Long Knives out for Amanpour. Insiders Fire Back: ‘Christiane has survived real sniping in real war zones’

A Page Six report claims “the knives are out” for ABC’s Christiane Amanpour.

“Amanpour flies into Washington on Friday and anchors the show on Sunday,” an insider tells the Post. “She reads about Washington from her Central Park apartment. It’s not like other war zones that you can parachute into. She is very cold and distant with the other bureau staff.”

In response to the story, an ABC News insider tells TVNewser, “Christiane has survived real sniping in real war zones so she’s not too concerned with anonymous sniping in a gossip column.”

The Page Six story goes on:

Some resent Amanpour’s friendship with Disney honcho Bob Iger and his wife, Willow Bay. Disney owns ABC. Other staffers gripe that despite her reputation as a top foreign correspondent, she doesn’t have enough experience reporting on US politics.

Says our insider of the item, “Christiane understands it’s part of the game and frankly laughed it off for the nonsense it is.”

Among her guests this morning on “This Week”, Amanpour talked with retired Gen. Hugh Shelton about his new memoir:

When asked if Bush was pushed into invading Iraq, Shelton tells Amanpour, “I think eventually that that same drumbeat continued, and Afghanistan, remember, was going very, very well.  The drumbeat back here in Washington was still pushing, coming out of the Pentagon, let’s go to Iraq, let’s get — take him out.  And he finally said, let’s go.  We walked out on the limb before we could build a coalition of the — either the United Nations or NATO, one of the two.”

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