CNN says its silence on Iraq atrocities had nothing to do with maintaining access

AP ^ | Monday, April 14, 2003

[DannyTN]

A top CNN executive kept quiet about some atrocities in Iraq not because the network wanted to protect access but because it worried about putting lives in danger, CNN said Monday.

Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, revealed the incidents in an op-ed piece in The New York Times Friday headlined "The News We Kept to Ourselves."

[Howlin]

Oh, excuse me; so we're agreed that CNN did the wrong thing, leaving aside the way you feel about their loyalty to their cameraman (and also leaving aside the danger that they put other reporters in because they weren't forthcoming)?

[The Old Hoosier]

Yes. I'm just arguing that once they discovered the torture of their worker, they were right not to report it because of the possible consequences. But they probably should have shut down their Baghdad operation and just paid for occasional footage. Which is what FOX did.

[The Old Hoosier]

Also, CNN doesn't send people to Baghdad unless they want to go.

[Howlin]

Do you think they told their reporters what they had been hiding from the rest of the world?

[The Old Hoosier]

If they were going to Baghdad? Sure.

[Howlin]

So you think all the reporters that worked for CNN withheld vital information from the United States government?

If true, they're all just as sleazy as Eason.

[Torie]

One would think that a network who thought their reporters lives were in danger for honest reporting would pull them, or at a minimum keep noting that the reporters were not free to honestly report, and that everything they said was self censored. I don't recall CNN doing that. What the hell is wrong with these people? I don't get it. It isn't about ideology, it is about honesty and decency, and hewing to reasonable standards of journalism.

[Howlin]

I wonder if they told the "new" reporters that they sent in what they knew?

They didn't seem to mind putting THEM in danger, did they?

[Torie]

Do you mean to suggest that they did not warn them to self censor themselves? Do you have a link to a couple of juicy bits where CNN clearly pulled its punches (I prefer just a couple of highlights, not a link to 20 stories)? Frankly, although I have not watched CNN much, when I did, I did not find them particularly biased. I did find Foxnews quite gratingly biased however. MSNBC did the best job, in my opinion.

[Thane_Banquo]

Of course they didn't remain silent in order to maintain access. They remained silent in order to further their anti-American agenda.

[Dolphy]

I don't know if I believe they told their reporters the entire story, why should I? They didn't tell their viewers. And exactly what was the point of this multiple year charade? If they had done it only recently to maintain a presence in Baghdad during the war, that's one thing. But no, they did it for years. Their idea of objective journalism was to attack Bush despite of their special knowledge of Saddam's regime. And I would still like to know if they told the rest of their talking heads of the situation in Baghdad, if they too are complicit in failing to report what they knew.

They make me sick.

[Howlin]

Do you mean to suggest that they did not warn them to self censor themselves?

I am saying either they didn't tell their reporters or all their reporters are complicit in hiding the truth from the world.

Do you have a link to a couple of juicy bits where CNN clearly pulled its punches

Did you read the first article in the NYT? He admitted himself that they withheld and twisted stories for 12 years.

[Diddle E. Squat]

I guess that I'm more impressed with someone who can clearly articulate a detailed and reason explanation of their position, than with someone hyperactively shouting down others with their textbook 101 conservative slogans. Your 101% with you or against you prism will soon lead you to a very small circle of allies.

Yeah, you really 'outed' him, and me too, I guess.

[Torie]

I just hope someone will serve up some tidbits for our perusal. The CNN statement was incredibly dumb, and a juicy target in and of itself of course, but now we need to see the some of the "fruits" of the policy.

[Howlin]

Consider the fact that during all the run up to the war, CNN gave aid and comfort to the enemy by NEVER even hinting about what they knew.

That's enough for me.

I know bias when I hear it.

[Torie]

I know bias when I hear it.

In real time, you perceived that? I didn't hear it. But then as I said, I wasn't consistently listening.

[Howlin]

Have you ever listened to Judy Woodruff's show?

[Torie]

Rarely. Frontline did have a good piece on the evolution of the Bush foreign policy towards preemption however. In fact, it was excellent.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Well I guess we disagree on that, at least on a matter of degrees.

But another reason why this story is so damning is that it is a self-admittance of a pattern of misleading through ommission, that while it involved Iraq in this instance, conservatives have noted such for years in subjects across the spectrum. But now their pattern of dishonesty is revealed in a way that is easy for the public to understand at a time when an abnormal percentage of the public is paying attention to the news. So the sins of the past magnify this story, regardless of whether the actual incident merits such(though I think it does on its own).

Basically this is CNN's stained dress.

[Toskrin]

And here is how CNN reported on Odai in 2000. They knew what kind of person Odai was, they had the option not to run the story at all; it's hardly newsworthy. I imagine little butt-kissing planted stories like this were what kept CNN in Baghdad.

---

Hussein's eldest son poised to lead Iraqi parliament March 28, 2000 Web posted at: 5:04 a.m. EST (1004 GMT) From staff and wire reports

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Odai Hussein, appeared Tuesday to have won a seat in parliament, and may end up becoming its speaker, a sign that he's the Iraqi president's heir apparent.

In Iraq's first parliamentary election since 1996, Odai Hussein on Monday secured 99.9 percent in the Baghdad districts, according to the state-run weekly Al-Ittihad.

Before the results could be counted, Odai Hussein, still limping from a 1996 assassination attempt, told reporters what he expected from the newly elected cabinet.

"All that is good for our great people," the young Hussein said, "and all that through which we can serve its brave men and women."

Inaugural set for April The new parliament is scheduled to hold its inaugural session in April and it is widely expected that Odai Hussein will be its speaker, a position viewed in Iraq as almost equal to that of prime minister, a post now held by Saddam Hussein himself.

Odai, a powerful figure who was making his formal political debut, was among 512 candidates running for 220 seats in the election.

Saddam will appoint another 30 representatives for the Kurdish north, where voting was not held. Saddam Hussein effectively lost control over Kurdish areas a decade ago in an uprising following the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Iraq's 250-seat National Assembly is seen as a rubber stamp for Saddam Hussein, doing little more than making recommendations to the all-powerful Revolutionary Command Council he heads.

Monday's election did not include many characteristics of voting in other nations. There are no secret ballots and no opposition candidates.

Iraq: this election more diverse Iraqi officials said this year's election allowed more diversity than previous contests, when members of the nation's ruling Baath party made up most of the candidates.

"The percentage of the party members participating in this election is only 27 percent," said Humam Abdel Khaliq, Iraq's minister of information, "and 71 percent are independent people."

Odai Hussein, a member of the Baath Party, owns several newspapers and a television station. He also commands a paramilitary force and heads the National Olympic Committee, the Journalists Union and the Youth Federation.