CNN kept their mouth shut about Iraq for a decade

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

CNN exec opens up

 

The News We Kept to Ourselves

By EASON JORDAN

 

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.

 

His bio if anyone cares

 

What a decision. Report the news, or keep your mouth shut and your employees alive. You could teach media ethics on this question alone and never have enough time in a semester to discuss it.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Fox News had a field day with this the other day...

[Guest DrTom]

I think ethics would demand you keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, you're running the very real risk of killing people who were in no particular harm before. It's definitely a damn tough spot to be in, though, and I certainly don't evny anyone who had to make that decision.

[Guest Big Poppa Popick]

and people wonder why we invaded iraq to depose of this government

 

see above

[Guest teke184]

My decision, depending on the logistics involved, would to pull out not only your reporters and crew but the locals who work for you and their families if possible.

 

If your employees are in danger of being killed by Secret Police strike forces who claim that you're CIA or your crews' families kidnapped and have their nuts zapped with a car battery and their front teeth pulled out with pliers, something tells me you REALLY don't need to be in-country.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

My decision is not to watch CNN...

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

My decision is not to watch CNN...

Yes, after all, none of the news channels or newspaper news services or any other media outlets except for CNN had some people in Iraq working for them.

 

[Guest hardyz1]

Yes, after all, none of the news channels or newspaper news services or any other media outlets except for CNN had some people in Iraq working for them.

 

If I know kkk as well as I think I do, I'm pretty sure his decision not to watch CNN wasn't based on this story.

 

My personal reason for not watching CNN is its extreme dullness.

[Guest Some Guy]

I agrre with him not coming out with this stuff for the fear of people beign killed, but couldn't he have told his achnors this stuff so they wouldn't have been such smarmy anti-war pricks to every general and pro-liberation guest. Maybe this will open some eyes at CNN, once they realize that the threat is very real. Saddam had the ability to shut up the largest cable news company in Americs, he had the ability to keep free Iraqi-Americans from talking because he's kill their family in Iraq.

[Guest NoCalMike]

So no other networks get flack for this? Are they trying to claim CNN was the only news station that knew anything?

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

couldn't he have told his achnors this stuff so they wouldn't have been such smarmy anti-war pricks

Wha? CNN is a government tool dude. Go watch some of that foreign news on C-SPAN and you'll see what I mean.

[Guest Some Guy]

CNN is a gov't tool? In what world is this?

 

If CNN were a gov't tool wouldn't they have been told to report what was realy happening in Iraq and to get the people out of there before they did? If they were a gov't tool woud the former Iraqi UN ambassador have singled out the CNN UN reporter to thank him and kiss his cheek? Would the station have had an anti-war tilt in its reporting? Would the station have over emphasized the anti-war protests and largely ignore the pro-liberation demostrations? Would they have kept reporting that the war "wasn't going to plan" and marginalizing our military gains?

 

It seems to me that if any network is a tool of the gov't it would be Fox News, although they aren't a tool, they're just Conservative and largely agree with the Pres. CNN is predominately liberal, other than Tucker Carlson I can't think of another Conservative on the station.

 

CNN may have been a tool of the Clinton adminstration, hence the name "Clinton News Network" that some gave it in the 90s but they are certainly not a tool of Bush.

[Guest Ronixis]

Time Warner/Turner Had No balls since 1993?

 

Why am I not SUPRISED?

 

This is from the same company that cant even get a damn Superman movie off the ground.

 

The same fuckers that fucked around with Batman Beyond

 

And you expect me to watch there news?

 

Holy Shit.

[Guest nikowwf]

This is from the same company that cant even get a damn Superman movie off the ground.

 

The same fuckers that fucked around with Batman Beyond

 

And you expect me to watch there news?

 

Holy Shit.

Wow, what an inane comment. Two different parts of a billion dollar company that have nothing to do with each other. As well, you are saying because they didn't renew a cartoon and do a superhero movie the news must not be valid?

 

I've just realized I'm debating current events with children.

 

(runs away from (this part) board screaming, never to return. goes to wrestling board to happily debate HHH with children)

 

niko

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

CNN is a gov't tool?  In what world is this?

Well, let's take a look at bias. Considering of course that everyone may or may not consider a source to be bias, I'll explain the typical viewpoint of someone who feels said source is biased:

 

Oh yeah, and keep in mind I'm going to be kinda over-the-top and stereotypical here okay?

