CNN What they said then -Eason Jordan 10/25/2002

October 25, 2002 BOB GARFIELD: After journalists were expelled from Iraq on Thursday, CNN head of news-gathering Eason Jordan, called the move "a Draconian measure that will sharply curtail the world's knowledge about what is happening in Iraq. Iraq is often displeased with CNN," says Jordan, "but especially this week when the network reported from the scene of that extraordinary protest in Baghdad."

EASON JORDAN: The big beef was that we reported that gunfire was used to disperse the demonstrators which is absolutely irrefutable fact, but the Iraqi government sometimes denies the facts and refuses to acknowledge the truth.

BOB GARFIELD: Well what kind of weird conversation is it with the Iraqi officials that you're having when you're holding up a, a piece of videotape and saying this is black and they're saying no, no that's white. It's bizarre!

EASON JORDAN: Well there are a lot of bizarre things in Iraq, and unfortunately the Iraqi officials refuse to look at the videotape because they said they didn't care what it showed or what was heard on the tape because the reality -the Iraqi reality - was very different from the actual facts.

BOB GARFIELD: I'm sure you have seen Franklin Foer's article in The New Republic which charges that the Western press is appeasing the Iraqi regime in order to maintain its visas -- to be there reporting should a war ultimately break out. What's your take on that?

EASON JORDAN: The writer clearly doesn't have a clear understanding of the realities on the ground because CNN has demonstrated again and again that it has a spine; that it's prepared to be forthright; is forthright in its reporting. We wouldn't have a team in northern Iraq right now if we didn't want to upset the Saddam Hussein regime. We wouldn't report on the demonstration if we didn't want to upset the Saddam Hussein regime. We wouldn't have been thrown out of Iraq already 5 times over the last several years if we were there to please the Saddam Hussein regime. So the story was lopsided, unfair and chose to ignore facts that would refute the premise of the article.

BOB GARFIELD: Well what is the calculus? In the New Republic article he cites the coverage of Saddam Hussein's birthday by CNN which he deemed to be not a huge news event. Are you tossing bones to Saddam Hussein in order to be there when, when it really matters?

EASON JORDAN: No. I don't think that's the case at all. Now, there is Iraqi propaganda that is news! I mean there is propaganda from a lot of governments around the world that is newsworthy and we should report on those things. Saddam Hussein's birthday is a big deal in that country. We're not reading Iraqi propaganda; we're reporting as an independent news organization.

BOB GARFIELD: Back in '91 CNN and Peter Arnett in particular were heavily criticized, mostly by civilians, for reporting from within Baghdad during the U.S. attack in ways that they'd consider to be utter propaganda and to-- out of context and not reflecting the overall reality of Saddam Hussein' regime. Have you analyzed what you can get access to without appearing to be just a propaganda tool for Saddam?

EASON JORDAN: Well absolutely. I mean we work very hard to report forthrightly, to report fairly and to report accurately and if we ever determine we cannot do that, then we would not want to be there; but we do think that some light is better than no light whatsoever. I think that the world, the American people will be shortchanged if foreign journalists are kicked out, because even in Peter Arnett's case there were things that he reported on -- and this is a long time ago now -- but things he reported on that I don't think would have been reported at all had he not been there. We feel committed to our Baghdad presence. We've had a bureau there for 12 years with occasional interruptions when we've been thrown out, but we're not there to please the Iraqi government -- we're not there to displease the Iraqi government - - we're just there to do our job.

BOB GARFIELD: Let's say there's an -- a second Gulf War. Is that the mother of all stories? Do you have to be there? Are there-- decisions you'll make on the margins to be s-- as certain as you possibly can that you will have a presence there?

EASON JORDAN: We'd very much like to be there if there's a second war; but-- we are not going to make journalistic compromises in an effort to make that happen, being mindful that in wartime there is censorship on all sides, and we're prepared to deal with a certain amount of censorship as long as it's not-- extreme, ridiculous censorship where -- which we've actually seen a number of cases in previous conflicts -- not just with Iraq. But-- sure! We want to be there, but it's --we don't want to be there come hell or high water. We want to be there if we can be there and operate as a responsible news organization.

BOB GARFIELD: Eason Jordan is the chief news executive and news-gathering president for CNN News Group. He joined us from CNN studios in Atlanta. [MUSIC]

Rush read "Howard's" response to the CNN Bozo's "excuses"..

