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 God for men and women of principle like Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al., who are not afraid to *lead* whether or not their decisions are "popular."

[KSCITYBOY]

I am way late to this party, but here goes. Once again the liberal news reports what they want. Suppose if CNN had seen the Nazi death camps they would have told the world about it or maybe withhold the info so they could have stayed in Berlin. CNN had time to get their people out and report this - They just wanted a seat for another war and great ratings like they got from the first gulf war.

[goodnesswins]

I wasn't jumping on YOU....but I also forgot which "Tail..." we were talking about.... :)

[GOPrincess]

You're sure right about CNN covering for Clinton.

I think as time goes on we're going to realize more than we ever knew (and we knew a lot) just how incestuous the CNN-Clinton relationship was.

[Howlin]

The really insulting this is what MamaLucci said: CNN wouldn't put up with this crap in this country for ONE SECOND!

[ken5050]

Piling on is allowed among friends....

[GOPrincess]

As a caller said to Rush, CNN doesn't hesitate to investigate and expose our country's "secrets," yet doesn't hesitate to keep the (incredibly horrible) secrets of another country.

[Travis McGee]

CNN = Collaborators News Network

[Lunk]

CNN - WE REPORT WHEN WE DECIDE

(Please don't let the bad man hurt me...)

[goodnesswins]

Hey....that's GOOD....."CNN - WE report WHEN we decide."

[Travis McGee]

They have NO shame!

[PoisedWoman]

I wonder if the reason this is coming out now is because CNN was recently thrown out of Iraq for suspicion of spying and CIA connections. Could this be their way of reassuring tyrants elsewhere that they can be trusted?

Good thinking. North Koreans, Chinese, Syrians, etc will pick up that (embedded) message and continue to roll out the red carpet for the CNN traitors.

This also at least partially explains why CNN announcers today are unrepentant and continue on their nasty way trying to discredit Bush. I don't get CNN, but other posters here have mentioned this.

[Fred Mertz]

Great job on those new CNN mottoes! However, payed=paid.

[pushforbush]

What is the most amazing about this is I think that Mr Eason Jordan who wrote this was (when he wrote this) completely oblivious to the journalistic ethics and enormous implications of what he did and what he described in this article.

I think that he wrote this expecting that it would put both him and CNN in an heroic light----rather than exposing themselves as craven lying cowards.

Does anyone think he thought he was "confessing" something he did wrong?

[Fearless Flyers]

Below is an e-mail address to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Mr. Ashcroft should investigate this and possibly freeze the acounts and operations of CNN.

This is duplicity in genocide on the part of CNN Time Warner and AOL, it is the most horrific war crime since the second world war.

We all thought Al- Jeezera was criminal but their actions pale in comparison to those of CNN. If they had brought these stories to the forefront the tyranny of Saddam would have ended long ago.

It is time to freep the DOJ to bring action against CNN for the people of Iraq.


AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

[Freedom2specul8]

"We don't hold people responsible for the murder of another unless the person was actively participating, aiding, hiring, or conspiring with another to do so, except in very limited circumstances. One situation which would require legal intervevtion would be a psychiatrist who's patient said he was going to kill an identifiable person. In that case, he would have to take steps to prevent it."

I don't know..if a hospital worker KNOWS about malpractice, and fails to report it, and the patient dies, they are for sure held accountable..NOT criminally though. Civilly. I agree that it was out of the jurisdiction of our GOVT, BUT, a civil suit could possible be won against cnn..

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Ok.. That was excellent Lunk. I'm gonna keep posting it on my tag line!! With Lunks name afterwards of course :o)

[Howlin]

was (when he wrote this) completely oblivious to the journalistic ethics and enormous implications of what he did and what he described in this article.

Ding ding ding!

Look at the story on CNN.COM today. They are acting like they did something GOOD. But, of course, the nasty parts about them COLABERATING with the Iraqis is NOT printed in CNN's version.

[Freedom2specul8]

"The press was told if they filmed it they would die. Those short clips that we did manage to get out almost cost the camaraman's life. From what I have been told, he still cannot work in the west bank."

NO, I was unaware of that!Would it be terrible wrong to say that it's unamerican for the press to LIE to us? or mislead us?? Why NO! But we are powerless against this..

[MamaLucci]

Happy Birthday, Howlin!
After lunch with my hubby, and a couple of bloody mary's....
CNN STILL sucks.