Pulitzer-winning combat reporter, NZ-born Peter Arnett dies at 91

Renowned American war correspondent Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting in Vietnam in 1966 and who covered most of the conflicts of the late 20th century, has died. Photo / Mike Clarke, AFP

Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who became one of the world’s foremost combat correspondents, has died. He was 91.

He had been suffering from prostate cancer.

Arnett, who won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for his coverage of the Vietnam War for the Associated Press, rose to international fame in his decades-long career covering conflicts from Vietnam to El Salvador to the Gulf.

He broke onto the international scene as a wire-service correspondent in Vietnam from 1962 until the war’s end in 1975, dodging bullets as he accompanied troops on missions. His reporting throughout the conflict provided an on-the-ground assessment of the war that often challenged official US accounts.

He was among the last reporters in Saigon as it fell to the communist-backed North Vietnamese.

Arnett stayed with the AP until 1981, when he joined CNN. He would soon rise to broadcast stardom.

In 1991, Arnett landed in Baghdad for the outbreak of the first Gulf War, where he interviewed then-president Saddam Hussein and documented the lives of the Iraqi people living under the bombing.

His live frontline broadcasts – in some cases relayed by cell phone – would make him a household name.

“Peter Arnett was one of the greatest war correspondents of his generation – intrepid, fearless, and a beautiful writer and storyteller,” Edith Lederer, chief UN correspondent for the AP, told the agency.

“His reporting in print and on camera will remain a legacy for aspiring journalists and historians for generations to come.”

Bin Laden interview

In 1997, Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden at a secret hideout in Afghanistan years before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

When asked about his plans, bin Laden reportedly told Arnett: “You’ll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing,” the New York Times reported.

Arnett resigned from CNN in 1999 after the network retracted a report Arnett narrated claiming deadly Sarin nerve gas had been used on deserting American soldiers in Laos in 1970.

Arnett went on to cover the second Gulf War for NBC and National Geographic.

He left NBC in 2003 after giving an interview to Iraqi state television in which he was critical of the US military’s strategy.

Arnett was born on November 13, 1934 in Riverton, New Zealand.

Arnett, who later became a naturalised American citizen, began his career as a reporter on the Southland Times, before going on to work for English-language papers in Thailand and Laos.

In 1995, he published his memoir, Live From the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World’s War Zones.

Arnett, who lived in Southern California since 2014, is survived by his wife, Nina Nguyen, and their children, Elsa and Andrew, US media said.

-Agence France-Presse