 

Fox News Channel: Allegedly biased to agree 100% with the Bush Administration. Support the NRA, get those libs out of the House, and why the hell aren't we teaching God in our public schools already?

 

Amount of similar sources: A few. The parent company, News Corporation, owns the New York Post, which is also unabashadly Us Vs Them, unafraid to call someone a traitor before they've been officially judged as such, etc. Much of the cheerleading for the Republican party comes from opinionated pundits such as Rush Limbaugh.

 

CNN: Allegedly biased to agree 100% with the Democratic Party. Even those who claim the bias exists admit that it's done quite subtly. They're downplaying figures that support the President! They must be trying to hurt him!

 

Amount of similar sources: Quite a few, as those claiming bias also do so on quite a few: from the NBCs and ABCs to much of America's print media. The picture painted by Conservatives is a bleak one, as almost every single media company is apperantly all slanted to the Democrats at the same time, and Fox News and it's group are the only trustworthy bastions of news left. This is somehow reality despite how such a media landscape would alienate the approximate 50% of Americans (it goes up and down from poll to poll, just making an average) who vote Republican.

 

International News Sources: Allegedly biased to be VERY anti-American, and will hate something just by viture of it coming from the U.S. Maybe they're Communists, maybe they're just angry that their country isn't as great as ours, but they hate us for our SUV and our McDonalds, and are always trying to make us look like the bad guy.

 

Both America's left and right wings will agree, however, that these sources provide a very different picture of war.

 

Number of similar sources: A far larger amount. Combining TV stations, newspapers, radio stations, and so on, there's a practically countless number of them.

 

 

CONCLUSION:

Considering how the third type of station is the one that's most prevalent in the world today due to numbers, I'd consider the second one to be a rather middling opinion, somewhere left of the first and right of the third.

 

If you want to say CNN is as anti-American as Al-Jazeera, then fine. But at least admit they aren't showing decapitated toddlers and are showing as many waving 3D flags and computer generated strike planes as anybody else is.

 

If CNN were a gov't tool wouldn't they have been told to report what was realy happening in Iraq and to get the people out of there before they did?

 

How do you know Fox News didn't have people in there too and just haven't said so yet? It would risk damage to their image with their most loyal audience.

 

Would they have kept reporting that the war "wasn't going to plan" and marginalizing our military gains?

 

Wha? CNN wasn't the one who hired Peter Arnett, if that's what you mean.

[Guest Some Guy]

CNN is a gov't tool?  In what world is this?

Well, let's take a look at bias. Considering of course that everyone may or may not consider a source to be bias, I'll explain the typical viewpoint of someone who feels said source is biased:

 

Oh yeah, and keep in mind I'm going to be kinda over-the-top and stereotypical here okay?

 

Fox News Channel: Allegedly biased to agree 100% with the Bush Administration. Support the NRA, get those libs out of the House, and why the hell aren't we teaching God in our public schools already?

 

Amount of similar sources: A few. The parent company, News Corporation, owns the New York Post, which is also unabashadly Us Vs Them, unafraid to call someone a traitor before they've been officially judged as such, etc. Much of the cheerleading for the Republican party comes from opinionated pundits such as Rush Limbaugh.

 

CNN: Allegedly biased to agree 100% with the Democratic Party. Even those who claim the bias exists admit that it's done quite subtly. They're downplaying figures that support the President! They must be trying to hurt him!

 

Amount of similar sources: Quite a few, as those claiming bias also do so on quite a few: from the NBCs and ABCs to much of America's print media. The picture painted by Conservatives is a bleak one, as almost every single media company is apperantly all slanted to the Democrats at the same time, and Fox News and it's group are the only trustworthy bastions of news left. This is somehow reality despite how such a media landscape would alienate the approximate 50% of Americans (it goes up and down from poll to poll, just making an average) who vote Republican.

 

International News Sources: Allegedly biased to be VERY anti-American, and will hate something just by viture of it coming from the U.S. Maybe they're Communists, maybe they're just angry that their country isn't as great as ours, but they hate us for our SUV and our McDonalds, and are always trying to make us look like the bad guy.

 

Both America's left and right wings will agree, however, that these sources provide a very different picture of war.

 

Number of similar sources: A far larger amount. Combining TV stations, newspapers, radio stations, and so on, there's a practically countless number of them.

 

 

CONCLUSION:

Considering how the third type of station is the one that's most prevalent in the world today due to numbers, I'd consider the second one to be a rather middling opinion, somewhere left of the first and right of the third.

