The News We (CNN) Kept To Ourselves [must read]

The New York Times ^ | 04/11/03 | EASON JORDAN

[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.

[Cincinatus]

So what does this tell us about what's going on in CNN's Havana bureau -- right this minute!?

[William McKinley]

Don't bother Andy. Didn't you read post 407 or so? He's a lawyer, and he has out-argued much more difficult opponents than us. His brilliance is so obvious that he felt compelled to tell us about it, and victory is his because he said so.

[Bluntpoint]

CNN:

Oh, by the way, we have video of Hillary "suiciding" Vince Foster.

[Semper Paratus]

It is too late too come clean

The second their crew hit the Jordanian border after being booted out last month they could have done it, but they didn't.

Ta Ta CNN.

[Brian Allen]

<< Now that Saddam's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. >>

And the Cresent News Network and Limey's socialist-state's official organ, the soon to be renamed BBC, [Baghdad Broadcasting Co-op] et al, will continue to every-bit-as-gutlessly refuse to actually report from any of their OTHER client states as every one of the other hundred and fifty of so of them continues to enslave and to brutalize its captive subjects!

If there were any Justice on Earth the "writer" of this disgusting Mea Culpa and all who ever held thir hands out for CNN's and BBC's et al's dole checks and stipends and/or who ever issued them would be hauled before that oxymoronically-named "court" that Kofi's cave full of thugs has recently created. And tried for crimes against Humanity and/or for the aiding and abetting of the same!

Bump/Ping

[wolf6656]

I agree that what CNN has done is reprehensible at the least, and likely criminal, but I think you will find that the workers for the "REAL" news agencies will be able to tell you similar stories. I don't think CNN is alone in this. To believe that would be implying that they are better news gatherers. This is truly not so. I am sure that these stories have been "sanitized" until now. The leaking of these stories now, only serves to provide further justification for this war, (as if that were neccessary). CNN is leaking now to offset the fact that they have no WMD stories. They are NOT a news agency. Their stories are written at a Grade 5 education viewership.(those who cannot reason for themselves), but their selection of stories is cunning. They are the Ministry of Fear. Witness the multiplication of force of anti-Clinton ire in this thread. Their job is done. Even if not one WMD is found, the public now has their justification. Read Orwell again people.

[Jael]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/890761/posts?page=18#18

Ping to that story. It needs a thread of it's own.

[peeve23]

This man's admission means that CNN, in supporting this regime and the liberals in our government who gave Saddam cover, knew exactly that they were participating in a lie. They puffed Saddam up. So did CBS.

These networks are worse than panderers to Saddam. They are criminally negligent in their duties to balance their reporting.

[kcvl]

You are absolutely correct because I emailed him and asked him that question and this is his answer to me...

"I did so on the Aaron Brown program on CNN last night".

My reply was...

"I guess that's why I missed it since I despise CNN and NEVER watch it." ROFLOL!

Anyone else care to get a response you can email him here...

Eason.Jordan@turner.com

[RogueIsland]

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.

And yet the DUers wonder way Iraqis would be cheering U.S. troops.

[kcvl]

Eason.Jordan@turner.com

[YaYa123]

Keep thinking what this means....

Peter Arnett was at CNN for all those years...his self-professed claim to fame is that he honestly reports the news. HA! No way was he not plugged in to the policy.

Christianne Amanpour was at CNN, (still is). married to Jamie Ruben, who was Madeleine Albright's deputy throughout the Clinton years. No way would Amanpour be unaware of CNN's policy toward Iraqi news, or the stranglehold this guy claims Saddam had on CNN employees in Baghdad.

Look at Wolf Blitzer. He had to know what was going on too. I don't see a twinge of conscious on his face. This soul cleansing editorial needs to be studied, dissected, and roundly discussed on all the talk shows. Will that happen? I doubt it.

[Maigrey]

BTTT!

[fml]

Thanks for the ping. BTW, do you ever sleep?

[hawkaw]

I saw this on CNN last night as well. I think Aaryon Brown or someone was interviewing this guy. I kept hearing what he was saying and I was stunned.

Now reading this and this thread I just keep getting madder and madder.

These guys shuld have their broadcast licence yanked.

hawk

[MortMan]

I wonder if the news organizations that sent these reporters to be embedded with the troops own the "rights" to these stories? Maybe the embeds had to sign an agreement saying that they weren't to publish any story without the editor's consent. Sort of like when you create a new product that becomes patented, but the company that employed you gets to keep the patent.

I don't think so. The rule is generally this: Whatever you work on using employer equipment or time is the employer's. Whatever you work on during your own time using your own equipment is yours.

When Peter Jenning's book came out ("The Greatest Generation"?), it did not have the network logo on it, as an example. (Forgive me if I have the wrong anchor - I don't watch any of the buttheads:-)

[MeekOneGOP]

The News We (CNN) Kept To Ourselves

Excerpt:

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.

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[MeekOneGOP]

Wow. Thanks for the heads up.

[N. Theknow]

Well, don't we all feel better now that Eason Jordan can finally tell the story that has been bottled up inside of him.

What a total crock of self-serving twaddle.

And now the big question for Saddam Jordan

What else are you hiding in the vacuuous cranium and empty soul of yours?

[GreenAccord]

I'm not so sure that other western news agencies would have had the same access as CNN. There is an air of duplicity in this article. I think back to all of the questioning the on-air talent had for this confrontation in the months leading up to the operation. Each and every time "the forehead" or Carville spouted off about the illegitemacy of the Administrations stance, someone upstairs had to know the truth. (you know, the truth, the same truth we've all believed here in this forum)

Sort of akin to their ambassador stating he has had no communication with Saddam, once the regieme had so clearly fallen.

To me, Mr. Jordan is simply swiching sides, in a "Yeah, those guys" fashion, right after they are all caught red handed.

Like others in this thread, I'm most interested in what CNN knows about the Clinton regieme in exactly the same set of circumstances.