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.

[GOPrincess]

Thank you so much!!

They claim they didn't agree to "extreme, ridiculous censorship"????

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

oops make that BUTCHER not BUCTHER - ugh

[Lucas1]

Quote "Fox News definitely needs to cover this in a serious way -- and not just in "The Grapevine" or "Below the Fold." This is major, serious news."

Yes they should cover it as a serious story...and we should all demand that they do.

[ken5050]

Upper right hand corner...see "POST"...just hit it and follow the directions.....

[MeekOneGOP]

Bed & Ba'ath ! LOL !

[longtermmemmory]

what would the headline be:

CNN BLOOD ON HANDS

CNN KNEW!!!

CNN LIED

CNN KEPT KNOWINGLY QUIET

CNN DECEPTION

CNN CODDLED DICTATOR

CNN A JOKE

[reformed_democrat]

Howlin, I am not sure what to write in response to this..

Yeah . . . What you said.

[TLBSHOW]

bttt

[TigersEye]

I just can't figure out why, ... they had such a nasty attitude toward the President and the war when *they knew the truth*.

I can. Logic dictates just one answer. Or should I have written A.N.S.W.E.R.?

[Let's Roll]

"Why didn't he tell our govt about this?"

Why didn't he at least rein in his Judy Woodruff's etc.?

[irish_links]

"...Not only "opposed" President Bush but refuses to PRAISE the liberation of the Iraqi people today! THAT is the essence of the outrage!!!! ..."

In fact, they look down their noses at Fox News Network for appearing to be "patriotic" and not treating Ba'athist propaganda with the same respect as reportage from the U.S. military establishment or the Bush administration.

I'll say it again, the mere thought of these cretinous traitors makes my blood run cold.

[Ben Bolt]

I'm going to remember this post from you . It speaks volumes & none of it good . Perhaps after I read the next 700 replies you will have learned a few things .

[Kay Soze]

So CNN with this knowlegde for over a decade was a co conspirator with Saddam .

As were Susan Srandon, Matt Damon, Ed Asner, Martin Sheen,
George Clooney, Tim Robbins, Mike Farell, David Ducouvney, NBC, CBS,ANSWER.

They knew and were not moved to help these people.

Speak volmnes of their morals and ethics.

And YES I AM QUESTIONING THEIR PATRIOTISIM!!!!

The smoking Gun has been found in Atalanta!

With peices of their WMD systems stored at various liberal homes in Hollywood and Mailibu.

[Kay Soze]

These were in support of a regime which placed the tortured and killed women's body parts on the doorstep of her family:

1 Robert Altman
2 Gillian Anderson
3 Ed Asner
4 Alec Baldwin
5 Kim Basinger
6 The Beastie Boys
7 Ed BegleyJr.
8 Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
9 Harry Belafonte
10 Peter Boyle
11 Jonatha Brooke
12 Warren Brothers
13 Jackson Browne
14 Peter Buck and Michael Stipe
15 David Byrne
16 Diahann Carroll
17 Rosanne Cash
18 Don Cheadle
19 Dixie Chicks
20 Jill Clayburgh
21 George Clooney
22 John Cougar Mellencamp
23 Peter Coyote
24 Lindsay Crouse
25 Sheryl Crowe
26 John Cusak
27 Joan Cusak
28 Chuck D
29 Vincent D’Onofrio
30 Tyne Daley
31 Matt Damon
32 Rosario Dawson
33 David Duchovny
34 Olympia Dukakis
35 Kirsten Dunst
36 Fred Durst
37 Hector Elizondo
38 Missy Elliott
39 Cary Elwes
40 Mike Farrell
41 Mia Farrow
42 Laurence Fishburne
43 Jane Fonda
44 Bonnie Franklin
45 Jeananne Garafalo
46 Richard Gere
47 Melissa Gilbert
48 Danny Glover
49 Elliott Gould
50 Nanci Griffith
51 Robert Guillaume
52 Jake Gyllenhall
53 Maggie Gyllenhall
54 Woody Harrelson
55 Ed Harris
56 Emmylou Harris
57 Ethan Hawke
58 Dustin Hoffman
59 Ken Howard
60 Helen Hunt
61 Anjelica Huston
62 Chryssy Hynde
63 Jane Kaczmarek
64 Melina Kanakaredes
65 Casey Kasem
66 Sally Kirkland
67 Lenny Kravitz
68 Samuel L. Jackson
69 Yo La Tengo
70 Jessica Lange
71 Spike Lee
72 Jamie Lee Curtis
73 Tea Leoni
74 Kelly Lynch
75 Wendie Malick
76 Camryn Manheim
77 Marsha Mason
78 Richard Masur
79 Dave Matthews
80 George Michael
81 Michael Moore
82 Esai Morales
83 Alanis Morissette
84 Me’Shell Ndegeocello
85 The Neptunes
86 Chris Noth
87 Ed O'’Neill
88 System of a Down
89 Sean Patrick Flanery
90 Alexandra Paul
91 Sean Penn
92 Barry Pepper
93 CCH Pounder
94 Bonnie Raitt
95 Lou Reed
96 Carl Reiner
97 Tim Robbins
98 Charles S. Dutton
99 Susan Sarandon
100 Martin Scorsese
101 Tony Shalhoub
102 Martin Sheen
103 Kevin Spacey
104 Gloria Steinem
105 Cat Stevens
106 Oliver Stone
107 Marcia Strassman
108 Barbara Streisand
109 Loretta Swit
110 Studs Terkel
111 Lily Tomlin
112 Blair Underwood
113 Caetano Veloso
114 The View on ABC (Star Jones, Meredith Viera, Joy Behar)
115 Dennis Weaver
116 Bradley Whitford
117 James Whitmore
118 Robin Williams
119 Alfre Woodard
120 Noah Wyle
121 Spearhead
122 Run-DMC
123 Jay-Z

[Matchett-PI]

"If anyone gets through to Rush on the phones, be sure to mention The Interview which Toskrin linked to last night. As bad as the basic story is, Jordan's lying is even worse, and even more important."

Rush is reading it on the air and will be linking to it from his web site later on today.

He also read an email from a listener which is excellent. The guy just nails the whole situation! I hope he posts that email tonight, alos.

One of the things the guy says is that he thinks CNN probably also has the same sort of deal with the PLO as they had with Hussein.

[BreitbartSentMe]

I think the headline should be CNN KNEW, after all, didn't the Post run a headline BUSH KNEW after 9/11? Seems only fair.

[Marysecretary]

I know, I feel the same way. I hope CNN repents on LIVE TV but I won't bet the farm on it. They should spread this story far and wide--SHOULD.

[Bryan24]

CNN SUPPRESSED TRUTH

In a damning Op/Ed article in the New York Times, CNN news chief Eason Jordan admitted that CNN curried favor with the Hussein regime in order to maintain it's 'strong presence' in Baghdad.

Jordan revealed that for years, CNN new of murder and torture of Iraqis, but DID NOT REPORT this in order to keep it's news operation open in Baghdad.

[Rocko]

Add Stephen and Tabitha King.

[GOPrincess]

I just sent an email to Viewer Services and Brit Hume's show. Hope many of you will do the same and explain why you believe this story is so critical.