 

If you want to say CNN is as anti-American as Al-Jazeera, then fine. But at least admit they aren't showing decapitated toddlers and are showing as many waving 3D flags and computer generated strike planes as anybody else is.

 

I don't quite get what you mean by all of this. I never said that CNN were anti-America, they're just anti-Bush/GOP and pro-Democrats. Fox News is preo-Bush/GOP and anti-Democrats. There is a bias from both networks. Few will deny that. The international press is for the most part anti-America. Just listen and read waht they have to say.

 

If CNN were a gov't tool wouldn't they have been told to report what was realy happening in Iraq and to get the people out of there before they did?

 

How do you know Fox News didn't have people in there too and just haven't said so yet? It would risk damage to their image with their most loyal audience.

 

I don't think Fox has been around since '93 and considerign how hard Fox has slammed CNN for this they better not have or they'll have a whole lot of egg on their face.

 

Would they have kept reporting that the war "wasn't going to plan" and marginalizing our military gains?

 

Wha? CNN wasn't the one who hired Peter Arnett, if that's what you mean.

 

I think CNN was the first to fire him actually. CNN has had generals and whatever on to give doom and gloom stories about the war not going to plana nd not having enoug troops in the north and whatever.

 

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that CNN was supportive of the war effort, whether they should be or not is another story, but to call a liberal news channel a tool of a Conservative gov't is silly. At least throw that shit at Fox where there might be a possibility.

 

EDIT: While I'm talking about Fox News there bias has really come out in the last 6 months. I was waiotign for Rite Crosby to break out he pom poms and start shaking her fat as when the GOP took teh Senate and made gains in teh House and for Shepard Smith to do teh same during the war. Does that mean teht they won't report bad news, no, does that mean that tehy might downplay it, probably. I prefer it that way, rather than CNN blowing bad news out of proportion and down playing good news. But that's my bias, I suppose.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Fox News is much more biased than any other network though, by a long shot, but I suppose their excuse is that they have to make up for EVERY other network combined....(sure).

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

EDIT: This big old rant was stupid. deleted.

[Guest Some Guy]

Fox News is much more biased than any other network though, by a long shot, but I suppose their excuse is that they have to make up for EVERY other network combined....(sure).

I'm not sure that they are much more bieas than any other network, they are much more openly biased though. It's a lot easier to filter it out when it's out in the open.

 

Fox News was a reaction to the left wing bias of the otehr news channels and apparentlyt a welcome reaction considering the ratings. As long as they aren't lying or distorting things then there isn;t too much of a problem. The liberal media does distort things, read Goldberg's book or at least the part about the homeless.

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

Time Warner/Turner Had No balls since 1993?

 

Why am I not SUPRISED?

 

This is from the same company that cant even get a damn Superman movie off the ground.

 

The same fuckers that fucked around with Batman Beyond

 

And you expect me to watch there news?

 

Holy Shit.

 

Fucking dumbass....is what I would call you if this was No Holds Barred.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

As long as they aren't lying or distorting things

Do you consider jumping the gun and reporting speculative information immediately then quietly withdrawing it after the facts start coming out to be lying and/or distortion?

[Guest Some Guy]

No, that's just irreponsible. When did it happen and who said it?

If it were an editorial guy, like O'Reilly then it's his bad, if it was Shepard Smith, Brit Hume, or one of the update chicks then it's wrong.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

The first "chemical plant" was harped on by quite a few of Fox's journalists, before being completely pulled when they realized it was nothing.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Fox did it twice, actually:

 

* They reported the chemical plant as a chemical weapons plant, as Tyler mentioned. When the Pentagon actually made a statement that the media was twisting the truth, they just quietly dropped the word "plant" from their banner.

 

* They reported the missiles launched into Kuwait City were Scuds that were illegal by UN security council resolution. I can still remember the smug face of the newscaster talking about how this already shows why we needed to go to war with Iraq. Hours later, when Kuwait showed off one that was shot down by a PAC-3 Patriot Missile, it was revealed to be a short-range, completely legal, Al Samoud.

 

 

I think this political cartoon describes everything pretty well:

 

[Guest Some Guy]

Fox did it twice, actually:

 

* They reported the chemical plant as a chemical weapons plant, as Tyler mentioned. When the Pentagon actually made a statement that the media was twisting the truth, they just quietly dropped the word "plant" from their banner.

