The Daily Mirror said on Tuesday that it had hired veteran journalist Peter Arnett.

NBC had fired the 68-year-old Arnett, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for his coverage of the Vietnam War, on Monday for telling the Iraqi TV in an interview that as far as the US was concerned, the conflict was not going to plan.

The New Zealand-born journalist said: "The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan. Clearly. The war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces. In my TV commentaries I'd tell the Americans about the Iraqi forces and their willingness to fight.

"President Bush says he is concerned about the Iraqi people. But if Iraqi people are dying in numbers, then American policy will be challenged very strongly."

But the White House said Arnett spoke from "a point of complete ignorance".

On Monday, the journalist apologised on NBC. "It was clearly a misjudgement talking to Iraqi TV. I'm not anti-war. I said what we all know about this war. But I've created a firestorm and for that I'm sorry."

But NBC, which had praised Arnett on Sunday for risking his life to report from Baghdad, dropped him.

"I report the truth of what is happening here in Baghdad and will not apologise for it. I have always admired your newspaper and am proud to be working for it," the Mirror quoted Arnett as saying after he was sacked.

Arnett was the first Western journalist to interview Osama bin Laden and the last to interview Saddam Hussein.