CNN Transcript 04-11-03
Paula Zahn and Eason Jordan
Source:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/11/ltm.02.html PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now that Saddam Hussein's regime has been deposed, some of the most terrifying stories of murder and torture can now be told.
Some of our own CNN colleagues have been threatened, and CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, was accused of working for the CIA. For 12 years, he has kept silent about some of those threats and crimes committed by the regime, because reporting the stories would have cost the lives of people working for and with CNN.
Now, Eason can come forward with those harrowing stories, and in an op-ed piece in today's "New York Times," he does just that. He joins us now from CNN Center in Atlanta.
Eason, welcome.
EASON JORDAN, CNN CHIEF NEWS EXECUTIVE: Good morning.
ZAHN: You write in this op-ed piece about some of the awful things that you were very much aware of, and how tough it has been for you to have all these feelings bottled up inside of you. Share with us some of the -- your most haunting memories of some of these encounters with Iraqis.
JORDAN: Well, the most recent was in December. I met with the information minister of Iraq, Mr. Sahaf, who has become known to the world as this sort of delusional information minister of Saddam Hussein in making all these denials and threats about what was going on with the war.
When I met with him in December, and I've known him for many years, I asked for his permission to send a CNN team to northern Iraq, to Kurd-controlled Iraq, and when I asked for that permission, he bristled and he said if you send those people to northern Iraq, they will suffer the severest possible consequences. And I felt like he was threatening the lives of those people.
So I said, "Sir, would you please clarify for me what that means?"
And he said, "Mr. Jordan, just hear me clearly. Imagine the severest possible consequences."
And so when I left that meeting, I went downstairs in the Information Ministry in Baghdad, and I told my colleagues the information minister of Iraq has just threatened to assassinate our people in northern Iraq, and then just a few weeks later we actually learned from Kurdish authorities in the north that they had uncovered a plot to kill our journalists in northern Iraq, to drive a truck with a ton of explosives into our compound in northern Iraq and to wipe out the entire building and everybody in it.
And so one and one may make two. We cannot say with certainty that Sahaf's threat resulted in this thwarted attack on our staff in northern Iraq, but I fear the worst, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, really. There are many stories of that nature.
ZAHN: Well, while you can't be certain of what the intent was, we have gotten our hands on some videotape that, I think, our audience would find very interesting of someone who really was a witness to this whole plot. We're going to try to play that now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Then, Staff Brigadier Mohammed asked me to blow up al-Mohan (ph) Hotel. He said that the Americans and Israelis, according to Mohammed, they have come under the cover of CNN. They are all working for American and Israeli intelligence. We want to make jihad operation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: Well, Eason, there certainly is no gray area in that sound. They were out to kill CNN employees?
JORDAN: Well, so it seems. These videotaped confessions were provided to us by Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq. There was that gentleman's statement, also a similar statement by another gentleman. They claim to work for Iraqi military intelligence. They claim to be in northern Iraq on this plot on orders of the Baghdad regime, and they said they intended to attack the compound with machine guns as a diversionary tactic, and then suddenly a vehicle loaded with a ton of explosives would go into that compound, and speaking with our security experts, they say if a ton of explosives had been blown up inside our hotel area there in Erbil in northern Iraq that the entire building would have been flattened and everyone inside would have been killed.
ZAHN: Eason, you also sat in a horrible meeting where the life of King Hussein of Jordan was threatened. Tell us what you heard, and how you followed up on that threat.
JORDAN: In 1995, I had a second meeting with the son of Saddam Hussein, his name is Uday Saddam Hussein, he is the eldest son of Saddam Hussein. I asked for a private meeting with him. It was off the record to request and interview with his father, to ask for his help in arranging an interview with Saddam Hussein.
During that meeting, Uday Saddam Hussein said to me that he intended to assassinate the king of Jordan, King Hussein, and that he also intended to assassinate his two brothers-in-law, Hussein Kamal (ph) and Saddam Kamal (ph) who had just a few weeks previously defected to Jordan and provided a lot of fascinating, very interesting detail about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and arms programs to international authorities.
Uday Saddam Hussein was very upset about this, and he said to my face that he intended to assassinate those three people.
ZAHN: And you later tipped the king of Jordan off?
JORDAN: I told King Hussein the next day in Jordan about that. He dismissed it as a madman's rant, and didn't take it seriously. But a few months later, the two brothers-in-law somehow were lured back to Baghdad after defecting, and they were executed in Baghdad.
ZAHN: Well, your op-ed piece is fascinating. There are a lot of details in there, even those of us that work for you weren't aware of.
You tell a story about a Kuwaiti woman captured by the Iraqi secret police and what happens to her, and I can well understand why you weren't able to go public with this until now.
Eason Jordan, thank you very much for sharing a little bit of your piece with us this morning.
JORDAN: Thanks, Paula.