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.

[longtermmemmory]

so Baghdad Bob was a street performer with a cover charge?

I really wonder why the rest of the media did not expose this. FNC did not have reporters there, did they know about CNN's situation?

[Howlin]

I'm bookmarking this.

I notice Rush is on this; we're 12 hours ahead of him -- and I think he's getting some of his material from this thread........LOL.

[Taco Consumer]

[Piranha]

"Link?"

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.cnn.plot/index.html

[Lucas1]

I'm still trying to figure out why this whole article was never put in breaking news!

[Flint]

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

How about a Freeper fund to buy an ad in the NYT or some other well read paper with "The List" as the body of the ad?

[Howlin]

Yes, he was. They had to pay CASH (over $300) a day to attend his briefings!

[Piranha]

Actually, I tried (before I saw that it was here in opinion) and it was removed immediately because it was posted already.

[Howlin]

There is another article on here somewhere that discusses the last day when the minders didn't show up; in that article it said that on the last day, the "bag guy" came around and collected everything that was on each news organizations "tab" -- and they guessed he left the hotel that day with over $200,000.

Did anybody else read that?

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Chief news executive at CNN writes this, and yet they still show disdain for our actions in Iraq in their reporting? Even after this??

Just today I watched CNN long enough to get an idea of how the "tilt" was going to be regarding this war. I honestly couldn't watch it for more than 20 mins.

The reporters are smug and seem almost gleeful when something bad happens to American forces. I can't explain it.. you have to see it.

But even more disturbing yet.. is reading a report like this.. knowing they knew what they did.. and yet they act like this President was wrong to go in. For humanitarian reasons alone, it would have been reason enough for war.

God Forgive these people for knowing what they knew.. and never getting it out. They could have leaked it to another network, at a later date.. something!! This is just insane. Anything for a dollar..

I can see a CIA agent going underground and witnessing these kinds of atrocities.. but I can't understand this. Especially since they DID NOT REPORT IT at the time!!

Perhaps I'm just "reacting" to what I just read, and I'm wrong. But man.. this makes me ill.


63 posted on 04/10/2003 9:48 PM PDT by Vets_Husband_and_Wife

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Chief news executive at CNN writes this, and yet they still show disdain for our actions in Iraq in their reporting? Even after this??

Just today I watched CNN long enough to get an idea of how the "tilt" was going to be regarding this war. I honestly couldn't watch it for more than 20 mins.

The reporters are smug and seem almost gleeful when something bad happens to American forces. I can't explain it.. you have to see it.

But even more disturbing yet.. is reading a report like this.. knowing they knew what they did.. and yet they act like this President was wrong to go in. For humanitarian reasons alone, it would have been reason enough for war.

God Forgive these people for knowing what they knew.. and never getting it out. They could have leaked it to another network, at a later date.. something!! This is just insane. Anything for a dollar..

I can see a CIA agent going underground and witnessing these kinds of atrocities.. but I can't understand this. Especially since they DID NOT REPORT IT at the time!!

Perhaps I'm just "reacting" to what I just read, and I'm wrong. But man.. this makes me ill.


63 posted on 04/10/2003 9:48 PM PDT by Vets_Husband_and_Wife

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Chief news executive at CNN writes this, and yet they still show disdain for our actions in Iraq in their reporting? Even after this??

Just today I watched CNN long enough to get an idea of how the "tilt" was going to be regarding this war. I honestly couldn't watch it for more than 20 mins.

The reporters are smug and seem almost gleeful when something bad happens to American forces. I can't explain it.. you have to see it.

But even more disturbing yet.. is reading a report like this.. knowing they knew what they did.. and yet they act like this President was wrong to go in. For humanitarian reasons alone, it would have been reason enough for war.

God Forgive these people for knowing what they knew.. and never getting it out. They could have leaked it to another network, at a later date.. something!! This is just insane. Anything for a dollar..

I can see a CIA agent going underground and witnessing these kinds of atrocities.. but I can't understand this. Especially since they DID NOT REPORT IT at the time!!

Perhaps I'm just "reacting" to what I just read, and I'm wrong. But man.. this makes me ill.


63 posted on 04/10/2003 9:48 PM PDT by Vets_Husband_and_Wife

[Lucas1]

Well...just my opinion...but I think this is one of the biggest stories (here in the United States) in some time.

It cuts to the heart of everything we are supposed to "believe" from our news media.

CNN is not the only guilty party here...

The question is...will we find out who else is guilty.

[GOPrincess]

Thanks for the Poynter info. I've just used the site to look for links to articles on the media, but if they have that connection it certainly might affect *which* articles are posted.

[salmon76]

CNN = Criminal News Network

[YaYa123]

I hope everyone will join me in emailing "Reliable Sources" Put the pressure on Howie. Jordan has been on CNN this morning, justifying being in cahoots with Saddam to keep his secrets from viewers. Kurtz needs to know we ain't buying it!

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/cnnpopups/reliable/frameset.exclude.html

[Bryan24]

Caller on Rush Limbaugh just nailed Jordan to wall.

Why would Uday Hussein feel comfortable enough to tell a CNN reporter that he was gonna commit murder?

Why do I have the feeling that Eason Jordan just committed professional suicide?

[Lucas1]

Quote "aller on Rush Limbaugh just nailed Jordan to wall.

Why would Uday Hussein feel comfortable enough to tell a CNN reporter that he was gonna commit murder? "

I had not thought of that...WOW the implications of that!

[Howlin]

Believe me, I'll be watching Judy at 4.

[Lucas1]

Make no mistake about it...George Bush and Tony Blair are the Heroes the people of Iraq have waited so long for...

GOD BLESS GEORGE BUSH! GOD BLESS THE USA AND THE OTHER COUNTRIES THAT CAME TO THE RESCUE!