These beginning days were not easy for those who worked for CNN. It was ridiculed as "chicken noodle news" by some media critics, because starting from the ground up meant that the quality of our programming was not always up to major network standards, nor were the salaries of the reporters, producers and editors who labored to meet the hourly deadlines. Why did you decide to go to Baghdad and to remain there alone to cover the war? The once mighty mainstream networks had pared down news coverage, closing bureaus and unloading staff while the CNN team included skilled engineers, competent studio professionals, and an international reporting, camera and editing staff in a score of bureaus around the world.
But even more important, Turner had introduced the fusion of television images to distant satellites, thereby transforming the technological impact of live news coverage from anywhere it happening to audiences in countries. The very definition of news was rewritten from something that has happened to something that is happening.
The Iraqi Government had invited a dozen CNN personnel to remain in Baghdad during the threatened bombing campaign to force Saddam Hussein to withdraw his invasion forces from Kuwait. It was a unique opportunity to cover a war with live television images, but it quickly became apparent to me that the resolve of most of my young colleagues was wavering.
Family and friends were begging them to leave. The US Government advised all Americans to depart. I tried to persuade our engineer, Nick Robertson, to stay with me if all others left. We can survive it. If I bug out of here, I feel I would have to give my paycheck back because it would be a disservice to my company that hired me as a reporter. If CNN orders me out of here then Ted Turner should give the public their money back because it would be a disservice to them and the promise he has made when he signed the up to his hour news network.
Could you tell us what are your memories of January 17, , and the first night of bombing. In live television, seconds made the difference. As the bombing began, I lurched toward the work space. Bernard Shaw was kneeling, gazing out the ninth-floor window as he groped or the microphone, "Come to Baghdad. Come to Baghdad," he was shouting into the microphone, his fingers stabbing at the control button.
Bernie was first with the story. But my competitive disappointment evaporated as I looked beyond him out the window. The sky was so red it looked like the sun had returned to set again. Chains of yellow lights swung across the sky as though suspended from a giant chandelier, it was electronic chaff dropped by US war planes to knock out communication lines. Bernie began," The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated.
I thought, damn. All the planning, all the debate, all the money down the tubes. As the World beyond our windows exploded, we were helpless bystanders. But Holliman fiddled with the phone and replaced the batteries. And he danced with exhilaration as a large bomb blast three blocks away shock our room.
So nice to be with you," Holliman was chattering on, live from Baghdad, to anchor David French. We passed the microphone back and forth to each other like a baton. The executive producer in Atlanta, Bob Furnad, came on the line.
His voice was animated. But more were on the way. My throat was scratchy from the endless nervous speaking. My head ached and I had painful bumps on my upper arms and upper back.
By God, I was breaking out in a nervous rash. Two weeks into the war you obtained an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein. How did that happen, and were you worried to be used for propaganda purposes?
The Iraqi leader was a prime target for American war planes and he was in hiding. I had heard that Saddam was unpredictable. But I was not intimidated, I presume I had been summoned for a reason, and that I would survive the encounter. Psychologically I had an advantage.
He was on the run. He was the target of bombers, not me. I felt I could push him. The door opened and Saddam walked in alone. He was wearing a dark blue suit, a light topcoat and a gray cap. He towered over his aides who gathered around him. He soon excused himself and went to prepare for the interview.
When Saddam came back, he walked over to me and thrust out his hand. He had a firm handshake. He looked at ease. His mustache was neatly trimmed and his thick black hair was impeccably styled. I was reminded of the old Hollywood images of Latin lovers. He could have auditioned for a role, maybe as a stand-in for Cesar Romero. His suit was superbly tailored and he wore a fashionable scarlet floral tie.
Through the interpreter Saddam asked why I stayed in Baghdad. I told him I did this thing for a living. He smiled broadly. I remembered that he had said his was the mother of all battles. I told him the world was eager to hear what he had to say. I told him I would ask what the world wanted answers to. He took my arm and led me toward the set. I vowed to be as uncompromising with Saddam as possible. CNN would surely run the whole interview on air. Every word I uttered would be scrutinized.
I did not address Saddam with an honorific title. I launched directly into every question, or at most offered a "sir. Is it true that the CIA approached you because they believed that the Iraqi military was operating a communication network from the basement of the Al Rashid Hotel, but you refused to leave it? There was a report on the BBC mid-way through the war that quoted "intelligence sources" as saying the Iraqi Government was using the hotel basements for military purposes.
I immediately demanded that the Hotel manager allow me and a camera crew to search the basement area. He agreed, and we found no evidence of such activity. What is the most painful or indelible memory you have of that war? He said a civilian air raid shelter had been bombed that morning by American war planes and that some of his friends and his secretary may have been killed.
There was a government bus heading that way, and we raced to the parking lot. We drove toward the Amiriya district, a middle-class residential area I had not been to before. Military jeeps passed us, their sirens screaming. An ambulance swung by few blocks ahead of us.
We pulled into a side street. There was thick smoke coming from the roof of a squat building just ahead. A large crowd blocked our way.
I saw a sign on a power pole with the traffic sign symbol of a running person, and the word "shelter" "shelter" written in English and Arabic. I pushed my way through a chain link fence that surrounded the smoking building. There was frenzied activity in the yard inside.
Firemen were pushing a water hose up a ramp and into an open steel door in the building. Others were hacking at another entryway, which was jammed.
His colourful reports were beamed to hundreds of millions of viewers around the world at a time when few broadcasters operated rolling news services. He was one of the few American television reporters who stayed in Baghdad after the start of the current Iraqi war. The first Bush administration was unhappy with Arnett's reporting in for CNN, suggesting he had become a conveyor of propaganda. 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 American 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.
US Republicans branded yesterday's interview, in which Arnett said his Iraqi friends told him there was a growing sense of nationalism and resistance to what the US and Britain are doing in the country, as "nauseating". Arnett was the on-air reporter on the CNN broadcast that accused American forces of using sarin gas on a Laotian village in to kill US defectors. Two CNN employees were sacked and Arnett was reprimanded over the report, which the station later retracted.
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