NBC Dismisses Peter Arnett Over Interview With Baghdad TV

In his April 1 commentary “Casualty of a Ratings War,” Jonathan Turley ascribes the firing by NBC of news reporter Peter Arnett, who gave an arguably treasonous interview with Baghdad TV, to NBC’s fear of ratings losses rather than to Arnett’s anti-U.S., pro-Iraqi position. In support of the ratings interpretation, Turley states that Arnett’s “interview on Iraqi TV was rather unremarkable and understated compared with analyses by others.”

However, in quoting Arnett’s “specific statements,” Turley curiously fails to quote this most remarkable statement by Arnett: “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” (“Reporter Tells Iraqis His Work Aids Antiwar Effort,” March 31). Arnett’s statement literally provided the Iraqi government with a blueprint to undermine U.S. policy. Although I’m no fan of NBC, I believe it made an intelligent decision having little to do with ratings and a lot to do with having mistakenly hired a liability-prone nut case.

Jeff Bleil

San Diego

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Re “Scrutiny Grows as NBC Fires Arnett Over TV Interview,” April 1:

Freedom of speech is not freedom from speech! Does NBC feel it necessary to feed us only the one-sided propaganda that our government is already heaping on us? Can’t we hear both sides and make a decision? Isn’t it obvious that an interview with Iraqi television is going to present its side? Why does someone have to be fired so that I can hear both sides? Is our government/media hiding so much from us that it doesn’t want us to hear others?

There is something very un- and anti-American about that picture, another erosion of our constitutional rights.

Wendy Averill

Culver City

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Arnett defends his opinions delivered on state-run Iraqi TV by saying that he was telling the truth. According to Arnett, the coalition war plan had failed because it failed to appreciate the level of Iraqi resistance. What nonsense. If Arnett really wanted to tell the truth, he could have told the Iraqi people that the coalition failed to appreciate the level of depravity to which Saddam Hussein’s henchmen would sink to keep innocent civilians cowering and in line.

After all, who can believe an army would use women and children as human shields? What government would hang a woman for waiving at coalition troops or shell escaping families at a bridge in Basra? Where was Arnett’s love for the truth when he failed to bring up these atrocities on Iraqi TV?

Tim Hodge

Simi Valley