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.

[texasbluebell]

They are showing their TRUE colors. Their ratings are going to fall EVEN further.

Moral bankruptcy will finally do them in...

[Lucas1]

Here is a conversation I just had online with someone from Canada -

[13:48:57] ShadowAngel..: A damning article
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html?ex=10
50638400&en=ea21e8c88feae21c&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE CNN
knew all of this and hid it for 12 years...they should be
held accountable...certainly they have blood on their
hands...why they even came out with this is mind
boggling...people on talk radio...and different forums are
so angry and livid...

[13:52:43] (8) Norman ..: There will be more of these stories before
we are done. There are always revelations after a war.

[13:52:55] ShadowAngel..: well this is more than a revelation

[13:53:06] ShadowAngel..: this is CNN hiding the truth...the
implications of that should be far reaching
CNN knew...and knew for 12 years...then on
top of it..CNN has been slanted all along against the
war...criminal at best

[13:53:43] (8) Norman ..: I need to read the whole article.

[13:53:56] (8) Norman ..: I thought

[13:54:05] (8) Norman ..: CNN was very much pro the war.

[13:54:28] (8) Norman ..: I tbhough all the American stations were pro
the war.

[13:54:39] (8) Norman ..: "thought"

[13:54:41] ShadowAngel..: CNN has been the most against the war all
along

[13:54:48] (8) Norman ..: OK

[13:55:11] (8) Norman ..: I don't watch CNN much because I thought
they had such a right wing bias.

[13:55:27] ShadowAngel..: The article...states the Uday shared his top
secrets with CNN...they knew of assasination plots...and
hid the stories...

[13:55:59] (8) Norman ..: I'm sure the US gov't knew at least as much
as CNN new.

[13:56:24] (8) Norman ..: You can't always say everything you know.

[13:56:26] ShadowAngel..: when you compare the reporting from CNN to
the other US outlets...CNN was most against the war....BBC
and others obviously also knew of stuff like this in Iraq
but hid it as well...all these news people that cover the
truth...wreck their credibility...in my mind CNN has blood on their hands...plain and simple. They have done the World a great disservice.

[mewzilla]

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." (Dante)

A very fitting quote.

[Lucas1]

And

'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’

[mewzilla]

I thought of that, but there there aren't any.

[EaglesUpForever]

He said he does not watch CNN because they are TOO CONSERVATIVE and are PRO WAR.

You can find that opinion among leftists in America, as well. I guess their idea of an objective, unbiased news service is Baghdad Bob.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

This is important; I dunno what to think. His keeping quiet about Uday's assassination plan is equivalent to, say, hearing that Neil Bush was planning to assassinate Jenna and Barbara and not telling the President? Couldn't he get booked for Accessory to Murder if Neil succeeded?

[Timesink]

In Canada, CNN is available everywhere on cable, and is widely regarded as a pro-Bush right-wing U.S. propaganda network...and distrusted because of that. Seriously.

I have zero problem believing this. The blatant anti-American bias of the CBC is jawdropping to behond. They make the BBC look like Bush lapdogs. I have yet to find any news organization more biased.

[Timesink]

Behond = behold, obviously. Stupid typos.

[syriacus]

But..but...but...A transcript shows

Eason Jordan is already on the record as insisting that CNN was not kowtowing to Saddam's regime.

From a transcript of an NPR interview with Eason Jordan

Jordan said these words on October 25, 2002

• CNN has a spine
• CNN is forthright in its reporting
• CNN is not reading Iraqi propaganda; we're reporting as an independent news organization.
• We work very hard to report forthrightly, to report fairly and to report accurately and if we ever determine we cannot do that, then we would not want to be there;
• We're not [in Iraq] to please the Iraqi government -- we're not there to displease the Iraqi government -- we're just there to do our job.
• We'd very much like to be there if there's a second [Gulf] war; but-we are not going to make journalistic compromises in an effort to make that happen

Eason Jordan must have lied to NPR or must be lying in his NYT column.

[TLBSHOW]

bttt

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I'm going to ping Neil Cavuto.

Bet he'll have something to say. Incidentally, Mr. Jordan was in a horrible situation; he has my sympathies. (I'm not saying he doesn't deserve whatever's coming to him; he very well may...)

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Ping of importance.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Ping of importance.

[dmeara]

I am sure Mr. Jordan was only following orders.

[CFC__VRWC]

I am SO glad that I have satellite...and can watch Fox News. I have not watched CNN since...

Same here. But now I'm going to take the next steps:

1. When I get home, EVERY CNN channel that I get (Headline News, CNN International, CNNFN, CNN-SI, etc.) gets blocked on my DirecTV receiver. I don't even want to land on one of their channels for the fraction of a second it takes me to surf past them.
2. I will be sending an e-mail to DirecTV expressing my displeasure at CNN, and requesting that they consider either dropping CNN outright, or at least moving it to a premium package and putting Fox News in it's place as part of the basic service.

[Roughneck]

I have not had time to read everything.

Anyone talked "boycott CNN" and their subsidiaries (sp)yet?

I think they should at least have to answer to the USA for aiding and abetting no matter what their pitiful excuses are.

I could just vomit.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Howlin,
Did you ask Ernest_at_the_Beach to ping his list? Thanks.

[Almondjoy]

You obviously don't get it do you? I guess it might help if you had a little brain matter between your ears but let me try and explain this one to you. Let's say for instance even one of these stories were told. CNN and all other news organizations would of been kicked out immediately never to return. The result.. all of this would go undocumented. Now i'm sure there are plenty of news organizations that will be able to place facts so that any living members of the regime responsible for these crimes will be put to justice. That's just one part. How about the Iraqi's working for them as he mentioned? Is it better to document these stories or to have your whole baghdad staff killed? What would be better for your concience?

Try acting your age if you can.

[free-trace]

I sent this letter to Mr. Jordan at cnn@cnn.com:
To: Mr. Eason Jordan, CNN Chief News Executive

Dear Mr. Jordan,

I read your op-ed piece in today's New York Times with growing indignation. Do you not see that you have been used by Saddam to extend his power? Do you make no distinction between your job as a news gather/reporter and your function as a tool of an evil, murderous regime? Do you not accept responsibility for the suffering and deaths of Iraqis and coalition military personnel due to your silence and cowardice?

How much more courageous it would have been for you to have spoken the truth even if it meant necessarily pulling out of your high-profile news beat years ago.

What else do you know that you are not making public? Information preceding the 9/11/01 terror attacks, perhaps?

And to think that while you hid your knowledge of these atrocities and the manipulation tactics being used to control your reports from your news audiences, you failed to support world community interdiction, and in fact delayed it.

How can you ask me to accept any of your station's reports as credible?