.
Family
In 1964 Arnett married a VietnamVietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese woman, Nina Nguyen; they had two children, Elsa and Andrew. In 1983 Nina and Peter separated. They divorced more than 20 years later.
Elsa Arnett attended Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
in New York and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. 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
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
. Elsa Arnett is married to a former White House lawyer John Yoo
John Yoo
John Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
.