Who’s Responsible For More Deaths, Enron or CNN?

April 11, 2003

From: HOWARD
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:13:25 EDT
To: rush@eibnet.com
Subject: The News We (CNN) Kept to Ourselves

This man is disgusting. He lifts rationalizing to new heights. To tell the truth or not to tell the truth, that is the question. Is it nobler in the mind to tell the truth and save some lives, or to refrain, thus costing more lives over time. Oh, and silly me. I thought it was a journalists duty to report the truth. But not when it interferes with the bottom line apparently. After all CNN might have lost some its position in Iraqi, thus losing its position in the ratings… Oh, wait. It did anyway.

Of what use is it for a “news” organization to maintain a presence in a country if it won't report the news it finds there? Oh, wait. It lets them get scoops, ratings, and, thereby, money. How foolish of me to entertain the thought that their job might be to report the news.

Yet they won't wear flag lapel pins or use the term “we” to refer to freedom-fighting American troops, because that might cast doubt upon their precious “objectivity.” How absolutely vile. This is the lowest. CNN spent millions on the production of an anti American anti military piece of fiction about nerve gas in Vietnam. But will not tell the truth in Iraq because it fears retribution.

Well dude, the retribution is here. CNN like the Baghdad Broadcasting Corp are going down the tubes. I won't watch them again. ''The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.'' Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

This is really the journalistic equivalent of corporate greed. Who is worse: ENRON's Andy Fastow, or CNN's Jordan? I'm sure every crooked corporate titan can justify in their own minds their skullduggery, but they are just grubby businessman. They are not as noble as a 'journalist'.

When it comes down to it, why are we more afraid and concerned about WMD than the leadership of an entire nation? Can't the leadership do worse damage with more far-reaching consequences than a WMD ever could?
The things this man claims to know may have changed the course of history years ago - saving many destroyed families, lives, etc. Sticky situation with an easy solution - stand tall, stand righteous, be strong and do what's right, even if it's not popular or could be done cheaper...

This is very sad. This is indeed, nothing but some pre-emptive CYA by CNN. Too late. If CNN had any integrity, it would have removed it's entire staff in Baghdad when it became aware of such atrocities, fully broadcast the details of those atrocities, and it might have retained a shred of credibility.

It now is confirmed that CNN is not a news organization, it is a pack of pandering leftists who put profits first, and truth last. Funny, isn't that how they always slam those 'evil capitalists' they seem to deplore? Coward! This from an organization that will breathlessly report on anything about the Bush Administration that they perceive (insinuate) to have a hint of scandal: Cheney and the energy plan, Lott's comments, the Bush girls, ties to Enron, yet they cannot tell the truth about a murderous regime.

SAY IT! The only place a reporter can report (or manufacture a lie and report it) without fear is in the US, a country these bums work to tear down with every broadcast. PATHETIC! I'm sure CNN has the same side deal going with the Palestinian authority. This explains so much.

For over a decade CNN has knowingly hidden the truth about Saddam for years. People have been tortured and killed because CNN hid the truth in order to keep an office open in Iraq. But why? They weren’t reporting the truth! Read this news executive’s excuses. His hypocrisy is disgusting.

Why not pull their reporters out of Iraq and tell the truth about Saddam a year ago? They knew then that the truth would have supported George Bush’s policy on Iraq. Knowing what they did about the monster in Baghdad, why did CNN continue their ‘neutral’ editorial stand on going to war against what they knew was a regime of terror? Greed or cowardice?

For the sake of their business (which was knowingly reporting half truths and lies) they have been silent handmaidens to Saddam Hussein. They remained silent when the truth would have saved innocent lives. CNN is an accomplice to Saddam’s murders.

So he warned the King of Jordan.... why not the 2 brother-in-laws? They're dead. This really was disgusting. Out of his own mouth he condemns himself and it's written on paper! I guess confession is good for the soul, but how can he live with himself, knowing what he knew and staying silent. He should have been sitting next to Sec. Powell at the UN...adding his information to World!

And these are the guys who'd like the world to think the USA went to Iraq for the oil? Interesting how "businesses" if they support socialism and Democrats (think Hughes, Apple etc) get a free ride in the media (even when they ARE the media) but businesses who might not support Dems are excoriated (think Haliburton, MicroSoft).

