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.

[Lurker]

I know what I'm feeling, and it ain't pretty.

L

[JennysCool]

Thank you for the ping. This is unbelievable, and unconscionable.

[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.

[texasbluebell]

Whatever the case, I hope that CNN has a severe case of the guilts right now because they were effectively allowing regime to continue unreported.

Never ever ever will that happen.

[Freedom2specul8]

I know exactly what you mean! He knew about a murder PRIOR to it happening. (actually 2 murders) He's admitting it to cleanse his soul. Would this hold up in a court of law? Hmmm?

[Born in a Rage]

how many major news organizations didn't have people inside Iraq? Even Fox did. What if they're all compromised this way?

They ALL had minders. AP, Fox, Reuters MSNBC....the whole lot of them. I'm sure CNN wasn't the only network hearing/knowing these stories

[Howlin]

I have always felt that they slanted the news, depending on their agenda, but THIS goes far beyond that.

His is justifying HIS action "to get the story".....and it's quite sickening.

We should all email this to everybody we know.

They are, in fact, COMPLICIT.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

You got it exactly right. Somehow, liberals never seem to be able to see the moral path--they're always looking for scapegoats about their lack of moral convictions.

[Howlin]

Jenny, after all we've read, and all we know (more than the general public), how on EARTH can this surprise us?

I, frankly, am floored.

[Born in a Rage]

Maybe he did tell the American government?

[Destro]

American journalism is a cesspool. - BUMP--I include others in this too.

[baseballmom]

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.

Why didn't he tell the brothers-in-law too ?? Am I missing something here? He had MONTHS to tell them that they were going to be assasinated by Uday - he can tell the King of Jordan, but not the others? WHY?

I think I read that one of these brothers-in-law was the ONLY reason we knew that Saddam had started up his WMD program again. He defected and told the story - the UN inspectors ended up with egg of their faces - again.

This is horrible what CNN did - just for the "story". What story was so important? More important that someone's life?

[Freedom2specul8]

"They are, in fact, COMPLICIT.

They sure are!

[Luis Gonzalez]

I don't understand why you are surprised, I'm not.

What this guy is doing is cleansing himself of his sins by passing them on to you. He will never lose one minute of sleep over this, nor has he in the past.

This sort of crap, is like the guy that having cheated on his wife succesfully, then tells her bacause he can't stand bearing the guilt of it all by himself.

You are suffering for his sin more than he is.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

Well said! Excellent email to CNN.

[Freedom2specul8]

Hmm, he didn't admit or deny that did he. Good point!

[Howlin]

Admit that CNN couldn't operate freely in Iraq and pull out.

Ab-so-damn-lotely!

And why PAY these people in CASH on a DAILY BASISS so you can report their rubbish?

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

They ALL had minders. AP, Fox, Reuters MSNBC....the whole lot of them. I'm sure CNN wasn't the only network hearing/knowing these stories

Yeah. That's why I think Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson aren't going to be running with this story.

[CatOwner]

Yeah, I know. I guess we will just have to settle on CNN losing the ratings race with FoxNews as their punishment!

[Destro]

This fascist regime was worse than the Nazis, the KGB, and the IRS combined.

If you are combining all of those then your not even close. But I understand what you are trying to say.