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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: MamaLucci
She... I'm a she...
381 posted on 04/11/2003 12:22:15 AM PDT by marajade
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To: diamond6
Yes... and it sounds like you're trying to justify why CNN did what they did...
382 posted on 04/11/2003 12:30:05 AM PDT by marajade
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To: marajade
Makes you wonder what the CNN Havana Bureau is covering up.
383 posted on 04/11/2003 12:32:34 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Howlin
This is astounding. As one Iraqi said, "thank you Mr. Bush."

384 posted on 04/11/2003 12:33:56 AM PDT by swheats
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To: marajade
What would you have done to make sure that CNN reporting this would not have resulted in the deaths of Iraqi citizens left behind? Or does that not matter to you?
385 posted on 04/11/2003 12:34:18 AM PDT by diamond6 ("Everyone who is for abortion HAS been born." Ronald Reagan)
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To: diamond6
CNN hired Iraqis in Iraq for the Iraqi bureau. The Iraqis were the ones Jordan was protecting. He couldn't just take those Iraqis into the U.S. without the Iraqi and U.S. government's approval.

Did it ever occur to you that CNN could have told saddam that if one of their employees in Iraq was arrested or tortured for a story they reported, they would mention the arrest and torture. They didn't go down that route and appeased saddam, all for the "prestige" of having a Baghdad bureau.

386 posted on 04/11/2003 12:34:25 AM PDT by Dane
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To: dfwgator
It would certainly make almost every bureau where the US is disliked suspect...
387 posted on 04/11/2003 12:35:12 AM PDT by marajade
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To: diamond6
Sure it matters to me... They should have just left before they were in too deep...
388 posted on 04/11/2003 12:35:53 AM PDT by marajade
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To: Dane
And you think that would have stopped Saddam from doing just that? Rememember, he kicked CNN out of the country before the war.
389 posted on 04/11/2003 12:36:35 AM PDT by diamond6 ("Everyone who is for abortion HAS been born." Ronald Reagan)
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To: marajade
Well, at the risk of getting flamed again. Just how deep is too deep? And when could they pull out without repercussions to the employees left behind?
390 posted on 04/11/2003 12:38:55 AM PDT by diamond6 ("Everyone who is for abortion HAS been born." Ronald Reagan)
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To: diamond6
And you think that would have stopped Saddam from doing just that? Rememember, he kicked CNN out of the country before the war

Well look what that 12 years of appeasement towards saddam got CNN, kicked out of saddam's Iraq anyway, and in the meantime CNN covered up the brutalities of saddam's regime all for the "prestige" of a Baghdad bureau.

391 posted on 04/11/2003 12:39:44 AM PDT by Dane
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To: The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
I think so too, Sir.

I have an old dinosaur of a computer, but if I can help in any way, please let me know..

Off to bed then!

Ms.B
392 posted on 04/11/2003 12:41:15 AM PDT by MS.BEHAVIN
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To: Pokey78
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.

It's funny, but I would've never known by the quality and cotent of CNN's reporting. Not!

So now they're attempting to portray a "battered wife" defense for their endless years of promoting that satanic despot...

THIS is CNN

393 posted on 04/11/2003 12:41:51 AM PDT by Prince Charles
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To: Dane
Look, I don't like the reporting of CNN and their slant any better than you do. But was it CNN's appeasement, or the world's appeasement (namely the U.N. countries and Clinton) that allowed this situation to go on for 12 years?
394 posted on 04/11/2003 12:41:56 AM PDT by diamond6 ("Everyone who is for abortion HAS been born." Ronald Reagan)
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To: Wild Irish Rogue
"His aide said that Clinton wasn't booed,the noise was actually applause."

How'd Baghdad Bob get here so fast? Glad he found another job though! I missed him already!
395 posted on 04/11/2003 12:42:50 AM PDT by honeygrl (Soylent Green is PEOPLE!)
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To: diamond6
At the first sign there was going to be an issue... Don't you think it worse that by aiding Saddam that many more Iraqis were killed than just those who worked for them? How can you place a value on any life? That is what CNN did...
396 posted on 04/11/2003 12:43:04 AM PDT by marajade
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To: Tall_Texan
Tyrants are perfectly willing to let the media be their propaganda tool and if the guests don't play by their rules, they're executed or tossed out.

The honorable solution would have been to do the opposite, to stay here and write bloody flag stories to get the SOB dictator overthrown.
397 posted on 04/11/2003 12:44:08 AM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Rumble Thee Forth...)
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To: diamond6
But was it CNN's appeasement, or the world's appeasement (namely the U.N. countries and Clinton) that allowed this situation to go on for 12 years?

Well since CNN is the network of choice of the Clinton's and the UN, CNN is just a complicit in the appeasment of saddam, IMO.

398 posted on 04/11/2003 12:46:23 AM PDT by Dane
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To: marajade
OOPS! Sorry Ms. Marajade. :)
399 posted on 04/11/2003 12:47:08 AM PDT by MamaLucci (CNN slogan : We report, Saddam decides)
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To: marajade
Here's where I differ. I don't believe that CNN was the cause of this dragging on for 12 years. I believe that was caused by the weak stomachs of the U.N. countries (especially the Western European nations), who knew darn well what we were dealing with and refused to crack down on the U.N. resolutions. What Jordan is reporting now really is not all that different than what has been reported by various sources for years.
400 posted on 04/11/2003 12:47:55 AM PDT by diamond6 ("Everyone who is for abortion HAS been born." Ronald Reagan)
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