WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Veteran reporter and former talk show host Geraldo Rivera, a correspondent for Fox News, was asked to be removed from Iraq by the U.S. military for reporting Western troop movements in the war, the Pentagon said on Monday.
But in a report from Iraq where he was about 60 miles from Baghdad with the 101st Airborne Division, Rivera, known for his provocative on- screen style, said all was well and suggested he wasn't being ejected from the country by the U.S. military for coverage of the war.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman later told Reuters, however, that Fox News itself had agreed to remove Rivera after the military commander where Rivera was reporting felt that he had "compromised operational security."
A Fox spokesman said: "All I can tell you is that he's still reporting from Iraq."
Rivera said in his televised report that he did not know where the reports about the alleged security violations came from but accused colleagues, including former employer NBC, of perhaps "spreading some lies about me." He suggested all was well between him and the military.
"I'm further in the country than I have ever been," Geraldo said.
"If you were to ask me on whether or not he had reported on things that were of tactical value and compromised operational security, I would have to say yes. In the eyes of the commander on the ground, he did," Whitman told Reuters.
"I would say that he is going to be leaving Iraq," added Whitman. "Fox has talked to us and they have indicated to us that they are going to remove him from the area of operations."
Whitman, who had earlier said the military was ejecting Rivera, later amended that to Fox agreeing to withdraw the correspondent.
Reports from competing media said earlier that Rivera, a former talk show host and veteran correspondent who has also reported the war in Afghanistan and high-profile stories such as the O.J. Simpson murder trial, had been accused of violating rules against compromising operational security.
Whitman said Rivera was not officially "embedded," or assigned to the unit by the military, but was covering the troops at the time.
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