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.

[proust]

I'd like to see a congressional investigation into CNN. Anyone else have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg?

[nicmarlo]

Sr. CNN executives admitted it deliberately withheld info it knew.....he learned "awful things about Iraqi govt." ....When Uday planned to assasinate the brothers-in-law and CNN learned this, CNN withheld the info........also quoted earlier article about CNN would always report accurately....

[PhiKapMom]

I was just going to say that Brit ripped CNN just now!

[nicmarlo]

he's just putting it in the Grapevine. Should have more coverage than this.

Maybe it'll be discussed later, at the "roundtable." : )

[PhiKapMom]

I believe it is the tip of the iceberg. Rush asked about their Cuban office. Someone needs to investigate this -- just not sure who that would be!

[nicmarlo]

I think CNN is in deep doo-doo now.

[joyce11111]

I wrote a email to cnn. But it did not go through...no such address.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?????

[TomMore]

Eason Jordan, 10/25/02: "CNN has demonstrated again and again that it has a spine; that it's prepared to be forthright; is forthright in its reporting."

http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts_102502_jordan.html

(sorry if already posted; can't check right now; am sickened by the nytimes piece)

[nicmarlo]

yw, meekie.

[PhiKapMom]

Joe Scarborough is going to cover CNN with Media Research Center's Rich Noyes tonight on his show on MSNBC at 9:00 est. Noyes should be really good and Joe is the most Conservative Republican on any of cable news and doesn't hide the fact.

[Mat_Helm]

It is repulsive to read that CNN would hide the truth to keep on reporting only what suits the Iraqi regime. They had an obligation to report this and if they were kicked out, this would become news in itself and further show that the brutal regime was hidding from the world how it maintained a terror grip on the people.

CNN helped perpetuate the lie that Iraq had nothing to hide. To let people suffer and die and not tell there story is the same as if CNN helped hold the victems down from running and to help Saddam gagg the victems to stop the world from hearing their cries and screams.

What else has ABCNNBCBS held back? These liberal evil people have such bias on the brain they now let people die and somehow justify their eliteist view that people must be sacraficed to keep the liberal line of news going??????If I was an Iraqi I would chase every CNN reporter out of the country and never let them back in. Utterly shameful and just plain evil. Bagdad Bob would make a great CNN executive producer or a good stand in for Peter Jennings of ABC.

[GOPrincess]

Thanks much for the Scarborough tip, I'll look for it.

I'm assuming Brit's roundtable will cover it.

Also, Fred & Mort are in the second hour of Hugh Hewitt's radio show and I'm sure he'll ask them about it.

This has got to be more than a two-day story...

[Friend of thunder]

This is very distressing; I have been listening to people talking about this all day. I can understand not wanting to put peoples lives at risk but the only moral decision would have been to leave Iraq – if that would have resulted in deaths then Mr. Jordan should have mentioned it. If a news agency is not able to report the truth from a country then what in the world are they doing reporting from that country. I wonder if CNN is the only news agency that allowed this to go on. I am sure that there will be many more stories about the torture and brutality that went on in Iraq; I wonder if there will be more stories about news agencies being – for lack of better a better word – complicate with the government of Iraq.

[cyncooper]

OK, he did address it in the Grapevine. But he underscored it simply and bluntly by stating the basics of the story, then reminding us of how a CNN reporter covered the sham "election" of Hussein with the reporter telling CNN viewers how Saddam is "reverenced" by the citizens of Iraq.

Nice touch by Brit by saying others might regret their pre-war comments and Chris Matthews was highlighted. Good. Chris sometimes realizes the truth, but he often gets it so wrong on his first impressions.

[PhiKapMom]

And it is getting deeper! I knew CNN was bad and their coverage of the war has been as low as it can go but this even shocked me! I really didn't think CNN could go any lower but they have managed!

[PhiKapMom]

That is interesting -- I was just getting ready to send a CNN email myself. Will let you know if it goes through. Sounds like they shut down their email.

[proud American in Canada]

1. They remained silent, therefore becoming accessories to the heinous regime.

2. And like someone pointed out, their slanted coverage has one goal: to undermine George Bush and his goals.

They are despicable... I'm sorry it's the only cable network I get up here.

[GOPrincess]

Brit says the panel will discuss "the latest media excitement" among their topics.

[PhiKapMom]

The pressure needs to be kept on -- I imagine the other networks will be glad to go after CNN as well. You are right -- this has to be more than a two-day story.

Noted that CNN released this on a Friday just like the Clintons and probably think it will die down on the weekend.

Bunch of lowlifes!

[cyncooper]

I don't recall hearing whether FOX News has mentioned this issue yet. Have you?

I know you don't have time to go through over 1000 replies, but I noted earlier today that Bridget Quinn had Eric Burns (who provides analysis of how the media is performing) in and they discussed briefly. Unfortunately I saw, rather than heard most of this, but the topic did come up today.