Eason Jordan has unburdened himself with some guilt that he has been carrying around for over a decade, knowledge of atrocities committed against average Iraqis by the Saddam Hussein regime. We’re talking about murders, rapes, and tortures. He feels now it’s safe to reveal what he knows, given the regime is no more, and can inflict no more harm on people. He writes of unspeakable acts committed by Saddam’s regime, which he knew about and did not report, because it would have endangered CNN’s people and other sources in Iraq.
Folks, even if he needed to protect his people in Iraq, and there is a degree to which a company’s desire to do this is understandable, that does not explain the way CNN covered all of this. You had the president of the United States and his administration, almost daily for the past year, not only talking about weapons of mass destruction, but also talking about the atrocities and the evils committed against the population of this country. It seems to me that Mr. Jordan could have taken his lead anchors, such as Judy Woodruff, Aaron Brown and others aside and maybe without revealing specifics, say, “Look, be very careful here in doubting what is said about atrocities.” I don’t know that he didn’t do this, but it would be hard to conclude that he did based on CNN’s coverage. If you read what he wrote today and then you compare it to CNN’s coverage, there’s no connection!
