The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, already signed up by Britain's Daily Mirror after his dismissal last week, will be reporting for private Belgian station VTM and state Greek broadcaster Net.

"Peter Arnett will be our correspondent for the duration of the war," said Marc Dupain, news presenter for VTM, the main commercial television station in Flanders, northern Belgium.

In Greece, Net's managing editor Thanassis Teskouras said the station was working with Arnett for his personality and professionalism and not as part of an ideological engagement.

The New Zealand-born journalist, famed for his coverage of the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War, was sacked from US network NBC and National Geographic magazine after he criticized US military stategy in an interview with Iraqi television.

"The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance (...) Clearly, the war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces," he said. He subsequently apologized, but was sacked anyway.

Arnett made his first broadcasts for the Belgian and Greek stations Thursday evening.

"By having an American with quite a critical voice, we are playing a little bit the same role as the Belgian government," said Dupain, while insisting that VTM had not "taken position" on the conflict.

The Belgian government is fiercely against the US-led war, and was one of three countries -- along with France and Germany -- which plunged NATO into an unprecedented crisis in February over preparations for the conflict.

"The fact that Belgium has taken a clear position against the war certainly played in our favour to hire on the most well-known journalists of the last 25 years," he added.

On Tuesday Britain's left-leaning Daily Mirror, which has a firm anti-war position, said that they were employing Arnett in order to let him "carry on telling the truth".

Net television is considered close to the ruling Greek socialist party and is opposed to the war in Iraq, along with 95 percent of the Greek population, according to latest opinion polls.

Arnett won a Pullitzer prize for his coverage of the Vietnam war in 1966.

Dupain declined to comment on the financial aspects of Arnett's contract with VTM, beyond saying that "it is less expensive than sending a journalist and his crew to Baghdad."

SPACE.WIRE