What CNN Hasn’t Told Us Before
There’s an article in this mornings New York Times by Eason Jordan who is the chief news executive for CNN. In this article he details the stories from Iraq that they “haven’t been able to report” lo these long years over concerns that their Baghdad staff, or those Iraqis who assisted them, would be put in danger. [The NYT requires a free registration to read their articles, and that bothers lots of folks, but this article is one you need to read.] It details people “disappearing”, tortured, killed by the secret police of the regime. Mr. Jordan had actual conversations with Uday Hussein, the son of the Butcher of Baghdad, who told him of murder plots in the works. He has seen torture and death, but “couldn’t” report on it. I do understand not being able to report these things for fear of getting someone killed, but why, then, has CNN been so amazingly negative about the war and ridding the world of Saddam, when they had personal knowledge of the atrocities going on inside Iraq? (I have my own ideas as to why…)
Here’s just a sample of what’s in this article (emphasis is mine):
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’m sure in the coming weeks and months we’ll hear of even worse things that have been going on inside Iraq. This was a brutal, savage, godless regime whose reign of terror is finally at an end. No thanks to the peaceniks, leftists, Democrats, French, Germans or Canadians, of course, who, through their desire for “diplomacy” and appeasement, would tacitly allow the torture to continue.
