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The News We (CNN) Kept To Ourselves [must read]
The New York Times ^ | 04/11/03 | EASON JORDAN

Posted on 04/10/2003 9:16:06 PM PDT by Pokey78

ATLANTA — Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard — awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.

For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk.

Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.

We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).

Still, I felt I had a moral obligation to warn Jordan's monarch, and I did so the next day. King Hussein dismissed the threat as a madman's rant. A few months later Uday lured the brothers-in-law back to Baghdad; they were soon killed.

I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us.

Last December, when I told Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that we intended to send reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, he warned me they would "suffer the severest possible consequences." CNN went ahead, and in March, Kurdish officials presented us with evidence that they had thwarted an armed attack on our quarters in Erbil. This included videotaped confessions of two men identifying themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents who said their bosses in Baghdad told them the hotel actually housed C.I.A. and Israeli agents. The Kurds offered to let us interview the suspects on camera, but we refused, for fear of endangering our staff in Baghdad.

Then there were the events that were not unreported but that nonetheless still haunt me. A 31-year-old Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for "crimes," one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months, forcing her father to watch. In January 1991, on the eve of the American-led offensive, they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing her body parts was left on the doorstep of her family's home.

I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.

Eason Jordan is chief news executive at CNN.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 4thestate5thcolumn; biasmeanslayoffs; blameamericafirst; cablenewsnetwork; ccrm; censorship; chickennoodlenews; clintonnewsnetwork; cnn; cnnajoke; cnnbloodonhands; cnncoconspirator; cnndeception; cnndictators; cnnkeptquiet; cnnknew; cnnlied; cnnlies; coverup; deathsquads; easonjordan; enemedia; genevaconvention; hateamericafirst; iraq; iraqhistory; iraqifreedom; lamestreammedia; leakbeforediscovery; liars; liberalbias; liberalmedia; mediabias; neverforget; reportersuberotrture; rush; saddam; secretpolice; selfcensorship; torture; trysellingthetruth; uday; war; warcrime; warcrimes; wedontreportthat
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To: unsycophant
Good bump, unsycophant - timely since NYT is accusing the President of deception.
1,541 posted on 11/28/2003 7:25:40 PM PST by hocndoc (Choice is the # 1 killer in the US)
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To: Pokey78
bump
1,542 posted on 04/04/2004 6:37:37 AM PDT by jonno (We are NOT a democracy - though we are democratic. We ARE a constitutional republic.)
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To: Pokey78
Better late than never as my mom used to say. I know people who don't believe it UNLESS the read it in the NYT.
1,543 posted on 04/04/2004 6:45:53 AM PDT by Ditter
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To: Pokey78
Bttt.
1,544 posted on 04/12/2004 3:42:25 PM PDT by Prince Charles
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To: Pokey78
"Eason Jordan is chief news executive at CNN."

You mean these bastard have known about him for YEARS and kepty silent? and now broadcast anti-Bush propaganda ???? F*** CNN !

1,545 posted on 07/13/2004 4:27:04 PM PDT by Mr. K (ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,this is like liberal logic,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø))
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To: Pokey78

bttt


1,546 posted on 09/29/2004 2:04:44 PM PDT by YankeeFan
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To: YankeeFan

Jordan CNN Bump


1,547 posted on 02/04/2005 11:31:46 AM PST by My Favorite Headache ("I I think she did too much coke...ahh you think so Doctor?)
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To: Pokey78

And that stack of sh*t and pasty little weasel Ted Turner, compares Fox News to Hitler?


1,548 posted on 02/04/2005 12:13:45 PM PST by One_American
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To: One_American

weekend bump


1,549 posted on 02/05/2005 9:50:50 AM PST by My Favorite Headache ("I I think she did too much coke...ahh you think so Doctor?)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Thanks for storing the whole article by Jordan.

Mr. Eason Jordan should be fired by CNN. I suggest a boycott of advertisers of CNN, like General Mills.

Yes, I like the idea of using a Leftist strategy. It seems the correct Libertarian method. Those who support lying news reporters can buy General Mills stuff.

See: http://tomgrey.motime.com/1107835510#414010


1,550 posted on 02/08/2005 3:39:58 AM PST by TomGrey (- Liberty Dad http://tomgrey.motime.com)
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To: TomGrey

Keep it alive and do a reminder bump to those who might have missed this gem.


1,551 posted on 02/08/2005 6:55:38 AM PST by My Favorite Headache ("I I think she did too much coke...ahh you think so Doctor?)
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To: Pokey78; All
Bumping for exposure..............FR's Jeff Gannon looks
like Edward R. Murrow compared to this clown.
FYI, this is the same jerk that accused
American troops of "targeting journalists".
1,552 posted on 02/10/2005 6:08:08 AM PST by MamaLucci (Libs, want answers on 911? Ask Clinton why he met with Monica more than with his CIA director.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

bttt


1,553 posted on 02/10/2005 6:21:02 AM PST by MamaLucci (Libs, want answers on 911? Ask Clinton why he met with Monica more than with his CIA director.)
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To: Freedom'sWorthIt

bttt


1,554 posted on 05/15/2006 7:39:01 PM PDT by MamaLucci (Mutually assured destruction STILL keeps the Clinton administration criminals out of jail.)
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To: MamaLucci

Time to give this one another little nudge. Let's remember how CNN operates.


1,555 posted on 09/18/2006 1:22:19 PM PDT by Irish Eyes
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To: Irish Eyes
Let's remember how CNN operates.

Operates? They've killed the patient!!

1,556 posted on 09/18/2006 1:25:01 PM PDT by Tolkien ("It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." ---Voltaire)
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To: My Favorite Headache

BTTT


1,557 posted on 01/06/2007 11:10:37 AM PST by streetpreacher (What if you're wrong?)
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To: Pokey78

Posted 2003
?

So why post it again now?

Remember for all these years it’s been Bush’s fault

Bush’s war...

No one dare call Hussein a maniac....well until now ...?


1,558 posted on 09/23/2012 1:01:44 PM PDT by Freddd (No PA Engineers)
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To: Pokey78

And the disgusting part is their pandering to islam and refusing to portray it accurately.

I can see the need to not reveal what was going on to protect some lives, but the whole general way that islamists are portrayed as victims when they know this stuff is inexcusable.


1,559 posted on 01/23/2017 11:04:57 AM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: Pokey78

He “felt awful”...???

Awwwww.... Maybe if you bass turds had told the truth These atrocities would have stopped sooner.


1,560 posted on 04/09/2019 10:48:57 AM PDT by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing Obamacare is worse than Obamacare itself.)
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