 

* They reported the missiles launched into Kuwait City were Scuds that were illegal by UN security council resolution. I can still remember the smug face of the newscaster talking about how this already shows why we needed to go to war with Iraq. Hours later, when Kuwait showed off one that was shot down by a PAC-3 Patriot Missile, it was revealed to be a short-range, completely legal, Al Samoud.

 

 

I think this political cartoon describes everything pretty well:

 

I heard the chemical weapons thing from more than just Fox and the Scud thing from more than just Fox. The fucking spokeman for General Franks said they were scuds, he even gave the distances that the missiles flew and two of them went over 93 mi and one was shot down before it exceded the limit. But I guess that's Fox's fault because I heard him say it on Fox News.

 

BTW, there is some serious wuestions about the legality of the al Sammoud missiles anyway, so they aren't necesarrily "completely legal". If what Iraq shot at Kuwait were the al Samoud and they went further than 93 mi or 150 Km as Franks' spokeman said then they are illegal so whether or not they are scuds is not all that important in the long run anyway.

 

Try a little harder. Everybody reported the suspected weapons plant (the thing that was sand colored, is what I assume you're taling about) and everybody reported the scud thing and everybody has retracted it.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

People reported that it was "some kind of chemical plant." Fox actually said it was made specifically for chemical WEAPONS. I remember this as it was during the period where I was watching over 12 hours of war coverage a day and flipping to whatever network had a live feed.

 

And even if the general's assistant said they were Scuds, embellishing on that and talking about how it justifies war makes you look especially silly when it finds out you're wrong.

[Guest Some Guy]

People reported that it was "some kind of chemical plant." Fox actually said it was made specifically for chemical WEAPONS. I remember this as it was during the period where I was watching over 12 hours of war coverage a day and flipping to whatever network had a live feed.

 

And even if the general's assistant said they were Scuds, embellishing on that and talking about how it justifies war makes you look especially silly when it finds out you're wrong.

OK, that may be true they probably said something like "troops found what is suspected to be a chemical weapons plant that was comoflaged (sp?) to blend in with the desert so it could not be detected by US spy satelites." Then the editorial guys ran with it.

 

And even if the general's assistant said they were Scuds, embellishing on that and talking about how it justifies war makes you look especially silly when it finds out you're wrong.

 

How were they embellishing anything? The spokeman for the guy running the fucking war said they were scuds, said they went too far, gave the exact distances, and said they were illegal. What would you do? Not report that? It seems to me that the only thing that was misreported was the type of missile and that was an accident. As far as I know they still went further than they were legally allowed to go and hence were some justification for the war. I fail to see what the probelm with this one is. You're splitting hairs.

[Guest NoCalMike]

I don't even mind actually that Fox News is conservative. I think it is great to have opposing views on various issues, however, Fox has got to be kidding themselves more than any of us when they claim to be the "No-Spin Zone" I mean how is that "openly biased" as you say? Sounds like they are saying that if you are conservative, that makes you automatically correct about everything and anyone who is not conservative is just trying to spin the truth.

 

I have said it before and will stick by that I feel the Media is more CORPORATE than anything else and ratings usually have little to do with the "quality" of programming and a lot of the times to do with whoever is shouting the loudest. I mean, hell, Jerry Springer was the highest rated talk show for quite some time, the first show to kick Oprah's ass in that timeslot, and I doubt anyone thinks Jerry Springer was the best talk show out there as far as quality went.

[Guest Some Guy]

"The No Spin Zone" is only O'Reilly's thing. He is relatively conservative but he goes after everybody who he sees as doing wrong, liberal and conservative a like.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

O'Reilly is a populist who wins arguements through pure volume. If more of his guests employed the Bullhorn Effect, he'd start feeling the heat more.

 

They were not illegal missiles. Fox implied this proved the U.N. inspection team was a failure, implying the very weapons they were sent to deal with were now being fired on our troops. You're probably right when you someone got carried away editorializing it. My guess is the anchor with their face in the camera.

 

They were being fired a distance determined illegal by the 1991 ceasefire agreement, but so what? You don't abide by ceasefire agreements or no-fly zones when you're in the middle of WAR. Yes, there are wartime agreements such as the near-universal agreement to not use landmines in war (an agreement the U.S. has repeatedly rejected, btw) but the ceasefire as things like the no-fly zone was a peacetime agreement. To assume they'd follow it in a war that was brought to them is stupid.

 

The Fox Anchor said, and I quote:

 

“Now, Iraq is not supposed to have Scuds because they have a range of 175-400 miles. The limit by the UN, of course, is like 95 miles. So, we already know they have something they're not supposed to have.”