CNN Refuses To Report On Saddam’s Atrocities
By Brian Yates (04/13/03)
Possibly the only people unmoved by the sight of jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets and tearing down statues of Saddam Hussein last Wednesday were the good people of CNN. In an op-ed written for Friday’s New York Times, CNN chief news executive, Eason Jordan admitted covering up knowledge of the brutality and atrocities committed by Saddam’s government.
Jordan tells of having Baghdad station employees abducted, beaten, tortured, and killed. He speaks of aides of Uday Hussein having their teeth ripped out with pliers for the inexcusable act of upsetting his boss. But never once did Eason Jordan or anyone else at CNN ever report on these atrocities. These people should be ashamed of themselves. They have allowed the brutality of the Iraqi regime to continue on, all the while promoting their own anchors at home who all oppose the war effort. If this isn’t an example of a media bias, I don’t know what is. And not only is it an example of media bias, but it is a bias that allowed countless Iraqi civilians to be killed.
Jordan states that “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.” And who did you inform of these brutal acts? Nobody! Jordan rationalizes his appeasement of Saddam’s brutality by saying that it “could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.”
As noble as it is to wish to save these few lives, what about the many other Iraqis who don’t work for CNN? Especially since you just finished explaining that “working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection.” Folks, Eason Jordan and his cronies at CNN weren’t concerned with saving a few Iraqi employees lives; they were worried about being allowed to stay in Baghdad. They didn’t want to get kicked out. Jordan opens his sick diatribe with “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.” He was so “distressed” by what he was witnessing, but to report on any of these atrocities would simply have been unthinkable. Yeah. I suspect that whenever we find Saddam Hussein’s body, we’ll find little bits of Eason Jordan’s lips attached to his backside.
CNN is not the only media organization responsible for this either. Any organization who had a station or reporters in Iraq knew what was going on, and who reported it? All of these people, who have opposed this war, all the while knowing what was going on over there, share in the responsibility.
Jordan relates a conversation in 1995 that he had with Saddam’s son, Uday Hussein. Uday told him of his intent to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law and King Hussein of Jordan. But was this reported? Of course not! It might have jeopardized CNN’s presence in Baghdad. If you’re not going to bother to report the news accurately, why is it so important to even be there in the first place?
Folks, this is a sick story, and should completely disgrace everyone who is involved with this cover-up or with CNN period. Jordan stated, “I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside of 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.” Yes I’m sure we will hear these tales…if you bother to report them.
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