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.

[Almondjoy]

Would of figured it out how to get them out? If you know anything about Iraq you would know that would be impossible.

[Dec31,1999]

CNN is a lying piece of tratorous shit. Freegards

[wolf6656]

" Does anyone have a sponsor list for CNN? I think a boycott and emailing campaign is in order. This is truly sickening, degrading, and embarassing; not only to the American people, but to human beings in general as well."

BINGO!
Was waiting to see a post like this. Anybody who believes in a totally free press does not understand Madison Ave.
To make the advertisers understand what free press is really about, vote with dollars. It is the only scorecard they understand.
Boycott any product sold on CNN. Email the CEO's of these corporations, and inform them of your intent. This is your most effective franchise, even moreso than your vote. Until the advertisers pull their accounts you don't buy.
Let's see what's on now, GMC Yukon, Coal powered Generating plants, ok this may be tougher than it sounds.

[Almondjoy]

Human right organizations have more than adquate examples of what Saddam's regime did. There was no point in them pulling out and telling the world what was going on there.. it was just another drop in the bucket. I'm not defending everything CNN did... but to call them complicit or a propaganda machine for Saddam is lunancy.. they put their spin on it sure but there were also the only eyes in ears the western media had in iraq.. regardless of whether you like their style that was important for the world to have.

[goodnesswins]

Oh...pullleeaasseee....so, they can say they saved one or two while hundreds of thousands died, on THEIR WATCH.....how sweet.

[KingKongCobra]

Brad.Turell@turner.com
Walter.Isaacson@turner.com
Rick.Davis@turner.com
Eason.Jordan@Turner.com
stevecase@aol.com
allfeedback@cnn.com


Start with these.

[KingKongCobra]

There is no excuse for a news organization to NOT report news. There is no value to having an office in Iraq if you don't use it to report news. CNN traded blood for money. You have no leg to stand on.

[samkatz]

The point is this:"journalists" are treated like saints when they go to jail to protect sources, when they break the law, when they spy on people etc. "Journalists" have no problem releasing the "Pentagon Papers" or anything detrimental to our national security. ALWAYS THEY CITE THE NEED TO TELL THE TRUTH.

HERE, THEY LIED! THEY COVERED UP! THEY BETRAYED EVERY ASPECT OF HONESTY, INTEGRITY, etc. (I'm not even talking about "patriotism") There is no gray area here!

[cyncooper]

As I said, it isn't just the cover up of atrocities they were directly affected by, it was the demonizing and undermining of George W. Bush in particular that is objectionable.

[GOPrincess]

Many thanks for citing the pertinent section of the article re King Hussein.

[Brian Allen]

<< .... the [BBC] did not even broadcast the statue coming down in Baghdad on Wed? It instead chose to cover something like an earthquake in India .... >>

The BBC?

Home of obscene Goebbelsian propagandists.

Self-serving liars, cynics, frauds and pimps.

Totalitarianism's two-bit carny barkers.

And various other assorted otherwise-deservedly-unemployed Brussels-based Neo-Soviet's squalid-socialist-satellite-state-sponsered lunatic-left-wing-fringe-dwelling lickspittles

[StriperSniper]

these stories were withheld because CNN feared Iraq would have them removed from the country.

Period.

What side of the left/right debate cares more about money than people?

They are as vile as those they are in bed with.

[CharacterCounts]

So don't question me on that. That is an insult.

I did not question you. I stated a fact - you have an agenda. You are the one who positied a question and then claimed every answer given was failed to respond to your question. If you are trying to make a point, why don't you just state it clearly.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Mr. Jordan and anyone in the know are war criminals. Lives, misery, physical pain death could have been changed if this worm and his underlings had any spine. Somehow I suspect the Clintons are involved here. I am sure Palistine has the same arrangement with CNN and in light of past behavior that the Clinton's benefit. These people are sickening and should be made to stand the gaff.

[GirlShortstop]

To Eason Jordan
"Saying it's your job don't make it right, Boss." Cool Hand Luke

Good point DW

[CharacterCounts]

Reporting a lie as a fact when you know it is a lie is not putting a spin on things. It's dishonest. Spinning is reporting facts but trying to put a different light on thos facts.

Lying is lying nothing more - nothing less.

[alwaysconservative]

People are asking why CNN would come out with this now, of all times. I think Brent Bozell has the right answer: CNN is getting pasted from the left for supposedly having gotten too POSITIVE in its war coverage. His article is here:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/bb20030409.shtml

[wolf6656]

Who said CNN is better than CBC? As bad as the CBC can be, this is a terrible insult. CBC is often dryer than a camel fart, but they don't ram it down your throat, like CNN (The Ministry of Fear)
CNN's hour consists of 10 minutes of talking about their own people, 20 minutes to tell you what they will be covering. Commercials, oh yeah and some news.
Walter Rodgers had some brilliant moments. But Wolf is a drone. All of their readers talk like Kindergarten teachers.
Dear Cable Company, have you ever heard of Fox News?
Even so, they are all ambulance chasers, which is why I come to places like FR for my news. Freepers do a much more honest job of reporting than any "NEWS" network.

[goodnesswins]

LOL....people ask me if I've been "watching TV." I have to think for a moment...because what I've been "watching" is FREE REPUBLIC - it's MY TV! (Most of the time, except when FOX has certain programs.)

[texasbluebell]

The BBC? Home of obscene Goebbelsian propagandists. Self-serving liars, cynics, frauds and pimps. Totalitarianism's two-bit carny barkers. And various other assorted otherwise-deservedly-unemployed Brussels-based Neo-Soviet's squalid-socialist-satellite-state-sponsered lunatic-left-wing-fringe-dwelling lickspittles

Well, that about covers the beeb! You were too kind by half to them too...