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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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Comment #1,201 Removed by Moderator

To: GOPrincess
"An extraordinary article, one wonders what it was written at all."

Response by guest (who?): to get it off his conscience.

1,202 posted on 04/11/2003 3:54:07 PM PDT by nicmarlo
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To: wolf24
Michael Barone speculates that he must have wanted to get it off his chest. A bit late, isn't it?
1,203 posted on 04/11/2003 3:54:56 PM PDT by Carolinamom
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To: wolf24
Recounting Jordan's statements in Garfield interview

CNN should not have had anyone portraying Hussein as "beloved" when his boss knew exactly what was going around in the country.
1,204 posted on 04/11/2003 3:55:19 PM PDT by goodnesswins (CNN...the MOST TRUSTED in News......by CRIMINALS!)
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To: wolf24
Michael Barone is unloading; Mort Kondrake calls CNN's claims of integrety "A FAT LIE".
1,205 posted on 04/11/2003 3:55:36 PM PDT by Drumbo ("Of course I have an attitude, I spent my life beating things for a living" - Drumbo Thunder)
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To: goodnesswins
What about the anchors back in Atlanta or NY....

"classic example of selling your soul to the story"
1,206 posted on 04/11/2003 3:56:06 PM PDT by goodnesswins (CNN...the MOST TRUSTED in News......by CRIMINALS!)
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To: Drumbo
Bingo - "classic example of selling your soul for the story".
1,207 posted on 04/11/2003 3:56:17 PM PDT by CheneyChick (SHAKANAW, Baby!)
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To: PhiKapMom
CNN International has, essentially, been the Al Jazeera (by Mort)

"Classic example of selling your soul for the story." (by guest, don't know name)

1,208 posted on 04/11/2003 3:56:23 PM PDT by nicmarlo
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To: The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
Brit calling this an extraordinary article.

Michael Barone: sounds like he wanted to get something off his chest, conscience bothering him.

Mort: flat lie to NPR.

Charles Krauthammer: classic example of selling your soul for the story.
1,209 posted on 04/11/2003 3:56:27 PM PDT by texasbluebell
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To: goodnesswins
"Today is happening in the Palestine territories...." what CNN did?
1,210 posted on 04/11/2003 3:56:53 PM PDT by goodnesswins (CNN...the MOST TRUSTED in News......by CRIMINALS!)
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To: nicmarlo
Their guest is Charles Krauthamer......one of the best.
1,211 posted on 04/11/2003 3:57:17 PM PDT by Carolinamom
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To: goodnesswins
AND, that's it for the panel!!!!
1,212 posted on 04/11/2003 3:57:17 PM PDT by goodnesswins (CNN...the MOST TRUSTED in News......by CRIMINALS!)
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To: Almondjoy
Is it better to document these stories or to have your whole baghdad staff killed? What would be better for your concience?

This is simple.

CNN should have pulled out of Iraq and told the world what it knew. By all means, make every effort to pull families out, etc. to get as many innocent as you can.

Brit Hume just reminded us of the fairly recent "election" of Saddam Hussein which was such a sham. However, the reporter informed the CNN viewers of the "reverence" Iraqis supposedly had for their leader.

And clearly CNN was portraying GWB as the madman for wanting to go to war. They wanted "containment", they still are mis-representing facts, and they still retain the abominable Christiane Amanpour, who probably knows ever MORE horror stories, and still she clearly views the U.S. as the bad guy.

1,213 posted on 04/11/2003 3:57:41 PM PDT by cyncooper (thousands of cheering Iraqis yelled, "America, America, America," and "Bush, Bush, Bush.")
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Comment #1,214 Removed by Moderator

To: goodnesswins
Has anyone checked CNN to see IF they even reported/confessed?
1,215 posted on 04/11/2003 3:58:20 PM PDT by Carolinamom
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To: goodnesswins
Relax....this story is just getting started. Do your part to spread the word...give this sucker legs.

If we ever needed proof of a deliberately biased and corrupt news media...this is it.
1,216 posted on 04/11/2003 3:58:31 PM PDT by FreeperinRATcage
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To: PhiKapMom
NEW MRC STUDY FINDS CNN’S CUBA COVERAGE A “MEGAPHONE FOR A DICTATOR”
1,217 posted on 04/11/2003 3:58:33 PM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: Carolinamom
Barone was a little wimpy; I think Kondracke and Krauthammer hit it on the head.
1,218 posted on 04/11/2003 3:58:35 PM PDT by The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
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To: texasbluebell
CNN made the classic Clintonian mistake of taking the public for stupid.
1,219 posted on 04/11/2003 3:58:45 PM PDT by CheneyChick (SHAKANAW, Baby!)
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To: goodnesswins
That was short, but they managed to lob a few bunker busters. Previous "fat lie" from Mort should have read "flat lie"!
1,220 posted on 04/11/2003 3:59:10 PM PDT by Drumbo ("Of course I have an attitude, I spent my life beating things for a living" - Drumbo Thunder)
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