Great CNN article

[southsider2k5]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html?

 

pagewanted=print&position=topOver 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.

 

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.

 

 

So what is more important at CNN ratings or people?

[SI1020]

But Bush is a Nazi and Blair is a poodle for wanting to stop this.

[Rex Kickass]

The way Iraq treated everyone was terrible.

However, mistreatment of foreigners usually isn't a justification for war.

 

In states where access is restricted, this kind of hidden story isn't that uncommon sadly. Journalism can be dangerous.

 

In other news, I like this smiley. :finger

[baggio202]

what bothers me about CNN was back in november after being questioned by a rival network ( i cant remember if it came from MSNBC or foxnews) about being a conflict of interest and CNN being soft on iraq the head of foriegn affairs at CNN said words to the effect of : we would rather shut down our baghdad office and leave then to not be able to report freely what goes on there

 

not an exact quote but it captures the jist of what the man said...was it worth it to CNN to compromise their principles , to endanger the lives of others just to have an "in" over in iraq..

 

there is also a story going around that says that a CNN reporter was told by saddam's son qusay that they were going to kill some diplomats as soon as they returned to baghdad...nothing was reported and 2 of the men that the CNN reporter knew about were executed...this was on foxnews earlier today

 

i think this could really hurt CNN in the ratings alot more then if they just closed down their baghdad office and missed out on a few "tainted" stories