Eason Jordan states that Uday Hussein told him that he was going to assassinate King Hussein of Jordan and his two brothers-in-law who had defected. Jordan says he "felt a moral obligation" to tell King Hussein about the threat. That's all fine and good, but didn't he have the same "moral obligation" to warn Uday's brothers-in-law??? If not personally, at least through US intelligence channels?

Well, he didn't. The brothers-in-law were lured back to Iraq under promises of their well-being - and then executed. CNN has blood on its hands, and I bet this is only the tip of the iceberg. When you know evil exists and you allow it to continue, you are just as responsible as those committing the evil. CNN does the exact SAME THING in Cuba, ever since it arrived there after securing permission to "broadcast" (CNN term for exporting propaganda). The network has a permanent female career correspondent there who, to date, has never uttered a negative word about the government. These people are media high-grade cyanide.

One has to wonder how many lives might have been saved if the press had told the truth about the torture in Iraq. What really angers me is how so many of these news outlets pretended there was no or little basis to the torture stories. Now, all of a sudden, they tell the truth. Perhaps if they had closed their bureaus and gone public with the atrocities hundreds if not thousands might have been saved. A pox on all their houses.

So who is responsible for the deaths of more people? ENRON, Global Crossing, Exxon, the timber industry, Newt Gingrich, and all the other whipping boys of the left ADDED TOGETHER, or CNN? Pull the plug on CNN... they are DONE!

Semper Fi

CNN Transcript 4-10-03

Aaron Brown and Eason Jordan

source:http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0304/10/asb.01.html

BROWN: Only now, with the regime of Saddam Hussein effectively finished, have the Iraqi people felt safe enough to come forward with the stories of terror that they have lived through.

We know they were the primary targets of this brutality, but they were not the only targets. In an op-ed tomorrow in "The New York Times," CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan reveals that he was personally threatened and that other CNN staffers were targeted by the Iraqi government, a terror plot. Only now, with the fall of the regime, does CNN feel safe enough to reveal it. We'll talk to Mr. Jordan in a moment.

First: the background.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Throughout the U.S.-led on attack, the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf, has been the ultimate voice of denial.

MOHAMMED SAEED AL-SAHHAF, IRAQI INFORMATION MINISTER (through translator): We kicked them out. We pulverized them, defeated them on the outside of the airport.

BROWN: He has not been heard from since Tuesday, but he's been consistently front and center, and recently, obviously, consistently wrong. Many didn't know how to read Sahhaf other than as a source of amusement, with a lot of talk, little follow-through.

EASON JORDAN, CNN CHIEF NEWS EXECUTIVE: He's hard to take seriously, but I've dealt with him for years. And this is a guy who can be deadly serious.

BROWN: CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, has known Sahhaf for years and, now that the regime has fallen, can reveal just how deadly serious Saddam's spokesman can be.

JORDAN: Well, I had a meeting in December with Minister Sahhaf. And during that meeting, I asked for his permission to send a CNN team to northern Iraq, which is actually Kurd-controlled territory. When I asked him this question, he bristled. And he said, "Mr. Jordan, if you send a CNN team there, the severest possible consequences will come to them."

When I said, "What does that mean?" he just snapped back.

He said: "Don't you understand? The severest possible consequences." And to me, it was clear he was talking about assassinating those journalists.

BROWN: Sahhaf and the Iraqi regime did indeed intend to follow through on those threats. CNN has obtained this videotape evidence from Kurdish authorities, evidence that outlines a plan to attack the CNN compound in Irbil in northern Iraq, complete with what Kurdish officials say are confessions from the men who were drafted to carry the attack out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Mohammad (ph), Colonel Ahmad (ph) and Major Anham (ph), they trained me on military intelligence. Then Staff Brigadier Mohammad asked me to blow up Al- Haman (ph) hotel. He said that the Americans and Israelis, according to Mohammad, they have come under the cover of CNN. They're all working for America and Israel intelligence. We want to make Jihad operation.

He said to me that, you should contact with some persons. Sabah (ph) had a plan to blow up Al-Haman hotel. I asked him, what do you have in Al-Haman? As I knew, there is just staff of CNN satellite TV in Al-Haman. He said: No, they are from the CIA working under cover of CNN.

I asked him: What do you want from me? What is your plan? He said: Our plan is to attack them or frighten them or take them as hostages. This is to tell the Americans that, if they attack Iraq, they will have losses. They should pay for their attack.

