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.

[Magnolia]

CNN felt free to report alleged American "atrocities", while they withheld reporting on KNOWN Iraqi atrocities.

Excellent point for all to remember.....

[Howlin]

Very interesting. Notice they left out all the really nasty stuff that shows them to be complicit in Iraq's pack of lies.

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

I think their embeds have done well (though not as well as Fox's and MSNBC's).

[daviddennis]

One reason is that it wasn't kept quiet.

The information was there for anyone who cared to look.

For example, the State Department's human rights report on Iraq should give you an idea of how dissent is treated.

It has been well known for decades what Saddam's regime is actually like. Tragically, many members of the left and the press didn't care.

D

[MamaLucci]

Yes, it is a good point, and was originally made at post 624, by dogbyte12.

Remember when the tank allegedly killed those journalists the other day? ABC's Richard Engle devoted his whole report to it, and the candle light vigil being held down on the lawn at the Palestine Hotel, and the Iraqi minders were still there, authorizing this to happen.
Think about it. These journalists were there commemorating freely a "US" atrocity, while they knew their colleagues had been tortured by Hussein. That is what is wrong with them being there.
If ya watch CNN or ABC, you think that the US are war criminals in how they treat journalists. Steam is coming out of my ears.
624 posted on 04/11/2003 10:12 AM CDT by dogbyte12

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

You're right. But beyond that, someone needs to explain to me why CNN news coverage has always been so slanted with regards to how we should handle the Iraq problem. They, of all people, should have supported the president and pointed out the impotence of the U.N.

EXACTLY.

[spodefly]

Amazing. That quote is proof positive of how CNN has sold their soul to play the party line against Bush: "Interestingly enough, the Iraqis have never, as far as we could tell, taken advantage of the foreign media in the sense that all of the world, for example, the Bush administration, they take advantage of the media ... " -- CNN producer Ingrid Formanek talking to Paula Zahn, March 22

[Lucas1]

Bump

[not-alone]

Have a feeling our ideas of good are closer. Too bad they didn't whisper in Dan Rather's ear

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

"Just forwarded this to Shepard Smith at FoxNews."

Shep checks his email much more frequently than most at FOXNews, too. Good going. Wouldn't be surprised to see this NYT piece in the "Talking Points" memo on O'Reilly tonight (although perhaps this is wishful thinking). I'm sure O'Reilly will expose this piece eventually; just may not be until early next week.

[Magnolia]

Thanks for setting the record straight. Points out another difference between conservatives & liberals.....we give credit where credit is due....

[Grampa Dave]

Why is this left wing POS just now talking about this?

Could it be that his cash cow buddy, the Soddomite, can't write anymore checks?

Could it be that about 75% of Americans are now blaming ABCNNBCBS, the NY Slimes and other left wing media maggots for enabling the terrible regime of Soddomite?

[KingKongCobra]

I was going to jump on you until I looked at your profile. Even CNN is an improvement over those Canadian stations. So, I'll cut you a break.

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

It's wonderful how many replies this story has received, here on freerepublic.com Betting we cross the 1,000 mark around 2:30 p.m. EST today.

[diamond6]

I salute you on some very good points that you have outlined. Very rationally and thoughtfully asserted.

[MizSterious]

More outrage--see this thread: The Forces Of Anti-Americanism Seek To Intimidate The Press:

"The communist Workers World Party (WWP) on April 12 will stage another anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. through its International ANSWER front group. This time, they are targeting "Corporate Profiteers, Fox News and the Pro-War Media." They plan to march past the Washington offices of Fox News, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, along with various corporate and government offices."

Toogood Reports has done a good job of uncovering this hypocrisy. Amazing that after what CNN has done, someone wants to target Fox News.

[Yankee]

"This is CNN repoting live from Auschwitz, where the German government has built a collection site and cemetery for thousands of innocent men, women and children killed by allied bombs and weapons, as they advance across Europe".

Someone please tell me what the difference is between what they do now, and this ludicrous fictitous scenario?

[Grampa Dave]

You posted: Again folks. any outlet you can think of, the water cooler, email of talk show hosts, you name it... get this story out. CNN is still the most powerful world news network. It is not just americans they were deceiving, but weasely French and German viewers who took comfort in the fact that CNN was keeping their lips zipped on atrocities in Iraq.

Inquiring minds would like to know how much the French and German corporations who were dependent of their Ca$h Cow $oddomite, paid CNN to be anti American and pro $oddomite before and during this war to free the Iraqis.