BROWN: Fortunately, for members of the CNN crew reporting from northern Iraq, the attack was averted when these men were arrested while preparing to blow up the CNN compound with nearly a ton of explosives. But these taped confessions are chilling reminders to just how far Saddam Hussein would go to eliminate those who disagreed with him.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Eason Jordan is our chief news executive. He is a colleague and a friend and reporter through and through. And he is with us now.

Mr. Jordan, anything you want to add to that? Was there anything specific, other than sending a crew to the northern part of the country, that seemed to upset the Iraqi government?

JORDAN: Well, Minister Sahhaf felt it was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty for CNN to send a team to northern Iraq against the wishes of the Iraqi government, without the permission of the Iraqi government. And to him, clearly, this was a capital offense.

BROWN: Why did they throw Nic and company out?

JORDAN: There's been a long-running feud here. And the reason I actually met with Minister Sahhaf in December of last year was to appeal to get Jane Arraf, our longtime Baghdad bureau chief, back into the country. Sahhaf said: There's no way she's coming back to this country. She's banned for life.

I said: Well, how about Christiane Amanpour? He said no. How about Wolf Blitzer? He said no. How about Brent Sadler? He said no. He convinced himself that CNN was a part of the CIA. And we heard it from the gentleman on this tape. And a previous information minister accused me personally of being the CIA station chief for all of Iraq. But these people believe in their hearts -- or at least they did -- that CNN was part of the enemy regime.

BROWN: We would come to you almost literally every day, desperate to try and get somebody to talk to us out of Baghdad. And you would every day say, no, no, no. And the reason you would say no was?

JORDAN: The reason we would say no is, once CNN was thrown out on the grounds of being a U.S. government puppet organization in the eyes of the Iraqi leadership, the Iraqi ministry of information leadership called together all of the remaining foreign journalists in Baghdad and said: If any one of you helps CNN in any way, if any one of you speaks on the phone with CNN, you will not just be expelled. In fact, we won't expel you at all. What we will do is, we will imprison you and charge you with spying for the CIA.

BROWN: So they literally attempted to cut what, in moments like this, is the world's television network out of any coverage in Iraq at all?

JORDAN: That's right.

And we received frantic calls from news organizations around the world, begging and pleading that we not use their material, that we not talk to their correspondents, because they felt lives were at risk. And, of course, we respected their wishes.

BROWN: We would put shots from Abu Dhabi TV up, shots from Al- Jazeera TV up. Was that a risky proposition or did the government -- the government obviously was cool with that?

JORDAN: The government did not complain about the Arab networks. I don't know why precisely.

But the AP, Reuters, ITN, and other news organizations were just panic-stricken with the idea that CNN, even just mistakenly, would use some of their material on the air and risk having journalists from those news organizations locked up, maybe for life, in Baghdad.

BROWN: About a minute. Two questions.

This threat is made in December. You kept crews there, our colleagues there, until they were thrown out two weeks ago, 2 1/2 weeks ago. Why?

JORDAN: Our people in Baghdad knew of the threats. In fact, when I met with the minister of information -- and I met with him alone -- I came downstairs and I told my colleagues at the time -- Rym Brahimi was there. I came down and I said: Rym, the minister of information has just threatened to assassinate our colleagues if they go to northern Iraq.

And as we sent more and more people to Baghdad, every single person who went knew of the threat and knew of the risk involved.

BROWN: This is a threat different from the normal warnings that reporters are given. You're going -- I've gotten these from you -- you're going to a dangerous place; you have to make a choice whether you want to go. Did you have concern, as an executive, even giving reporters this sort of option?

JORDAN: It was important for us to be there. And we knew that there was a significant risk. There was significant risk for me, having been accused of being a CIA station chief myself and going to Baghdad. But we felt it was important to tell the story. And risks were taken. And thank goodness everybody survived those risks.

BROWN: And it is because CNN is seen as the world's television network that you were seen as the station chief of the CIA?

JORDAN: Well, there were people in Iraq who believed that CNN was effectively the CIA. In the absence of a U.S. Embassy, in the absence of U.S. diplomats being in Baghdad, they felt, well, the next best way must be CNN. So it's CNN. And they just attached us with that label. And it's been that way for years and years.

BROWN: Eason, thanks for coming in tonight.

JORDAN: Thanks, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you very much, Eason Jordan, our chief news executive.

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.

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